It's The Importance of Being An Evil Guest, and nonsense to both. If you want Gene Wilde's best work of fantasy you should give There Are Pomegranates a try. Classic Wilde, the unreliable narrator is an effeminate libertine whose field of vision never extends beyond an opium den, and it follows him around the room as he tries to find some mythical pomegranates. It takes half the book until you realize

I'd read that.

How much Dunsany have you read exactly

Doing a quick re-read on Alan Garner's The Weirdstone on Brisingamen now. I stopped in the middle last time I read when I was, like, 12, because the diction annoyed the shit out of me but this time round it's going down very well. Recommended stuff, btw, ignore the "children's fantasy" tag, this is far, far darker and subtler than your Rowlings and your Lewises. When I watched The Wicker Man, I got a vibe very much similar to Garner's fantasy novels; both deal with ancient British legends and traditions with a surreal and uncanny perspective.

Man, all this talk of Dunsany makes me wish I had something of his on hand. It's been a good decade since I read him.

So I'm rereading The Lord of the Rings. This used to be an annual event, but after a few years I stopped, mainly because I damn near had the book memorized (as it is my favorite book of all time). The break was worth it, because now I'm savoring it once more. Still have a lot of it memorized though, haha. I really don't agree with people who say that he spends a page describing a tree. I see where they get this idea, but I'd say rather that he elaborately describes the environment as a whole, which may be a pedantic distinction, but it's a distinction all the same. I find that it makes the whole narrative that much richer, as does his exposition on backstory. The other big criticism - that it's boring - is one of my biggest praises. I don't find the 'boring' stuff boring at all. In fact, most of my favorite parts are the quietest ones, when characters are just talking, such as 'The Shadow of the Past' and 'The Council of Elrond'. Too much cheap action and you get... well, you get R. E. Salvatore.

People who complain about Tolkien's pace have probably only read action-packed page-turners like A Song of Ice and Fire. Compared to "serious literature" like Proust and Tolstoy and whoever, Tolkien's pace is lightning-quick.

I'm reading Neuromancer atm. Love the world building, I also love how gritty the cyber underworld still is.

Haha, funny you mention Proust. I had started to read In Search of Lost Time after I finished The Hunt for Red October, and man, what a jarring change of pace. I got a few dozen pages into it, but I had to set it aside. I wasn't in the right mood. Even with that little bit I read, I could see why he's so revered, though. He had some interesting ideas and insights into how the mind works.

Speaking of A Song of Ice and Fire, I was hooked on that series for the first three books, but then he lost me and my opinion on it soured. As I got older, it became less and less the kind of fantasy I like. The 'gritty realism' just irks me, and Martin frustrates me to no end. He's incredibly talented, but his obsession with hacking down characters is fatal to his story, I think; I'm just not able to care about anyone or anything because I feel certain that my emotional investment will be betrayed. That's not good storytelling, in my view.

The problem to me seems not so much that he's willing to kill main characters, but TOO willing to kill them, and then replaces them with people who aren't nearly as cool/interesting. Ned for example is 100x cooler than basically every single other viewpoint character introduced after book 1. If cool characters were followed by cool characters and they all had satisfying arcs that would be one thing, but that's simply not the case.

Also I dunno, having tried to re-read the series, I feel it loses a lot once you already know all the twists and turns. The series relies too much on the element of surprise.

Yeah, agreed about the "cool characters replaced with lame ones" stuff. It's also not the case that 100% of the characters introduced later on are lame, it's just that the more interesting ones get far less text time than the boring ones. Fuck off Sand Snakes/Dorne in general and give me more Coldhands and stuff.

Also I think my enjoyment of it as edgy, brutal, gritty fantasy was dulled a bit after going through The First Law. Those books were equally gritty and brutal but also took care not to have too many characters and side stories. There are still plenty, but they're easier to keep track of in tighter writing and more importantly all interesting. I mean, I do remember really enjoying at least the first three ASoIaF books pretty thoroughly, but the series getting extremely draggy after that has kind of soured me on it, while I only have fond memories of The First Law.

