OT-Black Company

[HoneyBadger]

Tolkien's greatness-and yes, I do appreciate his work a lot, although I think it has a lot of major faults as well-was the completeness of his world, and his willing and constant refinement and expansion on a central theme.

He also had the twin joys of a relatively new genre to work with, and make inroads into, and some real masters of that genre (Dunsany, etc) to be inspired by.

[HoneyBadger]

RenoJustin: I like GRRM, but honestly, he's not the best writer that ever came down the pike. His strength is in writing fantasy for adults, and that's good, but he's still writing the same tired old fantasy as everybody else. It's got some innovation, but it's got a lot of flaws too, and they're big, obvious flaws.

[Xietor]

GRRM and Jordan both are awesome storytellers. The 1st 3 books of Jordan's were among the best ever. As were GRRM.

But you must be judged on the work in toto, not on bits and pieces. And the end is considered a very important part of most stories!

[HoneyBadger]

Jordan's books weren't even worth reading to the end. I made it to around book 8 on the strength of the original setting, but it got so wordy and confusing-even after I shelled out 40$ for the world-book-and frankly, annoying, that I gave up on it completely.

[MaxWilson]

RE Gene Wolf: I keep meaning to read him. Authors that I respect have praised him highly (Steven Brust comes to mind) and I'm curious to see what they're so in awe of.

RE GRRM: I would have enjoyed ASoIaF more if it weren't so perverted. I read an interview where GRRM commented that he liked Tyrion best because he empathizes with the "horny little $#@&^" and this made me look pretty hard at the books. I started to feel like all the incest (what, 5 or 6 counts?) and other unpleasantness was there to titillate and not to horrify, and that turned me off the books.

-Max

[Edi]

MaxWilson said:
RE Gene Wolf: I keep meaning to read him. Authors that I respect have praised him highly (Steven Brust comes to mind) and I'm curious to see what they're so in awe of.

RE GRRM: I would have enjoyed ASoIaF more if it weren't so perverted. I read an interview where GRRM commented that he liked Tyrion best because he empathizes with the "horny little $#@&^" and this made me look pretty hard at the books. I started to feel like all the incest (what, 5 or 6 counts?) and other unpleasantness was there to titillate and not to horrify, and that turned me off the books.

-Max

Quoted for truth. Never mind the way the Daenerys marriage scene is described, which amounts to basically a rather graphic description of pedophilia. *shudder*

No, I won't be touching his books too much, especially given how the plot went to crap in Storm of Swords when he killed off too many characters.

[djo]

It all depends on your tastes and sensibilities, of course, but Gene Wolfe is a serious writer is a way than none of the others mentioned so far are. Many of the other mentioned works have their merits. GRRM writes well, although I personally couldn't finish "Game of Thrones". Brust and Cook write fine entertainment. Tolkien sired the modern fantasy genre.

But Wolfe is the one you want, after Tolkien, if you want to discuss lasting value. They ain't gonna award a Nobel for science fiction or fantasy, not anytime soon, but if they wanted to, with Borges dead, it'd go to Wolfe. Many of his books are literary, no question. Some of them leave you with the impression that you weren't smart enough to read them. And that's not a path to popularity.

He writes on big themes, in original worlds, with incredible characters. He doesn't slow down for you...he writes the story, and it's your job to read it, whether he's using words that have been obsolete for several centuries, or whether his narrator is unreliable due to personality or injury, or whether he just hasn't told you the things the narrator knows, and expects you to have figured out on your own. But everything comes together, and the sum is far greater than the parts.

The aforementioned "Wizard Knight" duology is a good start. They are as straightforward as Wolfe gets, and you see the way he handles worlds and characters (and words, for that matter). He's taken the classic trope of the boy in our world falling into a fantasy world and coming of age as a hero and twisted it inside out a few times until it's become a study in the growing maturity of a hero. It's a world based on a well-known Earthly mythology, for cryin' out loud, and yet the whole thing comes off fresh and original.

I have to follow up on something Endoperez said upthread...

Endoperez said:At times, it's more like horror, except it made me uncomfortable unlike any horror book I've read. Not afraid, but uncomfortable - I didn't know if I wanted to read what would happen, because if it went wrong, it would go bad.

That's a familiar feeling. Wolfe can make you feel, and not the way you expected. There's a point in his "Book of the Short Sun" where the viewpoint character becomes scary, not because he's evil, but because he is good. It was like reading the life of a saint. I felt uncomfortable not knowing if I wanted things to go right.

Thus endeth my rant...

[djo]

And here's a link to a whimsical little essay on "Reading Gene Wolfe" by Neil Gaiman, himself no mean fantasist:

http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/2007/gwng0704.htm

[Wrana]

Well, this surely goes beyond the initial topic, but nevertheless:

Xietor:
Jordan and martin were both very strong starters, but neither was the equal of Tolkien. Tolkien told a masterful story that actually had an ending. Yes he had sub plots, but they never distracted him from the main theme and he tied them all up nicely and concluded the series.

Agreed with you and HoneyBadger that definite ending surely improves the writers' work. Tolkien, of course, was in a position better than that of modern commercial writers. Actually, what an approach such as theirs can bring is seen in Cristopher Tolkien's "sequels". And as Robert Asprin has written to his fans: "It's quite difficult to remain funny continuously for six books". And in less light-hearted genre it's possibly more difficult still. However, the recipe is simple: not to write soap operas. There ARE even modern writers who upkeep such a principle. I had already named some. And Martin & Jordan... they possibly don't even see the problem. Glen Cook surely does - and he makes memorable endings. That would be enough to say that those two aren't even close to him in work quality. However, I disagree about "very strong starters" - very strong relative to what? And what their "strength" consists of? They are quite primitive - and in Martin's case main plot is borrowed (& he doesn't do justice to his material, from my point of view)...

HoneyBadger :
The first book of SoIaF was so revolutionary, so full of hope and promise, that it literally took my breath away

What did you see as "revolutionary"? Remember that this was written after Dixon's Saint Dragon, for Cthulhu's sake! "Grub-work" I surely see, but greatness?! And as for "ignoring publishers"... It takes character, man!

Renojustin :
George RR Martin owns us all.

Please speak for yourself. I, for myself, is completely nonplussed.

HoneyBadger :
I like GRRM, but honestly, he's not the best writer that ever came down the pike. His strength is in writing fantasy for adults, and that's good

And you speak thusly after Tanith Lee??? And what I've heard said about his "innovation" is using real world history as framework for his story. As I've said, I prefer actual chronicles. And in any case, Turtledove does this so much better! Though even for Turtledove, who IS a real historician such method HAS caused much laziness in making his own material of late... Which shows what it does for a writer. Though I'm not sorry for Martin in this case.