Most Overrated Fantasy Writer - nominations!!

[InnerBrat]

Never read Goodkind, or really even heard of him. What does he do that's so terrible?

For starters, characters that he promotes as particularly clever people nonetheless do stupid things over and over and over.

Women can be broken and tamed by rape.

Now, the Good Guys don't do this - but it's still there.

[Peregrin Toker]

Women can be broken and tamed by rape.

Now, the Good Guys don't do this - but it's still there.

Hmmm... Goodkind is INDEED "John Norman Jr."

(And among fantasy authors, that is probably the worst insult imaginable)

[InnerBrat]

Thing is, I like the books. I guess that depsite having really bad characters and poorly contructed plots, his writing just isn't that bad...

*shrugs*

I don't know why I like such obviously bad writing. I guess it's the same reason people watch Soap Operas.

[Peregrin Toker]

Thing is, I like the books. I guess that depsite having really bad characters and poorly contructed plots, his writing just isn't that bad...

*shrugs*

I don't know why I like such obviously bad writing. I guess it's the same reason people watch Soap Operas.

It's so bad, it's good!

[Singular Quartet]

Eddings writes entertaining stories with funny characters, but the Elenium and Tamuli trilogies are just a rehash of Belgariad and Malloreon, and The Redemption of Althalus is again the same story with the same characters who've had a cosmetic makeover. His works are, compared to many other authors (e.g. J.V. Jones, Stephen Donaldson, Raymond E. Feist), nothing spectacular, so Eddings does deserve a nomination. Eddings's best book by far is the non-fiction title The Losers. It wipes the floor with the rest of his works combined.

Edi

ACtually, I personally liked Donaldson's work (assuming we're talking about Stephen R., here) He can't write Sci-Fi for beans, but he did the Thomas Covanent Series rather well. As I recallm, an English teacher couldn't get through them because she hated Covenant so damn much.

Um, maybe you misunderstood? I've read most of Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series (currently reading The One Tree), and I mention his name there as someone whose works are good, original and worth reading. Maybe it's the wording, it can be a little confusing. Just thought I'd clear this up...

Edi

It seemed to me more like you were saying that such and such crappy author was comparable to these authors to me... maybe I'm just going insane, who knows...

[Edi]

Not crappy, I like Eddings' work, but he is often praised as a genius, despite there being better authors out there, and they're not even difficult to find. I've liked nearly every Eddings book I've read, so I'm definitely not saying he's crappy. I just happen to think the ones I listed are better. Eddings is solid, but not quite as stellar as he is made out to be.

Edi

[Dark Hellion]

Innerbrat, your from britain i am guessing.
Let me rephrase my statement, most of us dumb americans can't get through shakespeare. I personally enjoy shakespeare, his comedies are hilarious and Caesar and Macbeth are among my favorite plays. However, most americans loath him, but at the same time acknowlage his writing talent. I think you are overlooking the rather obvious tie to islam and christianity and the ideas of the prophet making the prophesy come true, not the other way aroung. I enjoy Herbert, but you are right, he writes fantasy style Sci-Fi, unexplained tech that might as well be magic, and mystical powers out the wazoo.

[Baron Mordo]

Robert Jordan. The man practically copied Lord of The Rings for his first Wheel of Time book. I can picture it now.

(flipping pages)
"Hmmm, this is good. I like this."
(writing on notepad)
"Oh yeah. If I just make Aragorn a samurai, Gandalf a woman, and the hobbits into humans, nobody'll notice. I'd better add some girls just to balance it out, though."

[Peregrin Toker]

Hmm.... how many options can you have on a poll?? I'm afraid I cannot include all the nominees in the final poll. (although an "other" option would compensate for that!)

[Rubberanvil]

Iirc Katharine Kerr have expressed homophobic leanings in her Deverry series, but it have been 8 years since I last read one of those books to be sure.

[Crown]

Janny Wurts she usually writes soo damn well with interesting characters and description of magic. Her plots are always fascinating, but she tends to clog up the book with there always being one character having an internal struggle with a choice that we all know they have to eventually make. When you read 350 pages of that, it tends to sour your appreciation of the overall story.

Raymond E Feist his later work leaves a little to be desired for, however he constantly brings out gems, so I love his work, have every book, but sometimes it's just a little too rushed.

Tolkien not over-rated per se, it's more of a case that the further removed a generation is from his time, the shorter the attention span of that generation. Okay an Ent is like a living Tree, I get it! Can we move on from the three page descriptions please?

Well that was my reaction the first time I read LOTR (yes that's right I said first), subsequent readings only make it more enjoyable. So I don't think that Tolkien is over-rated, just less understood today.

[Peregrin Toker]

Well that was my reaction the first time I read LOTR (yes that's right I said first), subsequent readings only make it more enjoyable. So I don't think that Tolkien is over-rated, just less understood today.

