Sitting here waiting for the undercoat on my minis to dry. Thought I'd chime in.
On Drow hate: I hate them for all the reasons that have been given above about fanboys (and girls, I'm looking at you Rachel!) and the whole Mary Sue-ness of Drizzt. But I will join in with Drizzt in hoping for their redemption. That is, back to being hard core evil SOBs. With or without the bondage theme. (just remember though, when Drow do bondage there is no safety word.)
CSL: as per usual I really like your ideas on Drow and how you write them. Some day I would really like to play in one of your campaigns. That is if you ever ran one. And we lived on the same continent.
Good Writers of Fantasy: Ooh boy, where do I begin?
How about the not good ones?
RA Salvatore is NOT a good writer. Competent, but not good. I'd say the same for Jordan. And I've read enough of both to have a solid basis for this opinion. Erickson and the Malazan stuff: started reading the first one a couple of weeks ago, 200 pages in put it down and gave up waiting for something to happen; BORING. Hell, it made me go back to Moby Dick. (half of which is some rather unreliable facts on the biology of whales which Melville specifically calls Fish, although this may be Ishmael's opinon rather than Melville's.) Terry Brooks: Sword of Shanarra was an absolute Tolkien clone but at least it was a pretty good read from what I remember (been 20+ years.) The never ending series of follow-ons bored me plus it got it's own Mary Sue (name escapes me but the impossibly wonderful swordsman/ninja dude.) Gonna take a shot at Eddings here too. Not for the the first bunch, the Belgariad, these were enjoyable: good light style, easy to read, fun characterisations. Then came the clone, The Mallorean. Wasn't Eddings at least a bit ashamed to be writing exactly the same book and selling it to people? As a mate of mine said: cute characterisation can only get you so far.
A few others mentioned above I've not read, or in some cases, heard of.
Good ones:
Tad Williams. First thing of his I read was Otherland. FAntastic. Less impressed by his first fantasy ones (er, Memory SOrrow and Thorn?) but certainly some flashes of the writer he has since become. Eagerly awaiting the next in his Shadow... series.
Moorcock: Elric. Now this is the guy Drizzt wishes he could be. Except maybe for the being a bit evil and the thing he has for his cousin. Wouldn't that give Drizzt something to angst over? And all the rest of Moorcock's stuff: Eternal Champion, Dancers at the End of Time, Jerry Cornelius etc. Haven't read the Pyatt stuff but it's on the to-do list. As you can probably guess he's one of my faves. SPecial mention for The Warhound and the World's Pain, one of my all time favourite books.
Tolkien. Oh yeah, ther's some god awful turgid prose in there. But at it's best it's great. And the excessive world building actually helps with that. The background adds to the story rather than detracts. I still get a shiver when I read the Ride of the Rohirrim. (And I've read it over 20 times.)
ALso hear good things about China Mieville and he's on the to do list too. Well not him. His books.
Feist: agree with above poster who says half his stuff is good, half is not. Sure sign of crapness is when Pug makes an apperance. The stuff without him, specifically anything to with Jimmy the Hand, reads much better. The Daughter of the Empire series he co-wrote with Janny Wurts is fantastic!!
No-one's mentioned Donaldson. I like the 1st Chronicle of TC. Covenant is just a man you love to hate. He never fails to let you down. The sequels, not so good, as sequels usually are. But really liked Mordant's Need and the book of short stories.
Not fantasy but have just started reading Arturo Perez-Reverte's Captain Alatriste series. That's some damn good cloak and dagger swash buckle. Complete with in-jokes about Milady de Winter. Really nice, sparse style. No wasting words on endless boring descriptions. A bit like Howard in that regard.
MM, well that's enough of that. Ya know, should really fork this thread into a fantasy authors one.
