Sci Fi and Fantasy writing is not an excuse to be SHIT

[kyser_soze]

... So people turn to the realms of fantasy for stability, ancient truths, immutable simplicities.

And the mills of capitalism provide them. Supply meets demand. Fantasy becomes a commodity, an industry.

Commodified fantasy takes no risks: it invents nothing, but imitates and trivialises. It proceeds by depriving the old stories of their intellectual and ethical complexity, turning their action to violence, their actors to dolls, and their truth-telling to sentimental platitude. Heroes brandish their swords, lasers, wands, as mechanically as combine harvesters, reaping profits. Profoundly disturbing moral choices are sanitized, made cute, made safe. The passionately conceived ideas of the great story-tellers are copied, stereotyped, reduced to toys, molded in bright-colored plastic, advertised, sold, broken, junked, replaceable, interchangeable.

What the commodifiers of fantasy count on and exploit is the insuperable imagination of the reader, child or adult, which gives even these dead things life--of a sort, for a while.

Trans - my books are quality and damn those other publishers for lpacing inferior competitors in my path and lessening my sales.

Probably true, but no more or less true than any other media form these days, be that academic treatise, crime novel of reality TV show...besides there was shite literature around before capitalism...

 

[Stigmata]

Dotcommunist, you should read Goodkind's Naked Empire. The villains are a bunch of evil welfare-state pacifists.

 

[dylanredefined]

Anne McCaffrey

Some of her stuff wasen't too bad the ship that sang was good .

 

[fudgefactorfive]

Trans - my books are quality and damn those other publishers for lpacing inferior competitors in my path and lessening my sales.

hardly

 

[Garp]

Not quite sure why you are shouting at Eddings as didn't he die last year and therefore will have considerable difficulty in hearing you.

His first series was excelent. I won't have anything said against it.

Unfortunately every work since then has been the same story retold slightly differently which is rather crap i agree.

It was Gemmell who died last year, not sure if Edding also died. (gemmell was 2 books into a trilogy as well, very inconsiderate of him )

Terry Brooks has to be added to the shit author list too, I remember reading his older books as a kid and liking them, but just read his latest stuff and its utter utter crap, I was laughing at how formulaic the story was and his use of cardboard cut out fantasy characters.

Feists latest works are also poor imo, and Robert Jordon is just bloody milking his series

 

[wishface]

Kevin J Anderson is a horrible horrible writer. The Dune prequels are just appalling and the tales of the jedi comics are also shite. how does he get away with it?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Tolkien, Feist, Gemmel, Pratchett, Katherine Kerr - who else cuts the mustard?

Tad Williams, Michael Scott Rohan, Orson Scott Card, Melanie Rawn, Stephen Donaldson, Mary Gentle, Barbara Hambly.

 

[Iam]

Dotcommunist, you should read Goodkind's Naked Empire. The villains are a bunch of evil welfare-state pacifists.

Strictly speaking, that's not really fair. They're much weaker than that...

The whole supposed politics of the series are a bit toss... "Communism's shit. So's everything else. Do what you want!"...

And to get to the Naked Empire, you'd have to read the preceeding 7 as well... I'm going to finish that series out of sheer bloodymindedness, though.

Robert Jordan and Robin Hobb are good.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Mike Moorcock speaks for me too when he says:

The Lord of the Rings is much more deep-rooted in its infantilism than a good many of the more obviously juvenile books it influenced. It is Winnie-the-Pooh posing as an epic. If the Shire is a suburban garden, Sauron and his henchmen are that old bourgeois bugaboo, the Mob - mindless football supporters throwing their beer-bottles over the fence the worst aspects of modern urban society represented as the whole by a fearful, backward-yearning class for whom "good taste" is synonymous with "restraint" (pastel colours, murmured protest) and "civilized" behaviour means "conventional behaviour in all circumstances". This is not to deny that courageous characters are found in The Lord of the Rings, or a willingness to fight Evil (never really defined), but somehow those courageous characters take on the aspect of retired colonels at last driven to write a letter to The Times and we are not sure - because Tolkien cannot really bring himself to get close to his proles and their satanic leaders - if Sauron and Co. are quite as evil as we're told. After all, anyone who hates hobbits can't be all bad.

