That's a damn shame. I know you've mentioned before that you didn't like the Hobbit at all -- do you read other fantasy or is it a genre problem?
Well, I named my daughter after a character in Game of Thrones, so it's probably not a genre problem. That said, I would say that fantasy is graded more easily than sci fi, and sci fi gets softballed. My problem with The Hobbit is it was a lot of singing and dancing and funny languages and twee little things that had nothing to do with plot or characterization. That's my beef with Tolkien - he was all about "here are things that are cool with the scarcest of plots to tie them together." Dragon Slayer had more plot than the Hobbit and it was like 75 minutes long. This is why Wizard of Earthsea is so awesome for Fantasy - problems are grappled with. Issues are posed. Characters arc. People grow up. It's what I love about the Game of Thrones books - they're filled with real people facing real problems in real ways. It's the classic Star Trek vs. Star Wars problem: Star Trek was Wagon Train, tromping through space and solving a new problem every week. Star Wars was a samurai film with hyperspace. I think it's because people writing fantasy don't really feel obligated to do anything with it. It's a damn shame. When you've got all of magic to work with, you'd think you'd be able to come up with something compelling.
Dude, I seriously fell asleep during the end of Return of the King, woke up 20 minutes later, and the ending was still happening. I'm pretty sure the wrap up was like 45 minutes or something. It at least felt that way. I guess that's not really Tolkien's fault, but if the book reads anywhere as slow as the film, I can't believe so many people have gotten through it. I saw Hobbit 1, but fuck if you could get me back in the theater to see parts 2 and 3.That's my beef with Tolkien - he was all about "here are things that are cool with the scarcest of plots to tie them together."
It's a rich, enveloping environment. Arthur C Clarke is similar - he doesn't give the first fuck about his characters but he's all about where you are. An Arthur C Clarke novel is like a protracted article in Conde Nast Traveler for a place that doesn't exist. Tolkien, on the other hand, is a protracted article in National Geographic without the pictures.
Lol. This is what I love about the movies themselves. That they are so very long in unwinding. I feel like I'm watching a painting that I enjoy looking at, and the movies themselves gave me a similar feeling as when I read War and Peace in a way.Dude, I seriously fell asleep during the end of Return of the King, woke up 20 minutes later, and the ending was still happening.
That will of course backfire if you're one of the 14 vocal Malazan apologists currently alive. Yeah, I mean an argument can be made that Tolkien shone when he wrote mythology rather than fantasy. His fantasy is famously (literally) black and white, but his mythology is much more complicated. The Silmarillion has tragic heroes, characters with shades of grey to them, moral issues. Lord of the Rings has the best telling of the hero's journey archetype ever written, but the bad guys are the bad guys. Tolkien knew all this and didn't mind too much. -- Haven't read Earthsea, oddly, but that's an accurate portrayal of Game of Thrones. I enjoy it for that reason, although it's a grind and I don't exactly consider it fantasy. Fantasy is often about escapism and frankly, fuck escaping into A Song of Ice and Fire. I'll take real life. We may have found something upon which you agree with Eliezer Yudkowsky.That said, I would say that fantasy is graded more easily than sci fi, and sci fi gets softballed.
Boy oh boy do I agree with this. Got 400 interchangeable characters with names that hold no meaningful linguistic pattern? Words for the sake of words? No plot exposition until book three because True Fans of the genre will have stuck around that long and no one else matters? Must be a shining example of the fantasy genre. Malazan, looking at you.My problem with The Hobbit is it was a lot of singing and dancing and funny languages and twee little things that had nothing to do with plot or characterization. That's my beef with Tolkien - he was all about "here are things that are cool with the scarcest of plots to tie them together." Dragon Slayer had more plot than the Hobbit and it was like 75 minutes long.
When you've got all of magic to work with, you'd think you'd be able to come up with something compelling.
Best description I've heard for Game of Thrones is it's The Sopranos set in Middle Earth. I think it's disingenuous to argue GoT isn't fantasy - it's got dragons, foxfire, spellcasters and wights. The fact that Dragons = WMD, foxfire = chemical weapons, spellcasters = radical Islam and wights = global warming doesn't change the fact that you've got direct plot elements revolving around things that don't exist. Read Earthsea. They're kids books. You'll crank through them in a coffee break. Ursula LeGuin essentially wrote all of Harry Potter in 56,000 words in 1968. And she wrote it about Pacific Islanders.
Agreed. A friend of mine I won't name has been working on a novel that became a story arc that became a series of novels that became a universe, none of which have been released. Creating an imaginary world is certainly a good idea, but 99% of the time it does bugger all for the quality of the novel - usually making it worse, as the story is continually disrupted to retell backstory upon backstory. Unfortunately, I think that this has created a stereotypical idea of fantasy novels, which means the good stories don't get the attention they deserve (unless they are made into hit TV shows). I like the mythology angle that you presented. Series like Discworld take another good approach - very complex mythical world, but it feels like it grew organically as the series progressed, it doesn't feel like it was all planned top-down when the series started. Places that were just referred to in one-line jokes were later fleshed out as Pratchett pleased.
You think the contrast had to do with the author's use of language as well? I have not read much King, but I remember reading Eyes of the Dragon by him in some ridiculously short period of time. It was like cutting butter with an appropriately heated knife, and I didn't even like it that much. For some reason though, I couldn't get It to hold my interest, though I remember it leaving the same impression language-wise. Just very accessible and quick. Like you don't need an oar when you're reading him.
No, 'cuz I cranked through Watership Down with no issues and its language is just as byzantine, the concepts just as foreign, and the conceit of "elven languages" is front and center. Watership Down, however, was an exploration of society, religion, mortality and warfare as seen through the eyes of rabbits as opposed to "a bunch of dudes go slay a dragon." Stephen King wordsmiths a lot. His rule of thumb is to leave 20% on the cutting room floor between first and second draft. It makes a difference.
For me, things like the elven languages didn't read so much as conceit as eccentricity and individual passion. I guess conceit is actually a good description in the sense that it felt like Tolkien was doing it because he loved it, without regard for the reception as much (not that he had to worry it turns out, -he had an audience). He was on his own jam, that's for sure. I appreciate that, but tbh, the end result is I skipped some of that shit. I don't care if it's an Elvish ballad, Ishmael's cetological aspirations, or Rand's Galt taking 60 pages to do what the rest of the novel was already doing, but a thousand times more boring...I reserve the right to hit the space-bar.its language is just as byzantine, the concepts just as foreign, and the conceit of "elven languages" is front and center.
"I try to leave out the parts that people skip." - Elmore Leonard I read this two weeks ago and ended up nuking a 5800 word chapter down to 1800 words. In the script it had been important to have this big bolus of exposition because I only had 110 pp double spaced to work with. Following the script, that chapter was where the big bolus existed. But in the novel I'd been able to work it in without any effort or exposition whatsoever - it was all first person discovery. Fuckin' liberating - The book went from 192k to 187k in an afternoon.