Is SFF too eager to please?

I'm so glad there are such a variety of books to select from!

I am really enjoying the Rothfuss series- epic world building skillz, yo. The Gary Stu protag gets cloying, but knowing that he royally f*ucked things up despite all his perfections helps dampen that irritation. I love the Sanderson books and his wonderful magic systems. Warbreaker was amazing! I like authors who explain their systems. It makes it feel more real to me. I don't hate authors who don't, but I giggle like a delighted child over a well-crafted, and inventive system. Just having Gandalf wave his staff, just isn't as satisfying- no rules, no explanations, no idea what he's capable of or not.
And I love Abercrombie, too- his characterizations are outstanding. I fell completely, head over heels in envy, over how well he did Glokta. That was stupendous 3rd person limited POV. And the other characters were such deliciously unreliable narrators for their own side of the story.

Strangely, I didn't like Locke Lamora, although I really wanted to. The author seemed to be slavishly devoted to the rule that "said" should be the most frequently used dialog tag. And he used it. Constantly. Everywhere. Instead of action beats. It was so annoying and jarring, it became ridiculous.

Vive la difference!

Marniy said:

And I love Abercrombie, too- his characterizations are outstanding. I fell completely, head over heels in envy, over how well he did Glokta. That was stupendous 3rd person limited POV.

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Yup, total admiration for that one!

Strangely, I didn't like Locke Lamora, although I really wanted to. The author seemed to be slavishly devoted to the rule that "said" should be the most frequently used dialog tag. And he used it. Constantly. Everywhere. Instead of action beats. It was so annoying and jarring, it became ridiculous.

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You know, I didn't even notice that (he said)

PeteMC said:

You know, I didn't even notice that (he said)

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Lol I guess it really is invisible!

Liosse de Velishaf said:

I'm curious which Hobb books you've read and what you didn't like about them.

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I'm someone else who couldn't get into her books, though certainly I tried. I read the Farseer Trilogy and all but the last book of the Liveship Traders. She had some fascinating concepts, but in the end, it was a combination of characters I couldn't stand and plot directions I didn't like.

KateJJ said:

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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All this was my take on it, too.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

Fili-

I'm reading the inside look on Amazon for that author you mentioned, and I don't know if words can express my regret for asking for his name.


How can Tor of all places publish this crap?

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Here's a fact of life about commercial publishing.

Publisher aren't picking books to publish because they think they'll be literary canon fodder.

They're publishing books they think people will buy.

Publishers have to make money. It's what they do. If they don't make money they can't publish books.

So while I may not be personally partial to some of the authors whose books rake in large sums of money, I know that the fact that some authors make lots and lots of money means that new authors who have no record, and mid-list authors and authors who take ten years to sell through are possible because of those authors who sell hundreds of thousands of books.

And I'm glad they were published so that people who loved their books bought them, so that I could buy books by the authors I love who were also published by the same publisher.

Popular books make less popular books possible. Deal with it.

Marniy said:

I'm so glad there are such a variety of books to select from!

I love the Sanderson books and his wonderful magic systems. Warbreaker was amazing! I like authors who explain their systems. It makes it feel more real to me. I don't hate authors who don't, but I giggle like a delighted child over a well-crafted, and inventive system. Just having Gandalf wave his staff, just isn't as satisfying- no rules, no explanations, no idea what he's capable of or not.


Vive la difference!

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I agree with you here. I don't need long or detailed enumerations of the rules for their own sake, but I do like internally consistent magic systems where the writer at least leaks some of the rules out. It can be pretty important if the plot of the story hinges on the magic itself (with LoTR, Gandalf's magic didn't really drive the story to any great extent). If the nature of the magic is not fairly clear, or at least hinted at earlier in the story, it can feel like "cheating" if the character "suddenly" discovers a used of his or her magic during the novel's climax that resolves the conflict.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

One of the major problem I had with the book was the level of of the writing. To my eyes, it was not very good. I expect a certain level of craftsmanship from a published book, and this one did not meet my expectations.

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See, there's where subjectivity comes in. I honestly can't see what anyone is reacting so violently to. The prose struck me as a bit try-hard (in terms of the main character) and purple, but that's it. It didn't strike me as bad writing, just not-my-cup-of-tea writing.

If you would, read the first page or so of this book. It's one I had a pretty negative reaction to (but the author has published more books that me, so what do I know?) Without being insulting to either author, would you rank The Unremembered better or worse than this?

