How on Earth did this book get to be published?!

So far, my quest for a well written fantasy book has been in vain. The only one that I truly enjoyed for the depth of plot and the characters is A Song of Ice and Fire. Everytime I try to find something that would be able to stand next to ASOIAF I get nothing.

Does fantasy lack strong story/characters by default or am I simply unable to find anything worth reading?
 

It took until about page 160 before the story in ELANTRIS finally started to pick up. There's a lot of extraneous material in the beginning (probably all the way through) that could have been cut, IMO. But the story looks like being worth wading through it.

In ELANTRIS and several others that I've read recently (including one Nebula and Hugo winner), I catch smaller things that would have been jumped on in this forum, especially said bookisms. But I don't think a reader who wasn't sensitized to them, like we are, would notice as much. And the authors are usually established, so I guess they can get away with it. (Althoug I believe ELANTRIS is Sanderson's first, and he did it a couple of times, too.)

I think it's a combination of things.

I think in any genre there're going to be some truly great books (and which these are varies a bit by reader) and some stinkers, and a lot of books in between.

And I think we're more likely to notice things like adverbs and dialog tags than the average reader.
 

Try some Guy Gavriel Kay. He started with The Fionavar Tapestry, a very Tolkien-esque trilogy that, in my opinion, stands up very well to critical analysis. The rest of his novels are less high fantasy, a little more historical fantasy, but they get better as the books go by.

I wonder if people who critique stories for a living ever find something they can actually enjoy reading.

[This message has been edited by MartinV (edited March 01, 2010).]
 

In general I try to read the book until the end before I evaluate it. Mostly small things don't irk me...

And it's mostly a matter of taste - my friend recommended Kay's Tigana to me. It's one of those rare books which I just couldn't finish...
 

[This message has been edited by Meredith (edited March 01, 2010).]
 

"It is drafty in here"

He's done for the most part - not a final draft but he seems to be there for 90% or so. Read through it. The man's humor and blog posts are delightful.

Plus that's one adorable baby next to that big stack of paper .
 

Awesome Fantasy:

Robin Hobb's Farseer series: Assassin's Apprentice; Royal Assassin; Assassin's Quest. (ON par, or above Martin--who also is a Hobb fan.)

David Gemmell: Legend; The King Beyond the Gate; Waylander; Quest for Lost Heroes; In the Realm of th Wolf; The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend; The Legend of the Deathwalker; Winter Warriors; Hero in the Shadows; Wolf in Shadow; The Last Guardian; Bloodstone; Ghost King; Last Sword of Power; Lion of Macedon; Dark Prince; Ironhand's Daughter; The Hawk Eernal; Sword in the Storm; Midnight Falcon; Ravenheart; Stormrider; White Wolf; The Swords of Night and Day; Knights of Dark Renow; The Lost Crown; Morning Star; Echoes of the Great Song; Dark Moon; Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow; Troy: Shield of Thunder; Troy: Fall of Kings (his wife finished this, as he died in the writing--literally at the typewriter). He wrote in omniscient, but even OSC touted his novels as great reads. (I'd read all of them long before OSC stumbled across Sword in the Storm.)

Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn: The Final Empire; The Well of Ascension; The Hero of Ages. I'll post my thoughts in the Discussing Published Hook and Books forum, under the "What I'm Reading Now Thread" ...where we usually do.

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited March 01, 2010).]
 

How many times has that happened?

What have you read that you DID like?

Its all basically a matter of taste...I mean, the Sword of Truth is like a bestseller and all but I couldn't personally get into it that well. I dearly love Lovecraft, but a lot of people can't stand him.

I like cottage cheese with lemon pepper seasoning and I can't stand green peppers (or any other kind for the matter of that.)

I'd like to help but I'm just not sure I understand the question.
 

Reviewing a book is telling others why you liked it or didn't like it, what you liked or didn't like about it, and why others might like or not like it if they were to read it themselves.

If you can't finish a book, you can still review it and say why you couldn't finish it. And naming a book on a writers workshop forum is a way to point other aspiring writers at an example of what not to do--for you as a reader, at least.
 

I haven't read Song of Fire and Ice but it is on my list, it is a very long list though. You could have had some bad luck with fantasy, but there is a reason it is considered a 'pulp' genre.

Wouldn't it be hilarious if one of us suggested the offending book?
 

Remember the 90% rule...you just need to find the magic 10% of the genre that's gold.
 

Warning: spoilers ahead

The book begins with a tavern scene through the eyes of a soldier playing a card game called pokiir. Since the game is similar to poker it might be a good idea to make the name of it a bit more original. The soldier sees one of the players is cheating and knows there will be a brawl soon. What does he do? He gets up and leaves the tavern, wanting to be on his post on time. Forget the fact that everyone playing is armed and a brawl will probably result in injuries or deaths. And then the POV carrier leaves and is never seen again. Why did the author bother to develop this character at all if he uses him for three pages only?
Two of the game players are in fact the protagonists of the story: a couple of princes, twins in fact. There is a brawl, one of them is wounded. You learn that they were urgently summoned to the palace by their father but instead they went to gamble in the poor district of the city. Talk about immaturity.

This is suppose to be a fantasy setting yet in chapter two the author in fact gives you a football game on a wooden stadium with a very modern feel to it. I still have no idea if this was refered to American football or the European football. We have a very cheesy assassination attempt which was supposed to be done by an expert. I got a feeling of some modern action movie instead of a fantasy.

