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Fantasy genre authors? (1 Viewer)
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Apes with Guns
Footballguy
New sample chapter for A Feast of Crows up at Georgerrmartin.com
http://www.georgerrmartin.com/chapter.html
http://www.georgerrmartin.com/chapter.html
Headbutts
Footballguy
Nice thread, sorry I missed it the first few times around!Anybody been through Donaldson's latest Convenant book, The Runes of the Earth? I caught the first two trilogies when they first came out, taking turns with my buddy Dave buying the hardcovers. Am thinking of picking up the start of this new set, but wondering if I should take the time to re-read the original two sets first. Anybody already been down this path?
Serenity Now
Footballguy
No...I could probably reread all 6 originals and this one before Martin's Feast for Crows is ever released though.
M
MacArtist
Guest
Just finished Game of Thrones. Loved it! Can't wait to read the next one. I'll start on it tonight.
Apes with Guns
Footballguy
Awesome! Who's your favorite character so far?
Drifter
Footballguy
That date has changed at least a dozen times. If you haven't heard it's done from George RR, don't expect anything.In regard to A Feast for Crows, here's the latest from Amazon.com:
Availability: This title will be released on July 26, 2005. You may order it now and we will ship it to you when it arrives from Amazon.com
(Crap.)
Mark Speener
Comfortably Numb
I never made it thru Lord Foul's Bane. I found the main character to be a whiny tool.Please tell me this Covenant stuff gets better. People keep making 10-minute speeches on the properties of dirt.
Yeah Lord Foul's Bane was a little slow. Illearth War was the best of the entire serties IMO.The 2nd book, The Illearth War, is way better than Lord Foul's Bane IMO. It does get better, I guarantee it**not a real guarantee.Please tell me this Covenant stuff gets better. People keep making 10-minute speeches on the properties of dirt.
Apes with Guns
Footballguy
I think Thomas Covenant has good reason to whine.
icecat4270
Footballguy
commisholio
Come out with your pants down!
Me too. I tried several times on the recommendation of my sister, but I never got though.BTW, THANKS to whomever recommended Robin Hobb upthread. I am reading the Farseer trilogy right now and finding it to be superb.I never made it thru Lord Foul's Bane. I found the main character to be a whiny tool.Please tell me this Covenant stuff gets better. People keep making 10-minute speeches on the properties of dirt.
CletiusMaximus
Footballguy
I just bought Strange/Norrell and expect to start reading it soon.what's the word?Hey, Viv. Have you read about Susanna Clarke's Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell yet?I'm just starting it, but Clarke has the literary voice of the period just before the Romantics down. It's looking to be a weird blend of literary pastiche and fantasy novel. Me rikey so far.
Gave these a second look, and was pretty impressed. There's a slew of Young
Adult work out there these days that rivals the best mainstream stuff. The H.P. books, this series, and all of Gaiman's YA stuff all take traditional children's story forms and plots and spin them in most unexpected ways. Stuff like this is so far advanced compared to Eddings and Feist and other cookie-cutter fantasy writers who work with children's story simplicity, but market it to the adult reader.
or 
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Pick
Footballguy
Lord Foul's Bane can't even pass my sleeper test. Late night after sex with the wife and I'm ready to snooze. Look over and see the book on my nightstand. A decent book will have me picking it up and reading at least a page or two if not driving the sleep from me altogether. Last night, I didn't even reach for it. It's like homework almost. 
However, it was good sex (as usual) so maybe that's what did it. 
I haven't given up on this book yet. I see some possibilities. 
However, it was good sex (as usual) so maybe that's what did it. I haven't given up on this book yet. I see some possibilities. Mark Speener
Comfortably Numb
How far are you?Me too. I tried several times on the recommendation of my sister, but I never got though.BTW, THANKS to whomever recommended Robin Hobb upthread. I am reading the Farseer trilogy right now and finding it to be superb.I never made it thru Lord Foul's Bane. I found the main character to be a whiny tool.Please tell me this Covenant stuff gets better. People keep making 10-minute speeches on the properties of dirt.
