Up-and-Coming Fantasy Authors

Personally, I am on pins and needles waiting for Patrick Rothfuss's next book to come out. His was the best I have read in a long time.

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Liosse de Velishaf said:

Could you elaborate? What did you like about it?
Personally, I was not terribly impressed with Rothfuss. I've had similar experience with Brandon Sanderson, who showed so much potential with Elantris, but then followed it up with Mistborn and Warbreaker, which I consider readable at best. It's put me off starting The Gathering Storm, as that's a much larger time investment. I think Jay Lake has done a slightly better job of it. Not perfect, but I think he's shaping up well.

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First off, you're now my newest friend for having that opinion of Sanderson. At the other forum I frequent, they're nothing but Sanderson love and I don't get it.


Second, I agree with Canotila in that I really enjoyed Rothfuss:

- He turned enough of the tropes around enough that it was a bit of a breath of fresh air.
- I liked the fact that it was the hero telling his own story and the structure of the book never got in the way, for me
- I can't remember what I read before NotW, but Rothfuss' prose was so wonderful to me. It's entirely possible that I had just read a stinker or someone who just tells a nice story, like Sanderson or Butcher, and that's why Rothfuss stuck out so much for me.
- I'll admit that the genius kid thing is a bit overdone at times, but Kvothe's cocky attitude about it made it hilarious, for me. Kvothe's character in general was spot on, to me.



Other up-and-comers imo:

- Tom Lloyd(books = stormcaller, twilight reign, and the grave thief)
----I have only read Stormcaller, thus far, and I know most people I've talked to have hated it after continuing on to Twilight Reign, I think that Lloyd has some serious potential for his 5 book series. The writing wasn't spectacular, but his world-building shows great glimmers. I have a feeling that if his Twilight Reign saga is a flop the whole way through, I can forget about him, but if I can notice an improvement in the writing, he could be another one of those middling others that you just like to read (which isn't a bad thing to hope for, all things considered)

- Scott Lynch(books = Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies, more forthcoming)
----All I have to say about Scott Lynch is that he writes an engaging story with the protagonist's attitude coming through the pages to me, which I like. He also sets the stage, using mysterious objects and buildings in his world, for a truly interesting story, should the plots of his books begin expanding(or should I say growing in scope?).

I also want to keep my eye on Kearney and Keck, but I haven't gotten a chance to grab their books, yet.

Normally I don't like frame stories because the frame itself seems to be just...blah. It sometimes feels like the author didn't really know where they wanted to start things, so they picked a random spot and used that as a frame. In The Name of the Wind it didn't feel like that at all. He did it well, and that's better than most I have read who tried to use that sort of structure.

I love how Rothfuss has a boatload of threads running through the stories all tying it up together. I love how, if he promises to show you something, he does. One of the things I hate most is when authors make promises to their readers and don't keep them. He kept his promises, and made some more at the end. That's one big reason why I so look forward to the next book. He earned my trust as reader, and I want to know what happens next.

Aside from those two major points, I like his prose and care about his characters.

tarcanus said:

- Tom Lloyd(books = stormcaller, twilight reign, and the grave thief)
----I have only read Stormcaller, thus far, and I know most people I've talked to have hated it after continuing on to Twilight Reign

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Do you mean they hated the second one?

SoloArtist said:

Do you mean they hated the second one?

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Yeah. They thought Stormcaller was good enough that they would try Twilight Reign, but then hated the 2nd book. They're complaints where that Lloyd seemed to have lost his focus and that he was letting his nice world-building from the first book go to waste.


Sorry about the Twilight Reign confusion. His series is called Twilight Reign as is his second book.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

Yeah. Tha Sanderson fans seem wierd to me, too. There's some glimmers of good world-building in there, but his plots lack cohesion, and many of his characters are down-right obnoxious.

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My problem with Sanderson isn't his world-building - I think he does a pretty good job of have a cohesive world, but he doesn't put enough subtlety into where he describes the world and so it feels like there's nothing there beyond exactly what he is writing at that moment.

My problem with him is his prose. I have been reading his blog and he posts annotations for each chapter from his books. He points out when he was trying some better prose out and that he doesn't think it worked too well. I agree with him - I think it was really bad. It jarred me straight out of the story's pace - and that was before I even read that annotation and saw that he was shooting for nice prose.

