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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pants" data-source="post: 2415936" data-attributes="member: 8849">I like lots of stuff, though I usually prefer complex characters in dangerous situations. I like having characters that intrigue me, characters to hate, and characters to like. I hate, hate characters that are nothing more than collections of traits (*coughRobertJordanStevenEriksoncough*) with very little actual depth. R. Scott Bakker, George RR Martin, and Robin Hobb do excellent jobs with their characters, even if I find many of them to be reprehensible creatures.Snappy dialogue is good, though serviceable dialogue is okay, especially since most fantasy authors have clunky dialogue, or modern-stylized dialogue mixed with psuedo-medieval prosey garbage (if you're gonna do one, stick with that one, don't mix styles unless you have a really good reason to).Overly descriptive is bad (Robert Jordan), I don't need to know the exact details on every piece of fabric on a dress or the taste of tea reiterated every time a character takes a sip. Underly descriptive is bad too (Glen Cook, Erikson... to some extent). Someone mentioned not having any idea what a character looked like in Glen Cook's series and I totally agree. I want to have an idea of what a character looks like.Erikson does description very well, though he's sometimes a little too sparse on the details. I like how he drops short descriptions into passages without clunking them all together in one big ham-fisted description. On the other hand, sometimes he leaves things too sparse. Some characters he never really describes fully, and I remember wondering what a T'lan Imass looked like all through Gardens and up into Memories of Ice.Info dumps suck. Go R. Scott Bakker and Steven Erikson!The book must have a map. We're in a different world here, it helps to know where things are or at least I want to have a vague outline of the world.Overall, I really have no preference over 'sword and sorcery' or 'high fantasy,' though I tend to prefer fantasy books that 'do' something new or put new spins on old cliches, like China Mieville, Erikson, Martin, or Bakker.</blockquote>

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