Is SFF too eager to please?

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Eh, it's not so bad, although I lost interest. The prose is a bit purple, but it's not out of keeping with other high fantasy. There's definitely a bloc of readers who will enjoy that book.

My problem was less that the prose was purple, and more that it was just poorly-executed. The same people will probably enjoy it as enjoyed Jordan and Brooks. Not because of the quality of the prose, but because of the type of story.

The two have been demonstrated to be only vaguely correlated. XD
 

PeteMC

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I'm not Ian, but I'll give it a go...

When I first tried Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy, I found the pacing excruciatingly slow and the writing so very serious. They were good books - I found myself actually making it to the end of the trilogy - but it was very hard work. I knew the writing was good because I'd finished, but it definitely wasn't to my taste.

On re-trying them again a couple of years ago (a decade after the first try, more or less) I found they were still slow and serious, but my own taste had evolved enough that it was only very slow and no longer painful, and I could cope more easily with the seriousness. I got through the Farseer trilogy and made it through most of the Liveship Traders before I lost interest.

That exactly mirrors my experience of Hobb as well. Yes she's a very good writer technically, but I found the story boring and angsty despite that and it really wasn't for me. I gave up after the first Liveship book as well.

My copies went to the charity shop so they won't be getting a second read I'm afraid!
 

bearilou

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As always, amergina makes a good point. And since we all are or aspire to be published authors ourselves, let's consider how we'd like to hope people who don't like our books/stories would talk about us. RYFW may be a rule here on AW, but it's also just sort of generally a good guideline for everywhere. We're all in the same pool, so let's keep the water as free of warm spots as we can. :)

I understand what is being said here, and I respect that, but it still makes me uncomfortable.

I'm reading this as 'don't say anything negative about what any author writes' and as a reader as well as a writer, this is problematic to me. Certainly I can qualify my comments with 'I'm just one person and this is only my opinion' because that's what it is but if I can't discuss what I don't like about someone's work in the context of a writing group/writing discussion?

Sure, don't call their book a huge piling steam of crap (except Brown, Meyer and James. they all get passes, I guess, from what I've seen on the board at times) but if I can't discuss what I find to be problems for me as a reader with a writer's slant/eye, then how am I supposed to do any of the dissection of good/bad books about what works/doesn't work that gets tossed around as advice and supposedly being something a writer should do to improve?

:Shrug:
 

Mr Flibble

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I think there's no problem stating what you did or didn't like in a book. (Robin Hobb stuff is far too slow paced for me, though I did finish the one I started. I prefer her writing as Megan Lindholm - Wizard of the Pigeons is one of my favourite books) Declaring it all a big pile of crap without explanation may be going too far - be critical not nasty. ETA: and possibly stating 'X publisher only puts out turgid crap' might not be the best move even if you think it...

RYFW goes beyond the boards - just because they don't post here, doesn't mean you get to call them poopy heads :D

As for the book in question, I've not read it but didn't it get shortlisted for the Morningstar? I see way more positive reviews than negative for it too.
 

bearilou

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I think there's no problem stating what you did or didn't like in a book.

Sadly, that's not the impression I'm getting from the last several discussions where someone eventually called out how they were uncomfortable with talking about what we liked or didn't like about a book.

Not a huge issue, but it's one that's coming up more and more.

Declaring it all a big pile of crap without explanation may be going too far - be critical not nasty.

Agreed. Especially since the majority of us are writers, surely we can do better than that, and at least explain why we didn't like something other than say 'this is shit and the writer is shit and the publisher is shit and you're shit for liking it'.

ETA: and possibly stating 'X publisher only puts out turgid crap' might not be the best move even if you think it...

Absolutely. This is where it can really get into foot-shooting territory. Just because we didn't like one book a publisher put out doesn't mean the publisher is starting the long slide to publishing ALL THE CRAP EVER in the world. It's one book/series (so far).

RYFW goes beyond the boards - just because they don't post here, doesn't mean you get to call them poopy heads :D

I get that and I think I even said I agree. My contention was that saying 'I didn't like this book and here's why' isn't calling the author a big poopyhed. As I stated above, we're writers. If we like something, we should be able to put into words why. If we don't like something, we should be able to put into words why.

As for the book in question, I've not read it but didn't it get shortlisted for the Morningstar? I see way more positive reviews than negative for it too.

