Poll - I'm over 25 and I've read....

[Nellisir]

nice additions here too. I would have voted twice for Zelazny.

Thanks. Frankly, I'd read Zelazny's grocery list. Heck, I'd probably pay to read it.

 

[Nellisir]

Agreed about the criticism of Gene Wolfe. He's a postmodernist, and while he's a good writer, he employs deliberate obtuseness masquerading as literary depth. It's hard to separate such viewpoints from the author, but I think if he hadn't gotten so mired in that viewpoint he would have been much better.

My exposure to Wolfe has been...slight. I read one sequence awhile back, and Wizard-Knight a few years ago. I don't remember much about the first books, but Wizard-Knight was incredible and a bit mind-blowing.

It would make for a pretty incredible game setting too

Maybe I'll reread Wolfe now. Either Wolfe or Moorcock.

Man, I'm looking forward to building bookshelves and unpacking the rest of my books.

 

[Herschel]

.... Maybe people really do fall instantly and madly in love and then decide to risk their lives fighting some soul-sucking overlord with their true love but I've never seen it in real life.

That's because in real life it's usually the soul-sucking overlord they fall in love with.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Yeah, I agree lots of names left out, though all the ones that spring readily to mind have been listed since. To do this kind of poll justice, though, you need something I don't think you can set up: A way to indicate "read" versus "would read again". There are several names on that list that I have read, but won't be making that mistake again.

 

[Mallus]

R. Scott Bakker is amazing, and anyone who's a big fan of Martin might want to consider checking him out.

Definitely. I like how in the Prince of Nothing series the protagonist (or antangonist?) is kinda a cross between Jesus, an ubermensch, and a 20th level monk with maxed Diplomacy and Sense Motive, fighting something that's right out of Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, which is to say there's something wonky, lovely, and very D&D about the whole thing.

Agreed about the criticism of Gene Wolfe. He's a postmodernist, and while he's a good writer, he employs deliberate obtuseness masquerading as literary depth.

What makes you say Wolfe's a postmodernist?

 

[Jack7]

Arthurian cycle is rather broad. Mabinogian? Troyes?

Hell, down to Tennyson and TH White, even.

One thing I really miss in modern fantasy is poetry.
Good epic, heroic, mysterious, even romantic poetry.


Men of Harlech, march to glory,
Victory is hov'ring o'er ye,
Bright-eyed freedom stands before ye,
Hear ye not her call?
At your sloth she seems to wonder;
Rend the sluggish bonds asunder,
Let the war-cry's deaf'ning thunder
Every foe appall.
Echoes loudly waking,
Hill and valley shaking;
'Till the sound spreads wide around,
The Saxon's courage breaking;
Your foes on every side assailing,
Forward press with heart unfailing,
'Till invaders learn with quailing,
Cambria ne'er can yield!

Thou, who noble Cambria wrongest,
Know that freedom's cause is strongest,
Freedom's courage lasts the longest,
Ending but with death!
Freedom countless hosts can scatter,
Freedom stoutest mail can shatter,
Freedom thickest walls can batter,
Fate is in her breath.
See, they now are flying!
Dead are heap'd with dying!
Over might hath triumph'd right,
Our land to foes denying;
Upon their soil we never sought them,
Love of conquest hither brought them,
But this lesson we have taught them,
"Cambria ne'er can yield!"


Course I miss good poetry period.
Short of lyrification there doesn't seem to be all that many folks putting out any.


EDIT: That reminds me of a funny old story Nellisir. (It was funny to me anyways) Back in my senior year in high school my English teacher (I was in what way back then we called AP English) told us all that we could do our term paper on any English authors we wished.

I decided I was gonna do a comparative analysis between the works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson and JRR Tolkien. Well the teacher came around to everyone and we had to say out loud what we would do. So I told her my chosen subject and she said I could do Tennyson, but not Tolkien. I asked why not. So she said Tennyson was a great English author and poet (I thought he was pretty good too) and Tolkien was just a "fantasy children's scribbler of no real talent." I was not to watse my time on him.