The reason I even read Sanderson is because I like his magic systems. I love things like Allomancy.

It is unfortunate, to me, that Tor is grooming Sanderson to be the next big thing for the company. He's already signed for a 10 book series. Bluh.

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On Sanderson, I really appreciated the setting he built for Elantris. But I stopped reading it after a while because the characters weren't grabbing me. Does Elantris get considerably better as it goes along? If so maybe I'll pick it up again some day. Fwiw, I read a comment from someone recently that thought Mistborn 3 had a great wrap-up ending.

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Liosse de Velishaf said:

A ten book series?

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I'm sure I'd sign on the dotted line in a second, but it amazes me that anyone thinks they can plan that far in advance and would want to do so, and I'm referring to the publisher as much as anyone when I say that.

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*cough* What? Did I say something?

Watch the Crawford Prize for first fantasy, folks.

Daryl Gregory won last year.

Felix Gilman was on the ballot, among some other fine folks, and one shiftless weirdo.

Ekaterina Sedia is mos def someone to keep an eye on, especially if you like Jay Lake.

I could go on, but it's a good place to start, I reckon.

Joe Abercrombie.
I thought his first book (The Blade Itself) was a very long prologue, but once the wheels got turning in book 2 I was converted; great characterisation.
Rothfuss - meh
Tom Lloyd - read 'Stormcaller' and thought it poor and badly written, read the first quarter of Twilight Herald, saw no improvement and didn't finish it.

AWer Patrice Sarath - Gordath Wood and Red Gold Bridge (Ace) - Narnia for adults

Keep an eye out for Aliette de Bodard (occasional AWer) - her first novel is due out next year

I view the definition of up-and-coming novelists a bit differently I think. Both the ones I came up with don't have a novel out yet, but it's coming soon. My comments are based on reading shorter works.

N. K. Jemisin's work often has a mythical feel to it, which I like.

Beth Bernobich has a novella out (Ars Memoriae). It has an alternate history vibe. It was also quite cozy mysteryish, so it mixed two genres I liked reading.

None of them that I've read.

I know Sanderson is getting groomed as the Next Big Thing, but the books I've read by him have been rough around the edges (Elantris) to wildly uneven (Warbreaker*, that first book in Mistborn that I'm slowly slogging through). And then hearing about that ten-book deal just made me nervous.

Lynch - ugh. I stopped reading about sixty pages into The Lies of Locke Lamora. The pretension was painful. Add in an impossibly precocious brat with a given name I'm 99% sure got swiped from - wait for it - a thiefy character in a classic JRPG, and characters who all talk the same regardless of background - no, thank you.

Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind is in my TBR stack somewhere. I read about the first chapter or so, decided it was all right but could wait. Not my top priority.

I tried to read The Alchemy of Stone. Twice. The second time I gave up after about 40 pages. It wasn't bad, it just failed to keep my interest.

Recently I picked up a couple of books off the new book shelf at the library, and both went back in under 50 pages - Servant of a Dark God by John Brown, and The Kingdom Beyond the Waves by Stephen Hunt. The former was blah, the second one I couldn't even remember the title and had to look up my library record.

Haven't tried Jay Lake or Tom Lloyd yet, but given my current track record with trying new authors I'm not optimistic.

Maybe I'm just too picky. But it is hard to say who's got the most to offer from the up-and-coming crowd when I just can't get that interested in their work.

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*The undead ferret was sealed win in a can box, though. I can't help but think if Warbreaker had remained a comedy of errors, it would have been a much better book.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

Well, if they don't have a book out, how can you judge whether they are good or not? Not all novelists write shorts, if that's the criteria, and good shorts don't necessarily translate into good novels anyway.

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For me, an up-and-coming novelist is one who has a novel about to be published on the strength of other writing, or one who has recently had a novel published (whether or not they've written anything else). I don't consider someone who had a debut published five years ago, and several other novels released since then, that up-and-coming. They've already had their initial up.

But regardless of whether you agree with my definitions or not, the thread was titled for fantasy authors in general. You could always consider my picks as up-and-coming fantasy authors in the short story sense.

Didn't "get" Name of the Wind.

Lamora was good.

First Law is why I hate trilogies by unknown authors.