Yeah, I'm with you guys in that while I really enjoyed the first 3 books, feast for crows was pretty boring and I still haven't read the fifth one.

I think the killing off people part is important though. As you guys say, they're often replaced by less interesting characters buuut it makes for a far more intense read. There's a heap of books, movies etc where you can pick really early that "everything will be ok", which really destroys the tension. Well that got blown out of the water when Ned died in the first one and I feel like it really makes the series.

First Law sounds interesting! I will add it to THE LIST.

Yeah I don't normally do audiobooks but I listened to that whole First Law trilogy over five days a couple years ago while I was recovering from eye surgery and couldn't see anything. I actually just saw one of the physical books at a bookstore a few weeks ago and was surprised to see how thick it was because the story is pretty intense in its pacing. They're not high art or anything, but the plentiful combat scenes were really well-written in that visceral gritty style, and the overall story had enough depth and mystery to it to go beyond just some generic fantasy tropes. Solid stuff for sure.

I really liked The First Law a good deal. My only real complaint is that the world felt super shallow and almost like it didn't exist beyond what was happening on the page. Compared to stuff like A Song of Ice & Fire or Malazan where the worldbuilding is super detailed and fully realized, The First Law is lacking heavily. Maybe I just derive too much enjoyment from nice chunks of lore or a coolass magic system, I don't know. But The First Law had some of the best characters I've read in sff, and managed to parody/subvert tropes without being annoyingly wink-wink about it. Definitely worth checking out if you like modern/grimdark fantasy.

What's the best modern epic fantasy? I've never been super into fantasy, but I may wanna give a series a shot at some point. I'm kinda drawn to Malazan for some reason...ASOIAF is way too spartan in its prose for me.

I'm about two thirds of the way through Malazan and it seems pretty untouchable at this point in time really. The writing isn't perfect but it's generally great, and the universe building is like nothing I've ever seen before. Just such a vast, mystical, ancient realm that Erikkson's built.

Are you only reading the Erikkson stuff? I've been really interested in getting into this series but fuuuuuuck it's long and reading the Esslemont stuff in addition seems like it could be worthwhile as it's also considered canonical?

I would read Erikson' "The Book Of the Fallen" series first. I mean you can read Esslemont's together with it, but that can be pretty overwhelming. I'm on book 7 and it's taken me a long time, but it's very worth it!

I've yet to touch any Esslemont stuff myself, at least in full. He's clearly the lesser of the two from what little I've read of his (and from the general sentiment I've seen on fantasy forums).

Yeah, I could use a fantasy in my future lineup but having just finished Wolfe's 12-part books of the [adjective] sun I'm not sure something as expansive as Malazan is really something I can commit to. I still have a bunch of non-fiction books on the shelf I've yet to read, Peace, and Gravity's Rainbow. Plus I need time for my semi-annual Silmarillion reading, dammit!

For all the complaining about ASoIaF, well, it's still better than just about any other fantasy out there, so there.

Joe Abercrombie is getting up there, though. First Law was really good, but some of the world-building and female characterization was a bit weak; he's drastically improved that in his most recent works. Even his so-called "YA" series, Shattered Sea, is fantastic. Definitely one of my favourite authors right now.

I have no doubt ASOIAF is really good plot and character-wise, I just have a hard time with lit that doesn't use some style in the wording.

If Martin doesn't keel over before finishing A Dream of Spring I will inevitably check the series out. Absent that, I'm not embarking on an expansive series filled with rape and incest that doesn't have an ending.


Seriously though, what is it with the trope of "serious" fiction including incest as a theme? This isn't a specific knock on Martin since I haven't read him but a more general thing. Whenever I encounter incest in modern fiction I can't escape the feeling that it isn't there purely for story reasons but partially/largely because it's just the author lazily grasping for nods to the Greeks and Shakespeare as a substitute for being great or "serious." Not limited to books either, the Boss TV series is one of the first things to pop into my head actually.