I told her that was for me to decide, and prove or disprove in my paper. She told me that if I compared the two she'd fail me. So I asked her in front of the class who would be writing the paper. She told me I would be. I told her damned right, and I'd do it my way. Screw the grade, it was my paper. This shocked a lot of my classmates, but one guy who I thought would never make waves about anything said out loud, "I'm with him. It's his paper."

So I did it. I got a D- which was just enough to pass the class with a C, and it was the best D I ever got.
I don't hold it against her, and didn't then, but she was wrong.

Wrong as wrongy-wrong.

 

[Nellisir]

Hell, down to Tennyson and TH White, even.

One thing I really miss in modern fantasy is poetry.
Good epic, heroic, mysterious, even romantic poetry.

I think, and this is completely off-the-cuff, biased, socio-psycho-analysis, that comprehension and appreciation of poetry generally requires more time than most members of modern society are willing to give it. I'm certainly in the group of "would like to appreciate poetry, in theory, but never actually read it, in practice". It's simply more work than reading a novel (which in turn is harder than watching tv). I enjoy it when I do it, but it's not something I was ever taught to consider a "natural" sort of reading. And writing anything beyond the simplest cat-bat rhyme is decidedly unnatural.

Which is, all in all, a turnabout from most of history.

 

[Jack7]

I think, and this is completely off-the-cuff, biased, socio-psycho-analysis, that comprehension and appreciation of poetry generally requires more time than most members of modern society are willing to give it. I'm certainly in the group of "would like to appreciate poetry, in theory, but never actually read it, in practice". It's simply more work than reading a novel (which in turn is harder than watching tv). I enjoy it when I do it, but it's not something I was ever taught to consider a "natural" sort of reading. And writing anything beyond the simplest cat-bat rhyme is decidedly unnatural.

Which is, all in all, a turnabout from most of history.

It's an interesting analysis.
I used to have strict opinions on stuff like that.
The older I get the less sure I am about what I used to believe.

I am sure of this much though, poetry, if properly written, and studied, changes the way you think, and perceive of things. Just as does learning geometry. Or a foreign language.

I also used to think that television was little more than brain death. Now I do not, not necessarily anyways. I think television is going through a stage where it is becoming more and more sophisticated. I'm not sure writing is though, in general, or fantasy in particular.

But maybe it is about to undergo a Renaissance.

 

[Nellisir]

I also used to think that television was little more than brain death. Now I do not, not necessarily anyways. I think television is going through a stage where it is becoming more and more sophisticated. I'm not sure writing is though, in general, or fantasy in particular.

But maybe it is about to undergo a Renaissance.

All of this is wholly subjective and generalized:
Most poetry is, to be perfectly obvious, shorter than a novel. Much, much, much shorter than a novel. More is packed into less space. A superficial reading produces something that, frankly, doesn't seem very interesting. A reader is required to interpret, translate, and internalize poetry. The effort is compounded when the poetry is older, in an older style, or deliberately obscure. Many poems also follow strict patterns and arrangements.

A generic fiction novel requires less interpretation. The author provides description, and writing is in the vernacular. Allusions, analogies, and the like are supplemental to the reading, not required for the reading to make anything more than crude sort of sense.

Television (and even moreso movies) go even further. Descriptions aren't even required to be read; they're visually presented. Ditto auditory features. Again, subtext may be (usually is) present, and many movies ("artsy") do require an understanding of the subtext to fully appreciate, but the medium overall requires less upfront work to appreciate.

Poetry predominated for millenia (I think) because the structure and fixed patterns helped memorization and oral transmission. Literacy, cheap paper, and an inclusive, not exclusive (educated/trained/damned lucky) audience brought prose to the forefront of popular culture.

Or so goes my opinion of the moment and off the cuff.

 

[Nellisir]

It's an interesting analysis.

As my landscape architecture studio instructor said: "I won't call it bad, or stupid; I'll call it interesting."