Books

[wulfenlord]

Could've warned you about Shannara. It's Lotr with the numbers filed off and no worldbuilding and bad guys with piss poor motivation other than being douchebags. Brooks clearly idolizes Tolkien but can't write to save his life.

Allanon has some moments, but it's clear he is the world's OP/OC Not-Gandalf with purple lighting instead of burning pinecones, that could easily killed the BBEG himself if he wasn't a mysterious cuck that enjoys playing Deus ex Machina for shit-smeared farmboys he coaxes into adventure.

It's possible that his style matured over the years, but I couldn't stomach more than the first 3 trilogies.

What's your favorite character in the Dragonbone chair? I'm torn between Jiriki's elven sister that got tsundere for Simon before the 'deres were a thing, that burly viking lord Isgrminur shaving off his beloved beard to rescue the princess incognito, and the noble savage Tiamak from Not-India who decides to just take his second-best wooden bowl on his travels. The gypsy-rohirrim of Nabban are a bit annoying, and the inuit/trolls are a bit too exotic, but not fully unlikable either.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Now I'm on To Green Angel Tower Part 2.

Technically speaking, there are 4 books in Tad Williams "Memory, Sorrow, Thorn" (((trilogy.))) Book three was so long they split it into two books, and each "book" is still 800 fucking pages. So it's 1600 pages just for book 3. I believe the entire lord of the rings trilogy is around 1800 pages. So book 3 alone is near the same length as the entire lotr trilo-goy. Book 2 I believe was 800 pages and Dragonbone Chair was more in the 600 range IIRC.

This also includes Howard's entire Conan cycle several times over. Modern fantasy is just trash, and the author as needlessly autistic and wordy as fanfic writers writing 900+ chapters of crossover fanfic highschool AU nonsense.

[ebin namefag]

The green anal tower

[rabidtictac]

What's your favorite character in the Dragonbone chair? I'm torn between Jiriki's elven sister that got tsundere for Simon before the 'deres were a thing, that burly viking lord Isgrminur shaving off his beloved beard to rescue the princess incognito, and the noble savage Tiamak from Not-India who decides to just take his second-best wooden bowl on his travels. The gypsy-rohirrim of Nabban are a bit annoying, and the inuit/trolls are a bit too exotic, but not fully unlikable either.

Probs Binabik, the inuit midget who rides a doggo. His friendship with Simon feels very genuine and develops naturally over the course of so many WORDS WORDS WORDS and shared experiences. He's also not just a noble savage caricature. Similar to Tiamak, he's an outlier for his people and has a very unique worldview of his own. It really feels like Binabik could have been the main character, if not for the fact Tad Williams undoubtedly wanted a young person to be the touchstone for young readers.

Which, incidentally, is something I really hate about fantasy writing at times. Tad Williams does well enough with Simon, but characters like Shea (Shannara) and Rand (Wheel of Time) fuckin' suck. Part of what made Paul a great character in Dune is he was young but preternaturally intelligent and driven by forces not typical of young people. He came across as more of a unique and interesting person.

Modern fantasy is just trash, and the author as needlessly autistic and wordy as fanfic writers writing 900+ chapters of crossover fanfic highschool AU nonsense.

It's a problem of high fantasy. Too much babble for too little accomplished. Robert E. Howard's "The Scarlet Citadel" painted a vast tableau of armies battling, wizards plotting and heroes overcoming long odds... And it did so in a relatively small page count. No matter how much other fantasy stuff I read, I do always come back to Sword and Sorcery fantasy (and its inspired/influenced works, like grimdark) because of that brevity and depth. When you read a sword and sorcery short story, you really want to read it as slowly as possible (if it is well written) because the density relative to word count is so strong.

"Grimdark" is just sword and sorcery with higher stakes. A pretty worthless genre subcategory. But if you like Conan then you will probably enjoy Joe Abercrombie, for example.

[Kugelfisch]

The green anal tower

He can take about an hour on the tower of power!

[Rushy]

It's a problem of high fantasy. Too much babble for too little accomplished. Robert E. Howard's "The Scarlet Citadel" painted a vast tableau of armies battling, wizards plotting and heroes overcoming long odds... And it did so in a relatively small page count.

Lord of the Rings is the epitome of this. Whenever someone cracks wise about Tolkien taking three pages to describe a tree, you can tell they've never actually read it. It's an incredibly efficient book. It somehow seems to go by faster than the movies.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Or whenever someone cracks wise about Tolkien taking five pages for yet another song or poem.

[rabidtictac]

Or whenever someone cracks wise about Tolkien taking five pages for yet another song or poem.

Ima say this: that motherfucker Tolkien was a literal Beowulf scholar and shit. So if anybody has a right to put songs and poems into their ebin fantasy story, I'll give it to the guy who has memorized the Eddas.

I'm reading some David Gemmell stories now. Breddy gudd. He mostly writes about beefy slabs o' men killing barbarians and saving damsels. Lots about the horrors of war.

[wulfenlord]

Ah, I misremembered. Got Gemmell and Feist confused, since I read them both in my teens. Something oddly satisfying about hunky slaps o' beef rescuing damsels while Gemmell clearly writes onehanded how their oily skin flexes over their muscles, and getting a taste of their spoils. Even the virgin mages get in on the action, IIRC they use their wizard magic fueled by not getting pussy to be able to make astral projections that annihilate the onslaught of the barbarian armies. Peak DHI literature.

If the epic of Druss is to your liking, you'll love Moorcock's Hawkmoon cycle, since the character of Count Brass is pretty much a blueprint of that, and more likable than the Duke of Köln, who comes off as a whiny bitch next to the Lord of Not-Spain.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Köln is overrated. They have a nice cathedral, but that's all.