Same here. I went to check it out and read the negative reviews which called it the RJ knockoff. Yet the things they seemed to complain about appeared to be more than just a RJ knock off but a direct riff on the Hero's Journey monomyth, which works for a lot of fantasy fans. I'm one of them, and in reading the prologue (which I have gone on record as not being a fan of in general to begin with) and enjoyed it, delving into the first chapter and not finding it to be this horrific tangled mess of a white hot pile of poo that is implied here, I think I'll be picking it up to read more. Maybe my mind will change, maybe not.

I can say that I wouldn't have given this book a try if it hadn't been for the conversation about it here. :/
 

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If we can't say we didn't like something, and here's what I didn't like and why I didn't like it, then discussion becomes redundant altogether.

There's a world of difference between disliking a particular work and disliking its author altogether (I've said before I didn't like Mistborn, but I liked Sanderson's work on WOT, for example), and an even bigger difference between that and actually insulting the author as an individual.

I work on the basis that if I'm not saying anything that I'd object to having said about me, then that's RYFW.
 
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I don't think anyone in this thread said that Tor was shit, or that people who read the book are shit, or that the author was shit. I did call the book a pile of crap, and I shouldn't have.

I was intending it as shorthand for the fact that I don't like very much about the book. It was not my intention to start a debate over AW's moderating policies.

It's just part of the way I talk offline with my friends, and it's my fault for not taking into account the difference in audience on AW.

I really hope we can get this thread back on track, and not bother the moderators with it.
 

Mr Flibble

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I get that and I think I even said I agree. My contention was that saying 'I didn't like this book and here's why' isn't calling the author a big poopyhed. As I stated above, we're writers. If we like something, we should be able to put into words why. If we don't like something, we should be able to put into words why.

I concur completely in that case! :D

I think it's a matter of diplomacy. Posting (openly at least, rather than rep/pm) on the internet isn't the same as bitching to your mates, with added sarcasm, about that book you just read (I'm sure we all do that, but it;s not recorded for posterity!).

Like Pete, I figure if I wouldn't mind (okay, too much, if they hated it!) if it was said about me, or if I'd happily say it to the author's face*, fair dos.

I think we were just given a nudge before it got out of hand...




* as I have/am due to meet several authors, sit on panels with them etc, this is an extra consideration for me! Could be awkward....But I won't say I liked a book if I didn't. I'd just try to give a reason why I didn't.
 

bearilou

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Although considering the literary tastes of my irl mates, I don't know who I would bitch to except for you guys. :Hug2:

My mother nods politely and smiles. I know she has no idea what I'm talking about. As I'm remotely located and spend huge swaths of time by myself, this board is about the only outlet I have to talk about writing and reading.
 
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My mother nods politely and smiles. I know she has no idea what I'm talking about. As I'm remotely located and spend huge swaths of time by myself, this board is about the only outlet I have to talk about writing and reading.



Sometimes my evil twin and my roommate can be convinced to help me vent, but they aren't as interested in it as I am, and they aren't writers.
 

Filigree

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Mea culpa, I called the book a pile of crap, when I shouldn't have. I didn't speak from the position of 'jealous writer', but of 'disappointed reader'; I enjoy good epic fantasy, and I'd wanted to love that book. Whether it failed me or I failed it doesn't matter. I stopped reading. There are many other readers who didn't.
 

acockey

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In the spirit of putting this thread back on track @Mr. Flibble says in post #79 that you can't just call something crap without reason the author of the article, the author calls Patrick Rothuss a copy of a copy, but does not list whom he is copy or why he thinks Rothuss is copying that person.
 

Filigree

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I don't think Pat Rothfuss is a copy of a copy. I think he took some tropes expressed in Erikson, Martin, and Jordan's work, and made them his own. Bear in mind: I've been on a convention panel with Pat, exchanged emails with him, and his blog is one of my weekly must-reads. But I probably won't read his second or third book.

I liked much of the world building and backstory in The Name of the Wind. There's a single ironic pun so delicious it would be at home in a Discworld novel. Pat attempted and largely succeeded at an incredibly difficult format and POV exchange between real-time and recounted events.

But Kvothe was too perfect. With every exploit, my inner critic kept muttering 'Gary Stu'. His mysterious crimes and subsequent self-exile as an inn owner became more annoying the more Rothfuss circled around them. The female characters were mostly cardboard, and I spent the entire novel trying to figure out if they had hidden depth I wasn't noticing. I found numerous areas of padded plot. Places where continuity and solid world building failed (the 'dragon' in the forest felt like a D&D encounter dropped in without regard to how the creature would impact its environment.) And no, 'It's just fantasy' is not an excuse: things have to work within a story's internal logic. Pat is a better writer than that.