Epic Pooh

 

[Blagsta]

Anyone else rate Pat Cadigan?

 

[k_s]

Tolkien, Feist, Gemmel, Pratchett, Katherine Kerr - who else cuts the mustard?

Robert Rankin!

 

[Scaggs]

Peter F Hamilton has to be included in any list of shit sci-fi authors. Nights Dawn Trilogy was ok in parts but I've never been able to finish any of his other books. They are like East Enders in space, but without the interesting characters

 

[Kaka Tim]

Ive got a book called 'footfall' by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle and its so choc full of cliche and really lazy writing that I gave up after three chapters. Larry Niven Id heard of, is all his stuff as bad as this?

I also found the (highly regarded) Mars series by Kim stanley robinson really turgid in its characterisation, lack of pace and plot. Like a lot of sci fi it has lots of interesting ideas and a lot of scientific detail but the writers faliure to make these into a pacy, dramatic story with compelling characters and really lets it down.

 

[DotCommunist]

Strictly speaking, that's not really fair. They're much weaker than that...

The whole supposed politics of the series are a bit toss... "Communism's shit. So's everything else. Do what you want!"...

And to get to the Naked Empire, you'd have to read the preceeding 7 as well... I'm going to finish that series out of sheer bloodymindedness, though.

Robert Jordan and Robin Hobb are good.

oh yes Bobby just FINISH teh fucking MAIN META NARRATIVES

I bet the cunt keeps churning 'em out.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen is much better

 

[DotCommunist]

Kevin J Anderson is a horrible horrible writer. The Dune prequels are just appalling and the tales of the jedi comics are also shite. how does he get away with it?

I really wanted the Dune prequels to be the best thing, I was well up for any liberties taken. But I couldn't stomach the shit writing provided by Shitty Kev

 

[DotCommunist]

I watsed My mOnEy 0N U CnuTS!!!

 

[Calva dosser]

Ive got a book called 'footfall' by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle and its so choc full of cliche and really lazy writing that I gave up after three chapters. Larry Niven Id heard of, is all his stuff as bad as this?

Some Niven is bearable. Footfall, however is the most gung-ho pile of padded crap. The literary equivalent of using George W as an airbag. He got a bad dose of survivalism. And I suspect the NRA paid the cunt by the yard.

Can't really beat Banksie when it comes to a good old space opera.

Gave up on fantasy. Try the Icelandic Sagas. Much more fun.

Soft spot for The Lord of the Rings, I mean who wouldn't want to hang one on in The Prancing Pony or The Green Dragon?

 

[8den]

I really wanted the Dune prequels to be the best thing, I was well up for any liberties taken. But I couldn't stomach the shit writing provided by Shitty Kev

I think as usual Tycho says it better than I could;

Anne McCaffrey

Y'know I've met the bitch and her smug self absorbed husband. They've settled in Ireland. I was at a Sci Fi Convention in Dublin they were guests of honour at.

 

[wishface]

Malazan isn't that great. The books are twice as long as they need to be and nothing whatsoever is ever explained. Ovviously the world 'exposition' is not part of Erickson's vocab. He has some interesting ideas, I just can't be bothered to wade through ten books, each the size of the entire lord of the rings trilogy, to find out what they are. I generally prefer shorter stories (plus my eyesight is shit anyway). Anything over 400 pages better be good enough to justify the extra crap.

 

[elevendayempire]

Yes he did pissing all over the memory of one of the finest scifi authors ever


He also turned his laclustre cliched style to writing Stargate/Star trek/ X files books

And his solo 'Praxis' writings are truly, truly awful

I understand that Anderson the Twunt doesn't actually write his books; he dictates them and his wife types them up. Whatever, he's still SHIT.