I think it's because it's a very cheap way to get a strong reaction out of basically everyone - most other kinds of "normal" crimes or immoral deeds like murder or whatever require a lot of groundwork to get a similarly strong emotional reaction. For example, in order for the reader to really care that the villain has killed someone, the author has to take the time to build a connection between the reader and the victim. If the villain just kills someone random, the reader will logically agree that that was a bad thing to do, but they won't really care. However with incest - along with rape, pedophilia, and killing children/cute animals - just the concept of these things is so hateful to most people that, even with minimal groundwork, they can elicit a very strong reaction. At the same time, these things are generally recognized as dramatically cheap - see Roland Emmerich's well-mocked habit of putting cute dogs in danger to drum up easy tension. However, with incest, the Greek tragedy/Shakespeare association gives it a veneer of credibility, so authors can get away with it in a way they can't necessarily with the others.

As far as incest in ASoIaF however, I think that GRRM actually used it pretty appropriately. The relationship between the Lannister twins is "gross", but also very succinctly sums up their narcissism - I can't imagine a greater pinnacle of self-love than to intentionally procreate with your own identical twin. The bit I think was pretty lame was the "shocking" sex scene with 13-year-old Daenerys. There's no reason she couldn't have been 16 at least. Making the character older was one of the few good changes the show made.

I agree with that comparison. The male gaze is not a perspective from which to capably write women, particularly when it comes to their sexuality. He writes battle scenes convincingly well, on the other hand. heh .. men.

Half the World by Joe Abercrombie was really good. I had read the first installment of the Shattered Sea series a year or two ago and while it had all his trademark qualities in place, it felt a bit too streamlined and something was missing at end that would've motivated me to continue with the series. I decided to give it another try; the second one dives deeper into the world and also introduces some really cool characters. It's still more "compact" compared to The First Law, and -I guess due to the YA category- not quite as nasty, but boy is it "still" fun and immersive. Thorn Bathu is great, but the rest of the cast, major or minor, don't have to hide either. Abercrombie has a gift for creating and introducing characters you instantly feel like you know exactly what they're like, without hitting you over the head with it, then building on and fleshing out those impressions with various repeated quirks, mannerisms, speech patterns, etc.

?? GRRM writes women way better than most male authors, I can guarantee you that.


Glad you liked it!

It's canonical yes, but as Esselmont is the far terrible writer and it only serves to make legends into flesh, it mostly just ruins things rather than adding to them so they're not really necessary reading. Then again, your mileage may vary. Personally, I'm more of the kind that the journey is much more important than the destination i.e. I don't really need to know the details or intricacies necessarily if the atmosphere and characters are well done.

Ah ok, I hadn't read any of this stuff yet. I'd heard Esselmont's stuff is worse but I wasn't sure if there was some ideal reading order that had some of his things in the middle or something. I'll just read the main series and decide if I need to know more.

Incidentally, if you feel on the fence about Erikson's writing - particularly the plot, its resolution and the characters - after reading Gardens of the Moon, but feel that the world and the concepts are interesting and have potential, do yourself a favour and read Deadhouse Gates. It starts off a bit slowly, but once it gets going, it's incredibly exciting. Clearly Erikson was still figuring out some things while writing Gardens of the Moon, and the pacing of Deadhouse Gates is also quite uneven. It makes for a fantastic latter two-thirds, but the first third isn't that interesting.

I've actually been meaning to pick up the main Malazan series again (I left off at Reaper's Gale), because the whole setting is just so damn complex and interesting, despite the sometimes laborious and overlong writing I remember. By chance I recently came across the Seguleh entry on the Malazan Wiki and I immediately remembered how friggin' cool they were (not to mention the story of Anomander Rake's visit to their island). Thing is, by now I've probably forgotten like 90% of the characters, world/history and story arcs, so I'd probably have to chew through summaries of the previous novel to get back in the game.

Seeing as it's now finished, how does the series hold up overall? More or less consistent and exciting to the end?

