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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9606124" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Trouble getting into it may have depended on what you tried as your entry point.  A lot of people make the (IMO) mistake of trying them in in-world chronological order.  IIRC the White Wolf reprints are partially responsible for this.  The original stories published between '61 and '64 are pure pulp energy.  He wrote a novelette and novella in '67 and '71 building on the world, and then the first full-length novel in '71.  This was set earliest in Elric's life and digs into his backstory and origins more, but it gets away from the original pulp energy.  It and much of what follows is much more introspective and slow (IMO), and relies on the reader either being into that kind of story or already in love with Elric as a character and so willing to go along with the slower character exploration.I always tell people to start with the original stories from the 60s.  Nearly as much or just as much pulp energy and action and velocity and excitement as Howard, with more imagination and weirdness, and basically none of the distasteful elements.Isn't that a bit tautological, though?  Haven't critics always favored more literary works, with more symbolic or allegorical meanings?  Back when Lester was signing Brooks I'm sure he knew the critics would crap on it (as they did), but that the audience wasn't as critical.As Ruin Explorer mentioned, as recently as 10 or 15 years ago even the better-written fantasy like GRRM tended to get backhanded compliments in mainstream criticism, implicitly judging anything good as a rare exception out of a genre sewer.Nowadays, as other folks pointed out earlier, we have a broader range of talented writers who grew up with fantasy and are more ambitious and skillful writers than a Brooks or a Piers Anthony, and we have fewer men reading fiction overall.  No wonder if some of those men are seeing the publishers catering to them less and complaining about it.</blockquote>

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