Pick
Footballguy
K, so in Lord Foul's Bane you've got some guys that use swords and such and then you have some guys that don't use swords but are master ninjas without weapons. And these guys fight side by side with their weapon-bearing friends. I don't get it. 
Why do the Bloodguard not use weapons but their buddies do?
Why do the Bloodguard not use weapons but their buddies do?
NCCommish
Footballguy
They believe that weapons can betray the user. Although they recognize the use others make of them, they have no desire to use them.Should add its been nearly twenty years since I read the books but that's how I remember it.K, so in Lord Foul's Bane you've got some guys that use swords and such and then you have some guys that don't use swords but are master ninjas without weapons. And these guys fight side by side with their weapon-bearing friends. I don't get it.
Why do the Bloodguard not use weapons but their buddies do?
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gman8343
What would Lemmy do?
That's correct, they feel that weapons are impure, they only trust themselves and their undying loyalty. The Bloodguard are also masters at hand to hand combat. They do some bad ### things, trust me.They believe that weapons can betray the user. Although they recognize the use others make of them, they have no desire to use them.Should add its been nearly twenty years since I read the books but that's how I remember it.K, so in Lord Foul's Bane you've got some guys that use swords and such and then you have some guys that don't use swords but are master ninjas without weapons. And these guys fight side by side with their weapon-bearing friends. I don't get it.
Why do the Bloodguard not use weapons but their buddies do?
NCCommish
Footballguy
TrueThat's correct, they feel that weapons are impure, they only trust themselves and their undying loyalty. The Bloodguard are also masters at hand to hand combat. They do some bad ### things, trust me.They believe that weapons can betray the user. Although they recognize the use others make of them, they have no desire to use them.Should add its been nearly twenty years since I read the books but that's how I remember it.K, so in Lord Foul's Bane you've got some guys that use swords and such and then you have some guys that don't use swords but are master ninjas without weapons. And these guys fight side by side with their weapon-bearing friends. I don't get it.
Why do the Bloodguard not use weapons but their buddies do?
Pick
Footballguy
I'm on the 3rd Covenant book (The Power that Preserves). I like a lot of stuff about these books but dialogue is way too tedious for my tastes. Sometimes, I can read the book for awhile but most of the time it'll put me to sleep after half a page. I like most of the characters except that they all have major self-esteem problems. I think I'm just too shallow for these deep books. I feel like I need to read some Conan stuff just to get the bad taste out.I saw that Chronicles of Narnia is coming out as a movie. Surprisingly, I've never read that stuff. Is it worth reading?
CletiusMaximus
Footballguy
I think the Narnia books are really children's or pre-teen books. Not sure how other people feel. Also, they are basically christian propaganda, which didn't bother me when I read them as a pre-teen, but may put off some people.
But I kid.Also, check some L. Ron Hubbard. But I kid aga... wait a min. double
Pick
Footballguy
OK, finished the last Covenant book in the first series (Power that Preserves?) and I was extremely impressed with the ending. And that's rare given that I usually need to see some serious blood and gore to stay interested. Very nice job pulling everything together and most importantly explaining why everyone is a ##### in the Land. Didn't plan to read any more of Donaldson after this book but I'm starting the second series.
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Maelstrom
Footballguy
Sci-Fi not fantasy, but I'm reading the WorldWar series by Harry Turtledove right now, and it is excellent. It's set in WWII and aliens attack Earth, causing Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt to all band together. Turtledove has been called the master of alternate history, and I would tend to agree from what I've read so far.And I am going to have to pick up the Martin book, since I keep hearing about how good it is - I've put it back at the bookstore about 5 times now. Next time, I'm just gonna go ahead and get it.