It's all based on history though, there are plenty of examples of kings and warriors having sex with underage girls, '13' believe or not was older than some wives. It's absolutely disgusting but it is history.
This is bullshit. And sexist too.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure A Song of Ice and Fire is fiction. Basing something vaguely on history doesn't give a writer carte blanche to get away with anything. Or did the War of the Roses involve dragons, too?


"The male gaze" doesn't refer to men in general, but rather the way in which male artists/writers/directors often portray women not in a neutral way but rather as if they're being ogled by a horny man, i.e. focusing on and drawing attention to their boobs and butts and whatnot.

So incest, brutal disgusting murders, rape, eating beating hearts, killing of children, every other conceivable horror on earth, all acceptable? GRRM is painting everything with the same brush without consideration for a distinct filter on parts of history. I think it's all distasteful really. I don't think it should be in the book but the way I rationalize his thought is he's holding up a mirror to the evil humans do.
It was a distinct sentence. I took it as such.

Nah, everything else isn't necessarily acceptable, but the books are huge and that's one scene that stood out to me. Many of them are written to be gross, but the sex scene in question seemed written to titillate and be "ok" with the reader, which I found especially distasteful given that she's 13 and Khal Drogo is much older.


Well you clearly didn't know what "male gaze" meant. It's a commonly-used term that means what I described.

Can't decide if I should read 1) more of Jack Vance's Demon Princes. I liked the first one quite a bit, although the idea of him getting better as a writer (some of the language is wonderful, some of it is clunky) appeals to me, so maybe I could skip ahead to one of the later books?

or 2) the Culture series by Banks, starting probably with Player of Games. Never read any of em, but I've heard good things.

To batman, the Esselmont material definitely isn't essential reading to get the main series. Like I said, it fleshes out some of the characters that are mentioned in passing or are only present as legends, but like I also said, Esselmont just isn't a very good writer. Or at least on the books I've read so far.

As Ilwhyan pointed, Gardens of the Moon is just a starter and in a very different style than what came later. A lot of the concepts were rather influx at this point as well.

To Az, personally I found the series lagging a bit at mid-point (fourth and sixth being the weakest - that is House of Chains and Bonehunters, while the fifth, Midnight Tides, was great and refreshing, introducing a whole new cast of characters from before), but enjoyed the last four perhaps best out of the series. Erikson's style had matured at that point and the concepts of the world were more thought out. Probably I should read the whole thing again to get a fresh view on it as I started the series about twelve years prior to finishing it so with some of the first books, it's been a while, in comparison to the last two. But seriously with the last two, I could barely put them down, finding myself waking up on top of them in the morning usually.



I've not read Vance's Demon Princes, but I can definitely recommend these. Banks's sci-fi is probably the best I've read of the genre.

That's high praise, MM, and since Toll the Hounds will be my re-entry point, it seems even better. Thanks.


Out of the four Culture novels I've read, I'd say Player of Games is the best, a tiny bit ahead of or tied with Use of Weapons. Go for it, Banks is a great writer with a wonderful sense of humour and really cool ideas.

It's worth noting that Gardens was written 7-8 years prior to Deadhouse Gates, and in that time Erikson wrote a couple non-genre novels. So yeah, Gardens is essentially a demo.



I find this interesting because I feel the last four were a minor step down from the first six, and I would probably put The Bonehunters as my second favorite after Memories of Ice. I guess it just shows how much one's preference with Malazan is taste and not objective, unlike saying A Feast for Crows is the weakest ASOIAF entry.

Don't be retarded, they're sequential and short anyway. 3-5 are best but 2 is a significant step up from 1. The main thing that sets 1 apart is that the villain is an alien who lacks terribly interesting motives - the rest of the demon princes are all fascinatingly twisted humans, and all in different ways.

I did decide to keep going. I tried to read some Banks and immediately missed Vance's evocative language. I will return to Banks for sure though.

Hildemar 'Beauty' Dasce was more interesting to me than Attel for sure. Dasce coulda been a good primary villain.