Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book Discussion/Appreciation Anyone..??

[Krichton]

"Lord of Chaos" and "The Eye of the World" are probably my favorites.

While 7-10 are slower, I think it works in the sense of it seemingly being the eye of a hurricane. You've survived the first half, now you get to prepare for the worst. I still enjoyed it. Not everything has to be a battle...




Wheel of Time has been far better than Sword of Truth. That the latter has so few characters in comparison gives an edge in terms of character development. Hold the two to main characters only, I'd swing the edge over to Wheel of Time. But you can't honestly sit there and tell me that you think Jahar Narishma is sufficiently developed.

Cmon, it's not even a contest.

Bold = Edge

Rand: Richard
Min/Elayne/Egwene: Kahlan
Avienda: Nicci
Perrin: Cara
Nynaeve: Addie
Moraine: Verna
Siuan: Ann
Mat: Zedd
Forsaken: Darken Rahl/Jagang

[Betelgeuze]

As for his "consistency" I don't think you can compare two writers who have written 11 books each to someone who's only written 4 and dragging his feet to his 5th one. Many fans are already complaining about his fourth book. Jordan and Goodkind were pretty consistent thru 4 books as well.

You've got a point here Martin ASOIF only has for books so maybe i should wait comparing concistancy in quality. The fourth book was dissapointing because it oly contained half of the characters, i don't know if this was a dicision by Martin or the editor/publisher but it was a bad one.

The majority of his characters are dull and not even likeable so what difference does their moral ambiguity really mean when Martin never establishes a reason why we should even care about them?

I don't consider the characters in ASOIF to be dull. I'd say that most of them are a lot more interesting then for instance Richard and Kahlen who seem to be lacking any character flaws and are bordering on being Mary Sue's. And WOT simply has to many characters, which leads to a lack of character development in Rand, Matt and Perrin.

I do like SOT and WOT, having a preference for SOT. But i personally prefer more complex characters who have some flaws in their personallity over more complex and well described magic systems. George R.R. Martin's ASOIF may not be the best example, but it is better in this area then WOT and SOT.

I think two of the best examples of character based stories are Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy and the Cold Fire trilogy by C.S. Friedman.

A series that has imo the best combination of story telling, world building and interesting characters is the Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop.

[Iffy]

Anne Bishop made me stay up till 1:30 to finish the novel

[Dallista]

Wow, I get some sleep, go to work, and come home to find three new pages in this thread!

Cmon, it's not even a contest.

Bold = Edge

Rand: Richard
Min/Elayne/Egwene: Kahlan

See, that's what worries me. I think I'm going to really miss Richard and Kahlan. And I'm not sure how interesting this whole "world building" thing Jordan did is to me. I guess there's only one way to find out, though.

[Care]

Cmon, it's not even a contest.

Bold = Edge

Rand: Richard
Min/Elayne/Egwene: Kahlan
Avienda: Nicci
Perrin: Cara
Nynaeve: Addie
Moraine: Verna
Siuan: Ann
Mat: Zedd
Forsaken: Darken Rahl/Jagang

All of this is obviously a matter of opinion. I don't agree with most of that at all.

I agree about what you said about ASoIaF though. It took me months to get through the first book and I didn't have any interest in starting the second. I didn't care about the characters at all and when a main character died, I felt nothing.

[Oranos]

Cmon, it's not even a contest.

In your opinion, perhaps. Based upon my reading thus far:

Rand : Richard
Min/Elayne/Egwene : Kahlan
Avienda : Nicci - Don't think I've got around to the latter yet.
Perrin : Cara - Same as above. Based on how much I hate Perrin though, I'd probably be inclined to give this Cara the vote.
Nynaeve : Addie
Moraine : Verna
Siuan : Ann - Don't think I've gotten around to Ann.
Mat : Zedd
Forsaken : Darken Rahl/Jagang - Don't know who Jagang is... Just between Rahl and the Forsaken. To be fair, some of the Chosen haven't been well developed, so it really depends which one we're talking about.

As for ASOIAF, I forced myself to finish the first book. I haven't read more since. Not my cup of tea. I didn't think it was anywhere near as good as I'd heard, so perhaps that tainted some of my enjoyment of it.

[Oranos]

All of this is obviously a matter of opinion. I don't agree with most of that at all.

I agree about what you said about ASoIaF though. It took me months to get through the first book and I didn't have any interest in starting the second. I didn't care about the characters at all and when a main character died, I felt nothing.

Are you sure we're not like...related? Our opinions frequently appear to be eerily similar.

[Care]

Are you sure we're not like...related? Our opinions frequently appear to be eerily similar.

ROFL. Yes, I am beginning to notice a pattern. Maybe we're like heroes of the horn and knew each other in previous lives.

[Mimzy]

I just remembered that I really want to read Children of Men...I really loved the movie...

[Krichton]

Wow, I get some sleep, go to work, and come home to find three new pages in this thread!

See, that's what worries me. I think I'm going to really miss Richard and Kahlan. And I'm not sure how interesting this whole "world building" thing Jordan did is to me. I guess there's only one way to find out, though.

Considering the lack of really good epic romances in the scifi/fantasy genre you should probably get used to it. I only started reading books since Dec and from the 54 I've gone thru and finished I've noticed that the writing of romance at least within this genre is not very strong. Maybe it's just because I haven't read enough but I haven't really found anything to indicate otherwise.

[AvatarIII]

Considering the lack of really good epic romances in the scifi/fantasy genre you should probably get used to it. I only started reading books since Dec and from the 54 I've gone thru and finished I've noticed that the writing of romance at least within this genre is not very strong. Maybe it's just because I haven't read enough but I haven't really found anything to indicate otherwise.

are you saying you have gone from not reading at all to reading 54 books in 4 months? whoa! either you are a fast reader, have a lot of spare time, or just read short books lol i can only muster to reading a 400 page book every 2 weeks or so!

anyway, this thread is seriously lacking in SF recently, there's way too much YA and Fantasy stuff going on in here!

[Spimman]

Jumping in and haven't read the whole thread. That being said...

My Favorite Fantasy Series of all time is "The Legend of Drizz't" series by R.A. Salvatore.

Currently reading "The Circle Trilogy" by Tedd Dekker (3 Books - Black, Red & White)

[Care]

Jumping in and haven't read the whole thread. That being said...

My Favorite Fantasy Series of all time is "The Legend of Drizz't" series by R.A. Salvatore.

I liked the first Dark Elf series and the second trilogy the Icewind Dale series. Some of the later books got boring to me though. I haven't read any in about 12 years though and I know there have been new ones since. I have thought about maybe getting some of them.

[Mimzy]

I really want to finish reading the rest of Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet...I read the first two and I bought the last two last summer, but I haven't gotten around to reading them yet

I wholeheartedly love Charles Wallace

[Krichton]

are you saying you have gone from not reading at all to reading 54 books in 4 months? whoa! either you are a fast reader, have a lot of spare time, or just read short books lol i can only muster to reading a 400 page book every 2 weeks or so!

anyway, this thread is seriously lacking in SF recently, there's way too much YA and Fantasy stuff going on in here!

I read 2 books about 15 years ago and although I liked them I had absolutely no desire to read again. I tried to read fellowship of the ring severals ago and couldn't get past the 7th page of the prologue before dozing off. After that I knew for a fact there was no way I could ever read another novel again. Go figure. Ever since I started reading the Sword of Truth I've been hooked since. I still don't read very fast and I often will get distracted but I guess coming from where I started it isn't all that bad.