Who writes the best fights?

[demiurge1138]

I'm partial to Fritz Leiber's fights, myself. They tend to be evocative and descriptive, but short. Sometimes it's hard to get into a long fight (that's one of my sticking points with Salvatore; a little too long sometimes).

And the guy who wrote War of the Spider Queen: Dissolution writes the best spell-fights I've read.

Demiurge out.

 

[s/LaSH]

And I also agree that for super powered over the top fight scences that DBZ is the bomb! But that would go under "best animated fights" so-

Technically, DBZ the toon is based on DBZ the manga by Akira Toriyama. Manga = comic, if you will - except unlike Western comics, it's drawn and written by one guy. So I reckon it counts as a book. (A profusely illustrated book, but comics are nevertheless literature. Which could open up all manner of other sources for fights, considering how many comics revolve around violence, but I'll leave that for now.)

It's also a little grodier in parts. The fight between Gohan and Cell's miniature duplicates? Unless they produced a specially censored version just for USAmerican TV, the animated version features Gohan beating them so bad they disintegrate into bursts of dust or... something, the palette got all funny (probably because he was exceeding some relativistic speed limit).

In the manga, there's no burst of dust. There are exploding heads, flying eyeballs, and general splatter each time he touches them. It's not pretty.

The plot also moves faster in the manga. For the record. I'm told the anime was produced at roughly the same time, so they had to slow it down while he spent time actually creating the story. (Comics take a long time for one guy to make, compared to a 30-minute cartoon with who knows how many people on staff.)

Anyway, that's just me being pedantic - or educating the populace.

 

[reddist]

I enjoy reading John Steakley's battle scenes in Armor. Felix is just driven. His fight scenes seem to have this mad tumbling chaos to them.

-Reddist

 

[Dragonblade]

Not sure about the best, but the worst:

Robert Jordan.

Hands down, no contest, worst fights I've ever read.

You are seriously smoking something. Jordan is one of the best fantasy authors when it comes to fights. His sword forms and epic battles with the One Power are awesome. He is a master of "resonance" and depicts very well a D&D-ish world with epic characters walking around.

 

[Dragonblade]

On a further note, David Gemmell would be my second favorite behind Jordan. R.A. Salvatore is good as well.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Too many just to pick a favorite!

Karl Wagner, Alan Dean Foster, Zelazany, Christopher Rowley, David Gimmell, William King, Simon Green, just too many.

Have to say I do not like Robert Jordans fights, those girl are just yak, yak, yak!

 

[Starman]

I'm throwin' my hat in the Robert Jordan camp. I love his fight scenes. The names he gives to the sword maneuvers really make the battles vivid in my mind.

Starman

 

[TiQuinn]

My eyes glaze over when I try to follow some of the 5 to 10 page fights that Salvatore describes. I have no doubt that he has an incredible fight envisioned, but he isn't as effective at communicating that vision, IMO. When it comes to fight scenes, brevity works better than exhausting detail.

Leiber and Martin are two of the best, I think. The battles are short, bloody, and are well described.

 

[buzzard]

I rather like David Drake for his combat scenes. His work as always been combat centric and covers a range from swords to directed energy weapons. I highly recommend the Northworld series. It is really well done and the powered armor combats are quite well done.

buzzard

 

[Rackhir]

I rather like David Drake for his combat scenes. His work as always been combat centric and covers a range from swords to directed energy weapons. I highly recommend the Northworld series. It is really well done and the powered armor combats are quite well done.

buzzard

I'd have to put in a second vote for David Drake. Many authors are decent at describing combat scenes, but only David Drake makes you understand what it's like to BE in combat. However, he is one of those authors that are either fantastic or totaly suck. "Rolling Hot" (now part of the collection "The Tank Lords" iirc) and "Forlorn Hope" are probably his two best. Though FH is probably hard to find.

For military fantasy combats, I would also have to nominate Glen Cook. He doesn't usually give you a blow for blow description, but they clashes of armies are always well described and compelling. Especially as you wait to see what nasty tricks the Black Company has up it's sleeves.

David Webber is among the best ever for space combat, I'd have to say too.