Oh do fuck off, you patronising twat.
Harry Potter (book) Crap/ Not crap?
- Thread starter Cheesypoof
- Start date
Oh do fuck off, you patronising twat.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Will do sir. Sarcasm not pleasant when it's reversed no?
scifisam
deleted
I like the Artemis Fowl books, but the writing is absolutely dire, especially in the first book, and the characters are about as deep and detailed as Jade Goody's geography knowledge; it read to me like a book written by a ten-year-old instead of for ten-year-olds. But the ideas in it are great, which saves it, and the later books get better.
Lots of kids books have very similar plots, and lots of fantasy stories do too. Star Wars and Harry Potter have pretty much the same plot as Le Morte D'Arthur, which probably has the same plot as a dozen earlier stories. It's just a standard plotline for fantasy, not a rip-off; the details are what count.
It's amazing, really. With the criticisms people (most whom have only read a bit of the first book) level at Harry Potter, you'd expect it to have been a complete flop.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Minus the loss of parent/orphan thing what books for grown ups don't deal with the themes? broad brush there
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Can't agree there, the characters may not have been fantastic, but by thier very function and speech (the dialogue was great) they pwned on potters weak characters.
Yes of course. It's been stated already that modern kids fantasy riffs from mythic cycles. The issue with Potter is that Rowling is very obvious in the plundering and plodding this-and-then in the writing. Honestly I know of far better written kids fic and so do you
I just don't like bad writing. The Darren Shah books are better, because they are far more honest. Potter sells, but that doesn't grant it the status f good childrens fic imo
scifisam
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I don't think it is that obvious.
True about the writing style; Dahl, for example, is a far, far better writer in terms of style (and everything else as well), but he's aimed at a slightly younger age group.
HP is aimed squarely at 9-12 year olds, plus slightly older if they're not all that good at reading. People outside that age range can enjoy it, of course, but they're still not the core audience. A lot of fiction for kids that age suffer from the same problems as HP, not because the writers are copying Rowling, but because it's a difficult age to write for.
I didn't like the characters in the one Darren Shah book I read, and it was too strongly fantasy for me, if you see what I mean.
Selling a lot doesn't make it good, but it does mean that there must be some appealing elements about it. I loathe the Da Vinci code, but I have to admit it does well at what it aims to do - otherwise it wouldn't have sold.
Strumpet
gypsy girl
Termite Man
zombie flesh eater
I didn't like it but the missus and lots of other people do so I voted excellent
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
agree to differ mate, the influences are glaringly obvious to me
Hmm. Maybe. I would never patronise my reader in the way Rowling does. I have annoyance for Pullmans handling of teenage characters also. I think adults writing kids fic sufer from a romaticised or formalised view of how it was.
Fine. That doesn't mean we shouldn't revere people who writ well for that demographic. If Anything they deserve beter than Potter.
Yeh as a fantasy/sf fan I do often value fiction in a way contrary to the non lover of such.
[/quote]
Da Vinci Code sold for many reasons. The quality of writing was not one of them
scifisam
deleted
They weren't teenagers in HDM. They seemed quite realistic for the 11-year-olds they were supposed to be. What about them seemed romanticised to you?
I'm struggling to think of any writer for that age group whose style is actually good. And believe me, I've read a lot; when we were sent the reading list for our PGCE, I thought we were supposed to read all couple of hundred on there, so I did. Turned out the next swottiest person on the course had only read 8.
I'm an avid SF fan, but not fantasy. HP and Artemis Fowl both make their fantasy settings believable as part of the real world, which makes them accessible for me, and for many others. That doesn't mean I think proper fantasy books are bad - just that they're not my preference.
Da Vinci Code sold for many reasons. The quality of writing was not one of them
Never said it was. I never said the quality of the writing in HP was great, either, though it does get better.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
well the finale ennit. The bit where they had to accept that they could no longer see each other because of them wraith shadow things. I found it horribly artificial. Here's grown up feelings and heres how you pay for them. Compared to the promise of the preceding books the rushed end of the third felt very sell out. There are worse, far worse, examples of kids lit. But Northern Lights and Subtle Knife built a universe, built characters, Riffing on paradise lost, the nature of dvinity etc.
Then to cheese it all off 'and suddenly, they grew up'
Dissapointed me.
Can't argue with the other parts of yer postings. Except the Fantasy non-love. You just haven't read the right fantasy yet (reccomend Gene Wolfe)
The Book of the New Sun is a novel in four parts written (1980–83) by science fiction and fantasy author Gene Wolfe. It chronicles the journey and ascent to power of Severian, a disgraced journeyman torturer who rises to the position of Autarch, the one ruler of the free world. Severian, who claims that he has perfect memory, tells the story in first person; the books are presented by Wolfe as a translation of Severian's writings into contemporary English. The series takes place in the distant future, where the Sun has dimmed considerably and the Earth (referred to in the series as "Urth") is slowly cooling.
When you like the plagiarism in a book you call it riffing.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
So, Cheesy, how's the children's book doing?
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