This is all I've read so far. The football thing was a complete turn off for me. If I read fantasy, I don't want a scene that could be done in the middle of modern New York.
 

The later books just lose the magic, as it were.
 

For example, I recently had a very difficult time completing the final book in Terry Brooks' recent trilogy. In fact, I quit reading book three. It has been a long time since I failed to complete a book. Those books were so full of deus ex machina (and other plot issues) that I got disgusted.

We are trying to publish in a different environment today. Society has gotten busier and readers do not have as much time to read. Thus, we are more demanding upon the authors we read. If the story does not start immediately we don't buy. In addition, we have such a wide variety of options in the stores now that authors must do everything they can to "hook" the reader quickly. Now, "hooking" the reader is another topic, which has been heatedly discussed here before so I won't say more on that.

Personally, I wonder if we can really compare the works of the early authors (Eddings, Brooks, Feist) with today's authors (Sanderson, Rothfuss, etc.). Is this a question we should be addressing? Just a thought.

-- William
 

The main character's name is Pug.
I stopped reading.
Pug? Seriously?
I was brow beaten into reading on.
Farm boy accidentally uses latent magic and is surprised.
I stopped again. C'mon...
"Keep reading!"
Ok. Clearly I was going to need to suspend my disbelief. No, I was going to need to fire my disbelief.

I read on.
I fell in love with the series and I still recommend them to this day. (With above caveats)
Macros the Black is one of the most intriguing characters I've ever come across.
These books inspired me to write BIG.

I read the next series - told from the enemy's POV. Good books as well. Enjoyed the heck out of them.

Prince of the Blood came along and is set in the same universe, but it wasn't even close in terms of what made the above books so great.

Conclusion:
PotB. Bad place to start.
Read Apprentice and Master and if you like them, continue. I think you'll be pleased, but be prepared for some serious cliche's in the beginning.

Axe

If you don't have a lot of money to spend on books, try using your local library. That's what I do. Of course, if your library is small, you might not have the selection you want.
 

It might be that Feist is a one-trick pony - but I haven't read his other works so...

I like to think that you have to be in a certain "mood" to enjoy certain kinds of styles or stories. There are times when I can't stand to read fantasy and prefer scifi or a thriller or a court drama or a historical or a biography- other times I can't bear to read anything but fantasy.

And then you have to add the stories style, tone, etc. Like there was a time when I was tired on the how serious and dark fantasy was all the time, but I still wanted to read Fantasy - answer? The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett was the perfect choice. But after his second book I had enough of his style and swore off fantasy for like a year. That happens. Same thing with Robert Jordan - after three months of his works I needed like a six month break from all fantasy - I didn't want to see the word "dragon" "Trolloc" or "Chosen one." ever again. I haven't touched Jordans works in 10 years though I enjoyed them. Sometime you can just burn out on the stuff. But I hope to get back into it one day and finish the series.

So don't fret, It all depends on what you want to sink you teeth into. Set Feist aside - you know how the story begins - and soon there might be a time when you're in the perfect mood for such a story, infodump and cardboard character and all, and you'll love it.
 

(Tolkien's "previously unpublished" stuff, as it appears, continues to fascinate me, though. It's usually a matter of the depth of Middle-Earth, or of exploring early drafts of much admired work, rather than endless rehashes of (let's face it) lesser writers.)
 

Maybe some of you who would like to encourage him to read certain fantasy books would be willing to donate a used paperback and mail it to him. If everyone donated and sent a different book, he'd have quite a collection--and maybe, after he finished reading them, he could donate them to his local library.
 

I ship internationally for a living as it is so sending some books shouldn't be a problem. =)

Assuming he's interested, that is.

Axe
 

There's a special discount at the post office when I send books.

Not the only one to drop out, but some of them, I know the names...I intend, someday, to read George Railroad Martin's multivolume fantasy, but when it's complete (or at least done), and not till then. (Actually the same applies to Harry Potter but I haven't gotten past Book One.)
 

I am thankful for the offer, Kathleen, but I will respectfully decline. Considering my limited budget, I need to buy books with a bit more caution next time and do some research before I buy them. I will look up the titles people suggested but I will think hard before buying them.

Thank you everyone for posting some promising titles. I will definitely ask for your opinion about a book before I buy it.

Foste, unfortunately I do not speak Serbo-Croat. I am a post-Yugoslavian generation and lever learned it. Thanks for the offer.

[This message has been edited by MartinV (edited March 03, 2010).]
 

I just know that, as you say, science fiction isn't very big in Slovenia, and it is probably difficult to obtain copies of older books (such as the ones people were recommending). The best sellers are surely there, but "best seller" does not guarantee a good read.

The idea was also to make some of these older books available, once you have had a chance to read them, to other people with the same interests.

And getting copies in English has to be helpful if you want to sell to English-speaking markets.

Would you consider serving as a kind of conduit for English-language copies of some of these older books not just for yourself but for others you know? Books are sent to you, and you distribute them?
 

All I can say is good luck and I hope you find some you like.
 

My foray into Feist was Talon of Silver Hawk and it's sequel. Had that been my only exposure to fantasy, I guess I'd have given up on it myself.