If you want, I can ask some moderator if it is possible to do so (you need to tell me your user name though).
Books Fantasy Reads
- Thread starter Alock1
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Gemmell was the reason I got into fantasy. I picked up Waylander when I was about 11-12 and never looked back. Must have read all his stuff a half dozen times. Druss is great though, and Legend was just heroic fantasy perfection. I've read Stella Gemmell's The City as well which is a nice read.
Nah, its not that big a deal. I am pretty dried up on ASoIaF discussion. Maybe if the guy released a book any time soon I would want to join back up.
Cool!
Ironically, I think that ASOIAF discussion is the worst part of the forum. It goes incredibly fast (probably faster than transfer forum threads here, during the transfer session), and every theory has already been debugged to bits.
Literature subforum is fantastic though.
the /r/Fantasy sub-reddit on reddit.com regularly has different authors doing AMAs and commenting in general on various topics.
@Edgar Allan Pillow
I made a comment about Nemesis Games in A forum of Ice and Fire. Look who replied.
Fantasy authors can be very funny Little monkeys
Abraham is one of my absolute favorite authors. Unfortunately he does not really sell that well on the German market.
His TLPQ has not sold well so Dagger&Coin has been release under the pseudonym "Daniel Hanover".
After 3 books released the Publisher told me they stopped translating as sales figures have again been poorly.
I feel ashamed that Fantasy Readers with German as their first language have such a bad taste. I am trying to tell myself to only read finished series respectively series for which all German parts have a fixed release schedule.
Why do you need them in German? You can read in English (judging from your posts here).Fantasy authors can be very funny Little monkeys
Abraham is one of my absolute favorite authors. Unfortunately he does not really sell that well on the German market.
His TLPQ has not sold well so Dagger&Coin has been release under the pseudonym "Daniel Hanover".
After 3 books released the Publisher told me they stopped translating as sales figures have again been poorly.
I feel ashamed that Fantasy Readers with German as their first language have such a bad taste. I am trying to tell myself to only read finished series respectively series for which all German parts have a fixed release schedule.
Tbf it can be really exhausting reading a book in a foreign language. I know this because I'm currently trying to make my way through Die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt in German and it's pretty intensive stuff I can tell you...
I've read the last 150 (or so) books in English.
It is difficult in the beginning, but it gets easier soon enough.
Show off. I'd kill to be able to read a novel in a foreign language. It's my aim with German, but it's gonna take me years.
Gemmell is what got me into fantasy as well, girl I was going out with got me to read one of his, I think it was called Red Moon or something. It was brilliant and I read about 9 of them in a 2 year period. I want to go back and read the rest, the problem being I read them all so close together and it was so long ago I can't remember which ones I read and didn't read. I know I definitely read all the Waylander ones.
Do you mean Dark Moon? The one with the Daroth and Tarantio, the schizophrenic swordsman? I'd actually put that as one of his lesser books tbh! Still a good read though, just nowhere near as good as his Rigante, Drenai and even Troy books. Legend is my favourite Gemmell book, if you haven't read it- you should!
Dark Moon! That was the one. When I first read it I loved it, but others were clearly better. Legend was brilliant as were all the tales of Druss. I know I read one of the later ones before Legend, where he is old and helping defend a fortress. It was mostly the Drenai books I had been reading, I hadn't gotten around to Rigante before I got distracted by other books. I think I might get a Gemmell book as my next fantasy one if The Hedge Knight doesn't drop in price. It's either that or Red Country. Gemmell was my favourite author before Abercrombie came along.
If you've read the Drenai books then you should definitely go for Sword in the Storm, which is the first of the Rigante. That said I also really love his Troy series. I remember reading that the Troy trilogy was the series he always wanted to write, and all his books before that were sort of practice models preparing for Troy. His whole career had been building up towards bringing Troy back to life. Unfortunately he died before he finished the final book but his wife Stella finished it and you'd never know it wasn't Gemmell himself.
I've never read his Troy series. Not into historical fiction that much. The only one I've read was Colin Iggulden's Lord of the Bow about Genghis Khan. Liked it.
And for Gemmell, I rate his books as below:
1) Jon Shannow series (dark and powerful)
2) Drenai series (classic epic)
3) Rigante
4) Stones of Power & Hawk Queen are pretty much same calibre.
Morningstar is a good standalone novel to read.