For all the Martin fans, here's an update of A Feast for Crows:No, I haven't finished writing everything I wanted to include in A FEAST FOR CROWS. I have wrapped up a whole bunch of characters and storylines since the last update in January, but "a whole bunch" does not equate to "all." And I was facing another problem as well: the sheer size of the book. All of the books in this series have been big, mind you. A GAME OF THRONES weighed in at 1088 pages in manuscript, not counting the appendices. A CLASH OF KINGS was even longer at 1184 pages, not counting the appendices. And A STORM OF SWORDS measured a gargantuan 1521 pages in manuscript, not counting the (etc). Any publisher will tell you that a book as big as A STORM OF SWORDS is a production nightmare, and STORM did indeed cause problems for many of my publishers around the world. In some languages it was divided into two, three, or even four volumes. Bantam published STORM in a single volume in the United States, but not without difficulty. Pretty much everyone agreed that it would be a really good thing if the fourth volume in the series came in somewhat shorter than STORM, so I set out with the idea of delivering a FEAST closer in length to A CLASH OF KINGS. Alas for good intentions. In hindsight, I should have known better. The story makes its own demands, as Tolkien once said, and my story kept demanding to get bigger and more complicated. I passed A CLASH OF KINGS last year, and still had plenty more to write. By January, I had more than 1300 pages, and still had storylines unfinished. About three weeks ago I hit 1527 pages of final draft, surpassing A STORM OF SWORDS... but I also had another hundred or so pages of roughs and incomplete chapters, as well as other chapters sketched out but entirely unwritten. That was when I realized that the light I'd seen at the end of the tunnel was actually the headlight of an onrushing locomotive. And that's why my publishers and I, after much discussion and weighing of alternatives, have decided to split the narrative into two books (printing in microtype on onion skin paper and giving each reader a magnifying glass was not considered feasible, and I was reluctant to make the sort of deep cuts that would have been necessary to get the book down to a more publishable length, which I felt would have compromised the story). The first plan was simply to lop the text in half. In that scenario, I would finish the last few chapters in as short a length (and time) as possible. That would have produced a story of maybe 1650 to 1700 pages in manuscript, which we would simply have broken into two chunks of roughly equal length and published as A FEAST FOR CROWS, Part One and A FEAST FOR CROWS, Part Two. We decided not to do that. It was my feeling -- and I pushed hard for this, so if you don't like the solution, blame me, not my publishers -- that we were better off telling all the story for half the characters, rather than half the story for all the characters. Cutting the novel in half would have produced two half-novels; our approach will produce two novels taking place simultaneously, but set hundreds or even thousands of miles apart, and involving different casts of characters (with some overlap). The division has been done, and it think it works quite well. The upshot is, A FEAST FOR CROWS is now moving into production. It is still a long book, but not too long; about the same size as A GAME OF THRONES. The focus in FEAST will be on Westeros, King's Landing, the riverlands, Dorne, and the Iron Islands. More than that I won't say. Meanwhile, all the characters and stories removed from FEAST are moving right into A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, which will focus on events in the east and north. All the chapters I have not yet finished and/or begun are moving into DANCE. I think this is very good, if truth be told, since it will give me the room to complete those arcs as I had originally intended, rather than trying to tie them up quickly in a chapter or two so I could deliver the massively late Big FEAST. So there it is. I know some of you may be disappointed, especially when you buy A FEAST FOR CROWS and discover that your favorite character does not appear, but given the realities I think this was the best solution... and the more I look at it, the more convinced I am that these two parallel novels, when taken together, will actually tell the story better than one big book. And if there are those who don't agree, and still want their Big FEAST with all the trimmings set out on one huge table... well, there's an easy fix. Get both books, razor the pages out with an Exacto knife, interleave the chapters as you think best, and bring the towering stack of text that results to your favorite bookbinder... and presto, chango the Big FEAST will live again. As for me, I am getting back to work. There's good news on that front too -- A DANCE WITH DRAGONS is half-done!!! (And before anyone asks, yes indeed, this development means that Parris was right all along. It will now probably require seven books to complete the story). —George R.R. Martin, May 29, 2005 So two books instead of one monstrous one. I think I'd prefer the one but we'll see when it comes out.
Pick
Footballguy
Finished the second Covenant series. The picture on the front of the last book is misleading. Great characters and even the parts I didn't like didn't last very long. The writing seems to move along well and not get bogged down anywhere. Unpredictable writing is good writing.Mixed feeling as I couldn't read half a page sometimes while at other times I'd read for hours.