I'm mostly wondering whether disappointed expectations are playing a larger role in your distaste for the book than they might have otherwise. What I read of The Unremembered just didn't seem that bad to me.

Whenever there are several pages of posts since I last read a thread, I'm uncertain how much I should respond to. Trying to be selective...

Liosse de Velishaf said:

I'm curious which Hobb books you've read and what you didn't like about them.

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I read the first two Farseer books. Some of the responses have mirrored my opinions, so I'll try to focus on some different things.

I felt like the books had relatively little content for their length. Not many characters, cultures, or ideas. They were easy reads for me, because I think Hobb's prose is good, but at the end of each book I was left a little disappointed.

Part of this may be the style, which I felt was too subdued for the story. We have assassins and battles and all that, but instead of being an action-driven story I felt like it was saying "Here are some things that happened." This wouldn't have bothered me at all if it was a quiet character-driven story but applied to these events it limited my interest.

Finally, the point of biggest contention is characters. The majority of my friends absolutely love them, so obviously she's doing things right for some people, but I didn't find them compelling and they frequently rang inauthentic to me.

Buffysquirrel said:

But I don't much like criminals as protagonists, and I hate stories with nothing driving them.

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Ooh, I disagree quite a bit but I think we already have enough discussions going on here. Fortunately, Filigree said what I would have about the driving force of the story being class conflict.

marniy said:

Lol I guess it really is invisible!

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Not to everyone. I don't like "said" at all, though it doesn't break a book for me. Then again, I'm not going to stop reading a book because an author uses "explicated" and "harrumphed" either. My feeling is that this is one of those things that 99% of non-writers don't care about - it's all invisible compared to the story.

Ian Isaro said:

Ooh, I disagree quite a bit but I think we already have enough discussions going on here. Fortunately, Filigree said what I would have about the driving force of the story being class conflict.

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You can't disagree about my likes and dislikes!

Look, I know quite a lot about class conflict. I'm British, fer crying out loud. And this book did not strike me as bringing anything new to the subject.

I'm not well read in epic fantasy, so taken it with a pinch: I think in both examples the authors are trying to achieve a literary quality so hard that it's overachieving and missing the mark. I find them extremely wordy, laced with passive, and have trouble deciphering the intended meaning. Very archaic. The writing is very distracting to me.

tri

Medievalist said:

Here's a fact of life about commercial publishing... Popular books make less popular books possible. Deal with it.

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!

jjdebenedictis said:

If you would, read the first page or so of this book. It's one I had a pretty negative reaction to (but the author has published more books that me, so what do I know?) Without being insulting to either author, would you rank The Unremembered better or worse than this?

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Don't know about The Unremembered* because I haven't read it, but the writing in the one you posted the link to reminds me of the writing in this one, of which I could not get beyond two chapters. And yet this book came recommended by a very good fantasy author whom I respect and admire.

So it's all subjective, obviously. I can give substantive reasons why I don't like a particular writing style or story, but that doesn't mean everyone is going to share my opinion or have the same reaction.

*I checked out the first pages on Amazon. I didn't care for voice of the prologue, but thought the prose in the first chapter was decent. But slow and boring also. A lot of thinking and backstory and nothing happening. Back in the day, I got reamed in critique groups for having that kind of opening.

BethS said:

... of which I could not get beyond two chapters. And yet this book came recommended by a very good fantasy author whom I respect and admire.

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This is why I pay diddly-squat attention to reviews, let alone cover blurbs... in fact, a cover blurb from one of my fave authors (from whom I've learned more about writing than anyone else!) ....is almost uniformly an indication that I won't like that particular book... in fact, will think it stinks!

It's very subjective, and what makes sff such a fun genre to read. I tread mark lawrence's Prince of Thorns and Chris Beckett's Dark Eden within a couple of weeks of each other last year. One has a big promo behind it, one seems ( i don't have figures to hand, so could be wrong) to be creeping up the must- read charts quietly. Both are completely different... For the record, i loved Dark Eden.

I can't stand Grrm, and I read them before I made that statement, I quite like sanderson when I want an easy read. I read a Sherrilyn Kenyon recently and was stunned she was a best- seller. Suffice to say, not in this house. But they are all what makes our genre so diverse, and diverse is what keeps it alive.

Dreity said:

Me too! This reminds me of a group of guys in a locker room, where one of them opens his gym bag and is all, "Ahhh! This smells horrible! Dude, get over here and smell this!"