Tbf the Stones of Power / Sipstrassi novels are historical fantasy as much as Troy. The Shannow novels too are part of the Sipstrassi books, alongside the King Arthur and Alexander the Great / Parmenion series. They're just a hypothetical Earth world, but still Earth. I get that Troy actually was a real city etc but the series is largely Gemmell's own take on Troy. It could just as easily be a non historical book, he doesn't follow history as closely as someone like Iggulden. And it's far better than the Stones of Power books IMO.
Did you know Morningstar is technically a Drenai novel? Only way before the Drenai became a nation. Set in the same world though!
Possibly (I don't exactly remember). Did you sign in?Do the mods have to individually approve every new sign up?
Yeah about half a day ago. Seems a mod seems to need to approve every sign up personally and then I'll get an email notification.
Trying to read The Force Awakens novelization. I stress the word trying, so far it's been boring as feck. There's no energy to it, like the author is just describing some things that happened.
Alan Dean Foster after all.
It looks actually a masterpiece compared with the abomination which is A New Hope, which is literally the script of the movie.
Ironically, the prequels novelizations are the only one worth reading, with Revenge of the Sith being by far the best one there.
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It basically is just the script, with some very minor stuff that was cut so far. It's so....basic. Like it just does the bare minimum of describing stuff that's happening. Exactly like the script. If I hadn't seen the movie I'd be baffled.
Finished The Heroes from Abercrombie. Have said it before and saying it again: 'Joe Abercrombie is the best fantasy writer there'. Everything he makes is gold. I liked The First Law and The Shattered Sea, but the standalones in The First Law are masterpieces.
I'm really not feeling The Heroes as much as the other books. I think it's the lack of adventure and way too many kind of similar characters to keep track of. I had similar issues with The Riverlands sections of ASOIAF. I'm not great with names at the best of times.
I'm just over halfway through it.
I'm just over halfway through it.
Yeah, the names are a pain in this book. I read all of them as 'a dead cnut' or as 'a live twat'.
Finished the first four Malazan books.
Gardens of the Moon - 7/10
Deadhouse Gates - 7/10
Memories of Ice - 8/10
House of Chains - 7/10
There's lot of things to like about the books so far. Erikson is a very good writer, no doubting that. The imagery projected, the scope, the world building are all fantastic. It's also very original. Haven't quite read anything like this before and even the setting is very new. All this has made for some truly epic moments. He's also not afraid to try and change his style of writing. Deadhouse Gates for instance is a completely different book to the other 3. Also, the words "Book of the Fallen" suffixed to the series title are there for a reason! The books are very downbeat and tragic in nature.
On the flip side, the lack of information is very annoying. Four books in and I still have no clue what a warren (primary source of magic in universe) is which is a bit ridiculous. And while i like the books, they are heavy going due to the contemplative, philosophical nature of them. I think he goes a bit over the top with sections and some of the should have been edited out. There's no need for every book to be 1000 pages long regardless of the plot.
Overall, full marks for writing, originality and characters but a bit like Abercrombie, I'm not overly convinced he can tell a good story in a way that keeps you gripped.
Starting the fifth book now which has nothing to do with any of the first 4 books!
Gardens of the Moon - 7/10
Deadhouse Gates - 7/10
Memories of Ice - 8/10
House of Chains - 7/10
There's lot of things to like about the books so far. Erikson is a very good writer, no doubting that. The imagery projected, the scope, the world building are all fantastic. It's also very original. Haven't quite read anything like this before and even the setting is very new. All this has made for some truly epic moments. He's also not afraid to try and change his style of writing. Deadhouse Gates for instance is a completely different book to the other 3. Also, the words "Book of the Fallen" suffixed to the series title are there for a reason! The books are very downbeat and tragic in nature.
On the flip side, the lack of information is very annoying. Four books in and I still have no clue what a warren (primary source of magic in universe) is which is a bit ridiculous. And while i like the books, they are heavy going due to the contemplative, philosophical nature of them. I think he goes a bit over the top with sections and some of the should have been edited out. There's no need for every book to be 1000 pages long regardless of the plot.
Overall, full marks for writing, originality and characters but a bit like Abercrombie, I'm not overly convinced he can tell a good story in a way that keeps you gripped.
Starting the fifth book now which has nothing to do with any of the first 4 books!
Do you wanna fight?
First Law was boring for large parts of the trilogy. I struggled to care too much about most of the characters or even the plot towards the end. The only other thing I read was Best Served Cold, which was good but was a one-off.