If he is credited with inventing the fantasy genre when it in fact was created by Robert E. Howard, he IS overrated.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

If he is credited with inventing the fantasy genre when it in fact was created by Robert E. Howard, he IS overrated.

Tolkien started writing before Howard, but was not published until afterwards.

[Edi]

If he is credited with inventing the fantasy genre when it in fact was created by Robert E. Howard, he IS overrated.

I personally like both their works, but actually, neither one of them can be credited with that. Tolkien drew on a whole lot of very old stuff (as in, hundreds of years old). Fantasy stories as a genre are really old, where did you think all those fairy tales came from? All they did was draw on an old tradition, like many other authors, neither one 'created' the fantasy genre. Howard is a big name in America, but in Europe he is almost completely unknown. Sure, people recognize the name Conan the Barbarian, but not all that many have read much of Howard's works. I didn't get around to it until about a year or two ago, when most of his work was republished as a whole.

Tolkien and Howard's writing styles are very different too, and reflect the sources they have drawn from. Tolkien used the northern legends, Edda, Song of Roland, Beowulf, the Kalevala and the Celtic legends for the most part, whereas Howard's work definitely shows a greater influence from Greek mythology, Egypt, Arabian Nights and the Gilgamesh epic. Of course, they have some overlap, but that's where I reckon the difference could come from.

It shows in the way the their stories feel, Tolkien's are more like traditional fairy tales, which, after all, are mostly based on north-central European tradition. Howard's work, on the otehr hand, has more of an Arabian Nights feel to it, the mystery and exotic touch of the East and South. And fantasy as we know it today is a whole lot more carbon copied from Tolkien with the Greek mythology tagged on top, than from Howard. Tolkien's influence on the rise of the fantasy genre has been immeasurably greater than Howard's in many ways, though there has been something of an amalgamation of both their styles in later works.

But has anyone here read any of the works of A. Merritt? Now there was a literary genius and pioneer if ever we've seen one. Howard's style is almost a copy of his, and though his work dates from the first two decades of the 20th century, it's still readable and still almost current though a bit archaic sounding in this day. The Ship of Ishtar, The Moon Pool, and The Dwellers in the Mirage, for example, are all excellent books. So is one other whose name I forget, which is most definitely a science fiction/fantasy mix. Merritt was one of the first forerunners of modern science fiction, and hugely influential on that genre, even more so than he was on fantasy.

Edi

[Peregrin Toker]

If he is credited with inventing the fantasy genre when it in fact was created by Robert E. Howard, he IS overrated.

Tolkien started writing before Howard, but was not published until afterwards.

Hmm... but I couldn't know that. However, I don't think Howard had any knowledge of Tolkien as he wrote his tales.

[The Drunkard Kid]

In defense of Jordan, the first four books of the Wheel of Time were fairly good (even taking into account that the first book is *very* similar to LOTR, as someone else already mentioned), though the Aiel tend to stretch credibility a bit. Great desert fighters are a tried and true concept (ie: the Fremen from Dune), but extremly caucasion (after wandering the most broiling desert in their world for 3000 years), desert ninjas with weapons that depend heavily on wood and who wear dark clothes is a wee bit too implausible for the flavor of the series...

Afterwards, the books still have a few good portions, but Jordan focuses waaaay too much on each and *every* insignificant detail. Thanks Bob, but I think I can enjoy this scene without knowing that Egwene's got a loose thread on her shawl, specifically in the green portion. Unless that thread is about to leap out and strangle her, then I can live without reading about it. If it *is* about to cause her death, then you've just became my favorite author ever, as long as you rename the entire series "The Adventures Of The Most Noble And Awesome Thready McThread."

My major, major, MAJOR complaint re: Robort Jordan, is that he's almost incapable of creating a female character that isn't a whiny, hypocritical, self-absorbed Feminazi. There are a few characters that are *usually* exceptions to the rule (Min, Birgitte, and tenatively Aviendha, for example). Crap, I'm wondering why male soldiers and generals around the world wet themselves when they see a *happy* female channeler, wheras female soldiers can laugh in Aviendha's face when she's pissed at them. Geez, if it wasn't for the picture at the back of the books, I'd think he was some sort of psychotic man-hater publishing under a pseudonym. As it is, I'm considering alerting the authorities about the intense pummeling that his wife must give him on an hourly basis...

[HemlockGrey]

Great desert fighters are a tried and true concept (ie: the Fremen from Dune), but extremly caucasion (after wandering the most broiling desert in their world for 3000 years), desert ninjas with weapons that depend heavily on wood and who wear dark clothes is a wee bit too implausible for the flavor of the series...

