Thread: What are you reading?

Originally Posted by Taosaur

I started my re-read-and-listen of Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings, planning to head straight into the second book that just came out. I'm feeling a bit of magic fatigue after wrapping up Codex Alera, though, so I might throw in a sci-fi or gen fic/lit fic secondary read. I have the mammoth Campbell Award nominees anthology handy, so maybe I'll just dive into that from time to time.



I think a lot of fantasy series owe their popularity largely to that "gateway" effect. For me it was Terry Brooks' Shannara series. I gave the audiobooks a listen a couple years ago, and wow, Brooks is a bad writer. His main strength is getting the money shots right--he does a good job depicting battles and magic. The rest of the time, though, he's repeating every plot point and character trait six times in USA Today prose, and probably isn't familiar with the concept of an original idea. Still, when I was a kid those books were awesome and moving and compelling.

The Shannara 're-read' got me started on a fantasy audiobook habit and I tried a couple of other fantasy series that you hear people reminiscing fondly over: The Belgariad and The Wheel of Time. Blech. I dropped The Belgariad in the middle of book two, but later ended up finishing the first series because it was so good at putting me to sleep The Eddings' prose was better than Brooks', but all the description seemed really vague, and the characterization so lazy and built on stereotypes, and again it was such a retread of tropes from LotR that I had to wonder why anyone would bother writing it down. And Robert Jordan... all my life I've been seeing his books in used bookstores and every instinct tells me to back away. I can't say I got very far in WoT--maybe a couple scenes into the first book--before my brain wanted to throw up. The thing is, and why this conversation has been coming up a lot lately, he's one of my favorite author's favorite author. Brandon Sanderson was chosen to finish WoT after Jordan's death, and is always expressing his love of the series, but for a lot of Sanderson's fans, we look at his work and we look at Jordan's, and we have to scratch our heads. It's like the Coen brothers saying their biggest influence in film was the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.

The series I just finished up, Codex Alera, which Jim Butcher literally wrote on a bet with the premise of a society founded by a lost Roman legion who got Pokemon, blows any of the above (Brooks, Eddings or Jordan) out of the water. Salvatore's books, and Harry Potter for that matter, came out when I was already an adult and just struck me as YA. I can get into some superhero-ish YA like Jumper or Sanderson's Steelheart, but mostly I'll just hold out for the movies (Harry Potter, Hunger Games) or leave it be.

I had pretty much the exact same experience. I was already a bit older and well read in the genre when I read Sword of Shannara, and I did finish it (the main trilogy), but it started seeming like a chore quickly. The Belgariad I put down halfway through. I read the first half of the first Wheel of Time book and put it down. I''ve never gotten into a book about a mewling farmboy getting dragged around by a squad of unkillable allies, it just seems like such a weak premise but that's what half of fantasy is.

Brandon Sanderson is brilliant, I'll be getting my hands on Words of Radiance soon.

But my favorite books that I'm sure I still would like (too long since I've read RA Salvatore) is the Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny. It has some stylistic problems IMO but its creativity is what makes it the best.

Originally Posted by Whatsnext

But my favorite books that I'm sure I still would like (too long since I've read RA Salvatore) is the Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny. It has some stylistic problems IMO but its creativity is what makes it the best.

I listened to the Amber books as an adult, as part of my fantasy audio jag of the last several years, and enjoyed them a lot. I would call them gonzo fantasy, drawing on Hunter S. Thompson and/or the Beats as much as Tolkien or the Bros Grimm. I need to get more Zelazny in my life. I started Lord of Light on audio and liked it a lot, but it was hard to follow in that medium, so it's still on my TBR.