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Not limited to dudes. I have overheard uncountable conversations along those lines gearing up for women's flat track roller derby. "Hey! Smell my pads!"

...elbow and knee pads, of course. What did you think I meant?

triceretops said:

The trick is to make lobster taste like cotton candy.

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But doesn't that ruin the lobster?

That goes for SF/F/H too. Well, I guess there's times when an author can slip the more challenging aspects in under cover of the rapid-fire page-turner stuff, but for the most part, I like my "challenging" reads to be what they are without any sugary fluff trying to mask the flavor.

And I like my lobster to taste like mmmmm lobster. Melted butter optional.

(Which isn't to say there isn't time for cotton candy in my life, of course, both literally and metaphorically. And there's certainly room for both in any bookstore.)

NicoleJLeBoeuf said:

Well, I guess there's times when an author can slip the more challenging aspects in under cover of the rapid-fire page-turner stuff, but for the most part, I like my "challenging" reads to be what they are without any sugary fluff trying to mask the flavor.

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FWIW, I have a lot of respect for writers who can keep me on a page for longer than five minutes, but those reads are rare - the dense, multi-layered, challenging type of writing (and I'm thinking explicitly of Voice Of The Fire, but others apply as well) is more satisfying in the long run. If a story is too easy, then there is the risk of becoming bored by the story or characters. YMMV massively.

I would rather a story be incomprehensible - well, to a point (James Joyce goes OTT) - than be a fluffy, inconsequential read.

Buffysquirrel said:

You can't disagree about my likes and dislikes!

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I disagree, you like it when I disagree about your likes and dislikes!

Buffysquirrel said:

Look, I know quite a lot about class conflict. I'm British, fer crying out loud. And this book did not strike me as bringing anything new to the subject.

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That's fine. We weren't saying it brought anything new to the subject, just that the book did have a driving motivation. I certainly wouldn't call it a revolutionary treatise on class conflict, but I do think it's going somewhere I don't see very often in fantasy. If anyone has suggestions for books that cover similar ground, I'm all ears.

Incidentally, my view of class conflict may be substantially different from yours given the extended period of time that Tanzania was a British protectorate.

BethS said:

Don't know about The Unremembered* because I haven't read it, but the writing in the one you posted the link to reminds me of the writing in this one, of which I could not get beyond two chapters. And yet this book came recommended by a very good fantasy author whom I respect and admire.

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Oh, oh! I read that one!

In my opinion, patience would not have rewarded you. I decided it wasn't bad as fluffy beach reading, but if I'd been feeling less charitable that summer, I wouldn't have gotten through it either.

I actually used that book as an example in the "What Fantasy Gets Wrong" thread [Edit: here]. It had horses that never got tired, hungry, or lost, and at one point, a demon is described as having "switchblade claws", despite this not being a world where switchblades would exist.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

Medievalist said:

Here's a fact of life about commercial publishing.

Publisher aren't picking books to publish because they think they'll be literary canon fodder.

They're publishing books they think people will buy.

Publishers have to make money. It's what they do. If they don't make money they can't publish books.

So while I may not be personally partial to some of the authors whose books rake in large sums of money, I know that the fact that some authors make lots and lots of money means that new authors who have no record, and mid-list authors and authors who take ten years to sell through are possible because of those authors who sell hundreds of thousands of books.

And I'm glad they were published so that people who loved their books bought them, so that I could buy books by the authors I love who were also published by the same publisher.

Popular books make less popular books possible. Deal with it.

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Originally posted by John Jarrold: Incidentally, that line about bestsellers paying for more outre books to be published is a load of rubbish. In commercial publishing, each book has its own costing, and has to justify itself financially, there is no crossover because you are also publishing mega-sellers. That's true in every mainstream publishing imprint in London and New York.

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Found that interesting.

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Loisse, you might like to cite your source for the Jarrold quote.

The two viewpoints aren't mutually exclusive.

It's true that each book will have its own costings done, before it's signed, in order to attempt to predict whether or not it will be worth publishing (because publishing is a business, and each book has to pull its weight).

It's also true, however, that books which sell in huge numbers create a reasonable cushion of money which makes publishers feel a little more secure, and more willing to publish books which seem a little riskier. Those riskier books will still have their costings worked up before they're signed: but they might not even have been considered if the publishers didn't have that cushion; and if they fail it won't be so critical.