Just Read Sword of Shannara...

[GoodKingJayIII]

GoodKingJay, I'm sorry that you feel threatened by my post, but it obviously illustrates that you're not a very careful reader. Honestly, ask yourself: Did you even notice that The Belgariad is a gods-substituted-for-computer-programs retelling of TRON?

Sorry Tak, my post came out with way more hostility than I meant it to... homework and a rough weekend sometimes don't put me in a good mood. But no excuses, just apologies. Sorry about that. In all seriousness, your thesis sounds really interesting, something scholarly I'd enjoy reading. It's just that from what I have read I find SciFi and Fantasy to be incredibly similar, and I don't think it matters to denote them categorically. Though, judging from the title of your thesis we seem to be in some agreement...

And no, I can't say I noticed those similarities.

It's good to see that some people here are capable of examining the deep bovi-excremental themes imprinted into works that the ordinary "surface-level" readers think of as epic fantasy.

There isn't anything wrong with being a "surface-level" reader. There are different kinds of observation, and some people don't pick apart the themes behind a story in the same way you might. One could easily read the LotR or Sword of Shannara, pull a wide variety of meaning out of it, and never be able to verbalize. Perhaps they don't even realize they've pulled this meaning from it.

 

[takyris]

Ah, shoot.

Guys, I have to apologize. I was, um, utterly making stuff up. The fact that I was saying that Shannara was based on something that came out three years after Shannara came out was intended to be a clue. I really thought that it was just a tongue-in-cheek goofy post done in deliberately snooty form that might get a laugh. I wasn't trying to deliberately troll. Sorry to anyone who took offense at what I intended as an over-the-top goofy post.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Ah, shoot.

Guys, I have to apologize. I was, um, utterly making stuff up. The fact that I was saying that Shannara was based on something that came out three years after Shannara came out was intended to be a clue. I really thought that it was just a tongue-in-cheek goofy post done in deliberately snooty form that might get a laugh. I wasn't trying to deliberately troll. Sorry to anyone who took offense at what I intended as an over-the-top goofy post.

*blinks*

*squints, reads 3 or 4 more times*

*blinks*

That was by far the greatest demonstration of BS that I have ever seen in my entire life. Bravo!

 

[Assenpfeffer]

Ah, shoot.

Guys, I have to apologize. I was, um, utterly making stuff up.

Zing for you - you bagged 'em.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I just read through this and I was wondering why people were getting upset, it was funny but pretty obvious he was joking... Not to denigrate your BSing abilities Tak. It was hilarious, 'specially with everyone taking it seriously.

Ben

 

[Desdichado]

tak, great stuff! Worthy of Bugaboo, bless his AWOL soul.

I read the Sword in junior high and thought it was OK. I couldn't ever get beyond a few pages of the Elfstones book, though, and haven't been able to reread Sword either, despite trying three times.

I think I've convinced myself that I don't like Terry Brooks' writing very much. I did read his Phantom Menace novelization, though, and didn't think it was too bad.

It's amazing to me that Terry Brooks and R.A. Salvatore are the best-selling fantasy authors still writing (I'm pretty sure Tolkien trumps them, and J.K. Rowling doesn't count because she's binned as another genre) because I think both of them are extremely bland authors. Their craft is good, but their genius is mundane.

 

[takyris]

JD: Does R.A. outsell Terry Pratchett or the Neil Gaiman stuff? I honestly don't know. And are we talking worldwide or U.S.?

Those caveats aside, I find it pretty easy to understand. It's the lowest-common-denominator principle, and not in an attacking way. While it's pretty bland stuff in my opinion as well, it doesn't have anything in it that's going to hack off a lot of people. Good people are good, even if they make mistakes, and evil people are pretty much evil evil evil unless they have a sign over their head that reads "redeemable".

You ever notice how the women who win pageants aren't necessarily the most strikingly gorgeous -- they're the ones who have the least objectionable faces. Again, not in a bad way -- there's no way to say it well in English. Their faces are very templattable, very average and symmetrical and appropriate in all ways. You won't see any exotic almond-shaped eyes, because some people don't LIKE almond-shaped eyes. Huge generalization, and I'm sure that there have been exceptions -- but in general, the people who win the beauty pageants are the people that have a clean, simple look that everyone can project their own fantasies onto. (And again, not in a bad way. My wife is a mix of Scottish, Swedish, and Native American. She can pass for any of those types. She blends into whatever group she's in. When we went to Russia, people stopped and talked to her in Russian on the street because her appearance was... not bland... but symmetrical and open enough that everyone thought she was a local.)

Same with reading these guys. They don't do it for me, because I like specific things in my fiction now, but they're going to appeal to everyone to a certain extent. They've got the tropes, and they're not going to offend anybody with new ideas.

And, lest I not say it enough, that's not a bad thing. I'm not trying to make an attack. They're not my style anymore, but hey, anything that brings people into the field is good for me as a wannabe-writer.

 

[Spatula]

That's a bit of a stretch--lots of books have one or more of those.

But how many have all of them?

Aside from the Iron Tower trilogy, of course.

 

[Pants]

Ah, shoot.

Guys, I have to apologize. I was, um, utterly making stuff up. The fact that I was saying that Shannara was based on something that came out three years after Shannara came out was intended to be a clue. I really thought that it was just a tongue-in-cheek goofy post done in deliberately snooty form that might get a laugh. I wasn't trying to deliberately troll. Sorry to anyone who took offense at what I intended as an over-the-top goofy post.

I realized that as soon as you started talking about 'denial of service attacks' against the Dark Lord.

Nice job on pulling all that out of your nether region. There must be an award for something like that.

 

[Desdichado]

JD: Does R.A. outsell Terry Pratchett or the Neil Gaiman stuff? I honestly don't know. And are we talking worldwide or U.S.?

I have no idea; it's just an internet rumor first heard here on these very boards that I'm trying to pass off as a hard and fast fact. It sounds reasonable, though, doesn't it? Certainly they both have scads of books at any given time on shelves in bookstores.