In the end, even though the writing was largely excellent and the looming danger satisfyingly epic, I couldn't stay interested in poor Kvothe long enough to care about his story. Scott Lynch, first published around the same time, had far stronger characters in The Lies of Locke Lamora and its sequel. Rothfuss came to the table with some strong skills, but he also got lucky: he won Writers of the Future with an excerpt of Name, got some agent notice, and found a juggernaut publisher to back him up. He also skillfully marketed himself and his brand across social media and in-person appearances at conventions.

I don't mind publisher hype when it serves a genuinely great product. But the more a novel is hyped these days, the more cautious I am about it.

To get back to the earlier question, I do think that Orullian's novel feels like a clunkier copy of Jordan's work, just as I thought Terry Brook's first Shannara novel was a dreadful rehash of LoTR. Brooks grew as a writer. I hope Orullian does, too.
 

KateJJ

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See, I loved Name of the Wind for some of the same reasons you didn't: Kvothe is such an unreliable narrator, I don't take his words as truth. I'm looking for the story behind his story. Rothfuss hangs a hat on how unreliable Kvothe is at least once, when he introduces the girl as the most amazingly beautiful and wonderful girl and the demon buddy says "Actually, bro, she wasn't all that".

The women are cardboard cutouts because the narrator was, like, 15 when he interacted with them. Kvothe is a Gary Stu because that's how he sees himself. Oh, there's plenty of flaws in Rothfuss but I learned a lot from him.

Now, the second book was a lot more flawed than the first...
 

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I largely agree with Filigree. I think Rothfuss is a superb writer, and the unusual "storytelling" format of NOTW is done very well, but I didn't like the book.

Admittedly I've only read the first one, but (and I realise this is the publisher's fault not his) there was nothing on the jacket or in the blurb of the edition I bought to say it was the start of a series so when I got about 80% of the way through it and virtually none of the "I did this, I did that, I am awesome, you may of heard of me" from the blurb on the back had actually happened I was starting to feel a bit cheated to say the least.

Not the author's fault I know, but it really put me off wanting to bother with the next one.
 

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I didn't like Lies of Locke Lamora at all. I bought it because Locus recommended it and you're told to read debut novels in your genre yadda yadda. But I don't much like criminals as protagonists, and I hate stories with nothing driving them. So they're going to obtain a lot of money by deception. But they don't need the money. They have no idea what to do with it. So why are they doing this again? Meh.

Although that book only got given away. The only Sanderson I've read got recycled.
 

Katrina S. Forest

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I loved NOTW. Enjoyed the second book too and anxiously waiting to read the third.

Funny thing is, my inner critic kept thinking I should dislike Kvothe because hey, if you look down the list of Gary Stu traits, he did hit quite a few of them. But dang it, I wanted to know what happened to this guy. I cared about him and his world, and so help me if I could pinpoint how Rothfuss got me so engaged, I would. Because I want my readers to be that engaged too. The awesome narrator on the audiobook only helped matters. :)
 

Filigree

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One of the reasons I liked Locke Lamora was that an overwhelming motive was brought up early, by the teacher-character Father Chains: 'Thieves prosper. The rich remember'. The money stolen was a means to an end, meant to balance some of the worse crimes committed by plutocracies and nastier criminal societies. What happens to all that money at the end of the first book is one of the finest tear-jerking double crosses I've read.

Social justice fills both books; imperfectly realized in that rough-and-tumble world, full of double-edged intentions that not only drive the two main characters but shape the future of humanity itself. Locke may be an unrepentant criminal. He is also the priest of a stern and furtive god who's aiming him at some really horrible institutional villains. And Locke can't say no.

So yes, I score Lynch higher than Rothfuss, because Lynch made me care.
 

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Interesting analysis. Still don't like the book though :D.
 

ClareGreen

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It'd be boring if we all liked the same things!

I may dislike Jordan and Martin's most famous works intensely, but even then I can appreciate them as a template of how not to tell the story I want to tell while still respecting them as writers.

(And I can view Buffysquirrel's dislike of criminal protagonists as a challenge. That's right, Buffysquirrel - I have new a drive to press onwards, and it's all your fault.) :D
 

PeteMC

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Heh, now I loved Locke Lamora (the second one not so much) - there's a bit of a pattern emerging here!
 
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