Don't even get me started. How the fuck are 100,000 desert warrior with no experience or knowledge of siege warfare supposed to sack cities and pose a threat to one of the most heavily fortified cities in the world? They have shortspears, not longspears or pikes, so how is it they avoid getting slaughtered by cavalry? Or crossbows, for that matter? They don't have any cavalry, missle weapons, artillery, or armor!

The only time we've seen cavalry engage them, the commander, who, I might add, is an idiot, much like the other 'great military minds' of the series, has his troops attack the Aiel in one-on-one engagements, instead of forming up his troops for a charge, and, you know, actually using the horse to his benefit.

[The Drunkard Kid]

Technically, each of the Aiel are also archers. Which makes no sense, considering that they repeatedly talk about how rare wood is in the Waste. There's a *reason* why desert folk generally have metal weaponry...

Jordan also seems to have based this on the Aiel being uber-ninja, but he seemed to have forgot that ninja are basically assassination and information squads, with some bodyguard duties, in most of the stories, not front line infantry...

[Sriad]

Why the hell does everyone base their arguement on whether they can read Tolkien or not? The average person finds Shakespeare dull and hard to read, yet he's probably one of the greatest English language authors ever.

If ease of reading is all that matter, Terry Brook out to be king of fantasy for his repetitive, ripoff riddled, and flat out wanna-be Shannara series.

I can only speak for myself, but I think Shakespeare is pretty easy going. I think a lot of the anti-Tolkein sentament is a reaction to the people who claim he's the God-Emperor of Fantasy.

Which he isn't. Merely very good.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Don't even get me started. How the fuck are 100,000 desert warrior with no experience or knowledge of siege warfare supposed to sack cities and pose a threat to one of the most heavily fortified cities in the world? They have shortspears, not longspears or pikes, so how is it they avoid getting slaughtered by cavalry? Or crossbows, for that matter? They don't have any cavalry, missle weapons, artillery, or armor!

The only time we've seen cavalry engage them, the commander, who, I might add, is an idiot, much like the other 'great military minds' of the series, has his troops attack the Aiel in one-on-one engagements, instead of forming up his troops for a charge, and, you know, actually using the horse to his benefit.

You mean those uber Wheel of Time numbers aren't backed up by any knowledge of military tactics? *snickers* Ooh! One moment...

[Alex Moon]

Don't even get me started. How the fuck are 100,000 desert warrior with no experience or knowledge of siege warfare supposed to sack cities and pose a threat to one of the most heavily fortified cities in the world? They have shortspears, not longspears or pikes, so how is it they avoid getting slaughtered by cavalry? Or crossbows, for that matter? They don't have any cavalry, missle weapons, artillery, or armor!

The only time we've seen cavalry engage them, the commander, who, I might add, is an idiot, much like the other 'great military minds' of the series, has his troops attack the Aiel in one-on-one engagements, instead of forming up his troops for a charge, and, you know, actually using the horse to his benefit.

You mean those uber Wheel of Time numbers aren't backed up by any knowledge of military tactics? *snickers* Ooh! One moment...

For the record, the Uber numbers seem to be a recent event in WoT, at least according to Perrin. During Path of Daggers IIRC, he remarks that his band of 2000 would have been seen as a major army a few years before. Considering that the White Tower has incentive to keep the status quo, most commanders would be limited in experience to raids, hunting bandits, things like that. I'm guessing that the Aiel's sucess in the war was in large part due to the fact that they're numbers were enough to beat down the opposition, combined with the fact that the fuckers are fast.

There are a few good captains in the book. Gareth Byrnn, Faile's father, Mat Cauthon, etc. And campaigns like the one for Ebou Dar show that they can fight.

[Peregrin Toker]

Thank you for your nominations. I don't need any more nominations for the poll, which I'll make right now.

[The Drunkard Kid]

For the record, the Uber numbers seem to be a recent event in WoT, at least according to Perrin. During Path of Daggers IIRC, he remarks that his band of 2000 would have been seen as a major army a few years before. Considering that the White Tower has incentive to keep the status quo, most commanders would be limited in experience to raids, hunting bandits, things like that. I'm guessing that the Aiel's sucess in the war was in large part due to the fact that they're numbers were enough to beat down the opposition, combined with the fact that the fuckers are fast.

There are a few good captains in the book. Gareth Byrnn, Faile's father, Mat Cauthon, etc. And campaigns like the one for Ebou Dar show that they can fight.

Not to mention that, of all the generals, only Rand (or rather, Lews Therin), and the Forsaken have any experience actually *leading* armies of those sizes. Heck, Lews Therin apparently commanded armies several times the size of the largest that Rand has ever been able to assemble, all at far higher tech and magic levels, on a regular basis before he sealed away the Dark One the last time around...

[Ghost Rider]

Poll up

Time to locky nomination topic.