TFL started boring but the last book was excellent.
Best Served Cold is his best book, IMO, with the Heroes being a close second.
I rate Joe above Sanderson, Rothfuss, Hobb, Lawrence.
Haven't read Lawrence but Mistborn/Farseer/Liveship were all more enjoyable than TFL. Jury's put on KKC but the first book was better than any book in TFL.
Out. Now.
Come on! I like Hobb, but TFL is better, be it story or characterizations.
Am I alone in thinking Sanderson is a very mediocre writer?
Nah. His stories are excellent but his writing is quite mediocre (it has improved since the days of the original Mistborn trilogy though). Also, his main characters are good, but a bit cliche while the others are as deep as NPC characters who don't have names in video games.
In both those aspects, all those writers I mentioned are miles ahead of him.
Sanderson might be the best when it comes to magic systems though.
Farseer is somewhat comparable with series being somewhat letdown by very mediocre endings. Liveships is comfortably better. Has better characters, better storylines and very entertaining.
Liveship is better than The First Law trilogy, but if you add the three standalones to The First Law, then I have to go with The First Law.
Better characters than TLF though? Not a chance in hell.
The only series I rate higher than The First Law are A Song of Ice and Fire and The Wheel of Time. The Kingskiller Chronicles, The Chronicles of the Black Company, The Realms of the Elderlings and The Lord of the Rings come close. Mistborn, The Broken Empire and The Shattered Sea aren't that close, but are good.
Better characters than TLF though? Not a chance in hell.
The only series I rate higher than The First Law are A Song of Ice and Fire and The Wheel of Time. The Kingskiller Chronicles, The Chronicles of the Black Company, The Realms of the Elderlings and The Lord of the Rings come close. Mistborn, The Broken Empire and The Shattered Sea aren't that close, but are good.
Managed to catch up on 2 excellent Sci Fi viewings.
Parallels - Started off as a TV series, but ended up in a movie as they couldn't get funding. OK acting, but a very interesting premise. Too bad even it's incomplete, but like firefly the movie is still worth a watch.
Lost Room - A fantastic mini-series (6x1hr episodes). Some nice acting, very interesting plot that kept me engrossed that I finished all in one go. I so wish they'd renew for a 2nd season as the outer threads as as interesting as the main plot. Brilliant scope for further seasons.
I really hate when good SciFi series are getting cancelled and trash like Kararshians get renewed for multiple seasons. So fecking not cool!
I really recommend Lost Room, if you haven't watched it before.
Parallels - Started off as a TV series, but ended up in a movie as they couldn't get funding. OK acting, but a very interesting premise. Too bad even it's incomplete, but like firefly the movie is still worth a watch.
Lost Room - A fantastic mini-series (6x1hr episodes). Some nice acting, very interesting plot that kept me engrossed that I finished all in one go. I so wish they'd renew for a 2nd season as the outer threads as as interesting as the main plot. Brilliant scope for further seasons.
I really hate when good SciFi series are getting cancelled and trash like Kararshians get renewed for multiple seasons. So fecking not cool!
I really recommend Lost Room, if you haven't watched it before.
Finished Red Country from Joe Abercrombie. While not as good as the two previous standalones, it was still quite a good book.
Also, good finally to see more of the other countries. Shame that we just heard, instead of see more of the Old Empire. Hopefully, the new books will show us more of it. I wonder if Zacharus - now that he has a puppet controlling a powerful state similar to Bayaz and Khalul - will be part of their infernal fight. Or will he have his own interest. I didn't get the impression from 'Before they were hanged' (from what I remember from two years ago or so), that he was very found of Bayaz.
A fitting end for Nicomo Cosca. One of the best characters Joe created.
I knew it. Always I knew it that Logen is alive. And what a return he made! Hoping to see more of him in the new trilogy.
I knew it. Always I knew it that Logen is alive. And what a return he made! Hoping to see more of him in the new trilogy.
Also, good finally to see more of the other countries. Shame that we just heard, instead of see more of the Old Empire. Hopefully, the new books will show us more of it. I wonder if Zacharus - now that he has a puppet controlling a powerful state similar to Bayaz and Khalul - will be part of their infernal fight. Or will he have his own interest. I didn't get the impression from 'Before they were hanged' (from what I remember from two years ago or so), that he was very found of Bayaz.
I think the chain of dogs in book 2 is the greatest story ever told