SG

 

[elevendayempire]

Tolkien, Feist, Gemmel, Pratchett, Katherine Kerr - who else cuts the mustard?

Ian Watson, Kim Newman. Some of the Doctor Who spin-off writers are pretty good, too; Paul Cornell, Kate Orman, Lawrence Miles and Lance Parkin are not bad, though they need to crack on and do some original work. Also Gaiman and Susannah Clarke.

SG

 

[Brainaddict]

Tolkien, Feist, Gemmel, Pratchett, Katherine Kerr - who else cuts the mustard?

Unfortunately all of those writers had one or two novels in them but most of them went on to write dozens.

First against the wall should be: Robert Jordan

Partly because for the first few books I actually loved him (I was younger then) and then he turned the series into *the* most turgid, overblow, overwritten shite in the history of fantasy. And I realise that there's some stiff competition for that title but Jordan wins, no contest.

 

[Final]

Unfortunately all of those writers had one or two novels in them but most of them went on to write dozens.

That reminds me -

add Terry Brooks to the list of shit fantasy authors.

a prime example of flogging a dead horse (in this case one that wasn't even a thoroughbred to begin with).

 

[Belushi]

I really wanted the Dune prequels to be the best thing, I was well up for any liberties taken. But I couldn't stomach the shit writing provided by Shitty Kev

Innit, apparently the cnuts have now writtern a sequel to Chapterhouse Dune

 

[DotCommunist]

Unfortunately all of those writers had one or two novels in them but most of them went on to write dozens.

First against the wall should be: Robert Jordan

Partly because for the first few books I actually loved him (I was younger then) and then he turned the series into *the* most turgid, overblow, overwritten shite in the history of fantasy. And I realise that there's some stiff competition for that title but Jordan wins, no contest.

The BDSM subtext in those books is really odd.

 

[Brainaddict]

The BDSM subtext in those books is really odd.

Hehe, now you mention it, it can be a bit weird in tone. I'd say the rampant sexism is probably more offputting though....

 

[rich!]

Malazan isn't that great. The books are twice as long as they need to be and nothing whatsoever is ever explained. Ovviously the world 'exposition' is not part of Erickson's vocab. He has some interesting ideas, I just can't be bothered to wade through ten books, each the size of the entire lord of the rings trilogy, to find out what they are. I generally prefer shorter stories (plus my eyesight is shit anyway). Anything over 400 pages better be good enough to justify the extra crap.

I dunno, there's something for being dumped in a world where the magic system isn't another Vance clone, where the gods aren't standard mythologies re-coloured, and the characters are interesting.

Mind you, I liked the comment in one of Vance's recent books: "While writing Ports of Call, I realised I had too much material for one book. I therefore stopped". (And released a sequel a couple of years later with the rest.)

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Tad Williams I found really poor. Admittedly this was when I was 14-15, but at least Eddings was easy to read. Williams just trudged on and on without anything really happening. It wanted to be LOTR Mk II, but didn't have the character.

 

[wishface]

Innit, apparently the cnuts have now writtern a sequel to Chapterhouse Dune

Yes, the big bad is apparently Omnius from the prequels (fuck spoilers, no one shoudl be reading this drivel). Now i've never read much Dune, certainly not Chapterhouse, but they've managed to turn Dune into the Terminator movies.

 

[wishface]

I dunno, there's something for being dumped in a world where the magic system isn't another Vance clone, where the gods aren't standard mythologies re-coloured, and the characters are interesting.

Mind you, I liked the comment in one of Vance's recent books: "While writing Ports of Call, I realised I had too much material for one book. I therefore stopped". (And released a sequel a couple of years later with the rest.)

there's also something to be said for a world where the reader has some clue as to what the fuck the writer is talking about!

It may sound cool...