Worst. Swords and Sorcery. Ever.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Originally posted by austenandrews

Yeah, it's a shame that the business aspect drives the genre so much. On the other hand, most fantasy fans I know don't seem to mind long series. I still don't get statements like "The first three books sucked, but then they got good." If the first book sucks, why do you read the second one? But they do, and the publishers know it.

 

From a writer's perspective, though, I'm all for those multi-book contracts.

 

-AA

 

Nearly everyone I know that regularly reads Fantasy fiction not only "does not mind" but preferrs long-running series (at least 3 books, preferrably more), myself included. Its the written equivalent to following a long-running TV series, and well, since we almost never seem to get a Fantasy TV series that lasts past the Pilot (Herc and Xena aside) we gotta go to the novels for our weekly "fix".

[caris]

Originally posted by AnotherSkip

Hmmm Well Mercedes Lackey is breaking the "Must... Have... Trillogy..." loop that many people get pigeonholed into.

Frankly I suspect it is an Editor thing. (trilogies SELL! If it worked for Tolkien it will work for you!!!!)

 

Excuse me? I love Misty's work to death, but she is as much a victim of her own success as any author. Even most of her stand alone books are part of a larger world and or series. Granted she has been able to get away with her retelling of the fairy tales as pretty independent, but they are still obviously of the same world as each other. I doubt she would have been able to sell them to her publisher, if she hadn't demonstrated that they could be marketed as a series if they wanted.

[Old Man]

Originally posted by NuSoardGraphite

Nearly everyone I know that regularly reads Fantasy fiction not only "does not mind" but preferrs long-running series (at least 3 books, preferrably more), myself included.

 

Not me, not necessarily. I want the series to go on as long as it needs to and then stop. Angus Wells' Godwars trilogy was one book too short. Sean Russell's Initiate Brother duology was one book too long. And I wish Moorcock would quit writing Elric books because they're getting worse and worse.

[austenandrews]

Originally posted by AnotherSkip

On Tolken and Sex: There is something kinda strange from this side of the sexual revolution about Sam Gamgees "loyalty" to Frodo. Perhaps it is one of the great things we have lost to the changes of times that men have a difficulty trying to express asexual fellowship without someone thinking they are trying to lay the object of their affection.

 

Yeah, somehow I doubt the movie ROTK will show the scene where Sam decides that he loves Frodo.

 

I can probably summarise the plot: Virgin girl resists attraction to hearty male put in her power. Their relationship changes to him being in power but he, though tempted, does not take advantage of her. when the situation again puts her in power they have an intial fling. -wallow in self doubt wallow in self doubt wallow in self doubt-. end of book triumph over evil that is significantly less important than the relationship between the heroic couple.

 

It seems that romance novels are not concerned with plot (as in "protagonist accomplishes A and B to overcome obstacle C"), but really I think romance readers think of the flings, power shifts and wallowing -as- the plot. Where you and I are looking for "a hero defeats a villain," romance readers are looking for "a heroine hooks up with a hero." That's their plot.

 

On a whim, I once ran a romance game for my wife and a female friend. I started out with my usual simultaneous plotlines, judging which subplots the players latched onto, progressing each one to some degree every session, etc. I soon realized that I was doing all that work for nothing. They didn't care one whit about my haunted-manor plotline or my handsome-lord's-dark-past plotline or my murder-on-the-moors plotline ... none of it interested them. What they wanted was for me to complicate the PCs' relationships with their respective love interests. That was it. When you boil it down, essentially I just set up scenarios for the PCs to argue with their lovers and eventually make up again. I didn't understand it but I ran it, and they loved it like no one's ever loved any game I've run. Strange.

 

(Let me also say that running a romance game has advantages for the GM like no other game I've run, either. )

 

-AA

[Old Man]

Originally posted by austenandrews

(Let me also say that running a romance game has advantages for the GM like no other game I've run, either. )

 

Why? Was it a LARP?

[gewing]

My first D&D character was a fighter named Taran, I was 13. "The Dark is Rising" series is another good one.

 

Originally posted by assault

I was jerking your chain.

 

Actually, it sounds like Conan isn't your cup of tea. At least, there are some bits in there that are a bit iffy, and would probably set you off.

 

The other authors and books I mentioned are classics - in the "if you haven't read them, you haven't read fantasy" category. They are the kind of guys who show up most of the more recent writers as the hacks and drones they are.

 

And I suspect you wouldn't like them.

 

Still, try them. The only one of the books I mentioned that I would suggest avoiding is "Well of the Unicorn". Other Fletcher Pratt is OK, and I thoroughly recommend his "Harold Shea" series (co-written with L Sprague de Camp).

 

Anderson wrote lots of classic SF, and only a few fantasy books - but at least two of them are gems.

"The Broken Sword" is grim, dark, Vikingish stuff, with doomed heroes, and seriously high powered magic. It's not really fun to read, but it's... wow... Give it a try.

 

"Three Hearts and Three Lions" doesn't have much sex, or at least not enough for it to be a problem for anyone who doesn't have a problem. It's a damn fine read. So try it. It's a lot less grim than "The Broken Sword", and might be the better one to read first.

 

If you don't mind juveniles, you might consider Lloyd Alexander's "Prydain" books - "The Book of Three" etc. No sex there, and a lot more plot and characterisation than you would expect.

 

I don't think much of most modern fantasy writing. I started with Tolkien and Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy (when it was a trilogy!), and then went on to Conan and John Carter of Mars... Of course, I was in my teens at the time.

 

I don't read much fantasy any more - I'm more into detective fiction writers like Dashiell Hammett. It's still pulp literature, but Hammett, at least, is a better writer than most fantasy authors.

 

You might consider him, if fantasy isn't to your tastes.

 

And there's always Shakespeare, Homer, Virgil, Spenser, Ariosto and Malory. There's nothing like getting your fantasy from the source.

 

Alan

[Count Zero]

Originally posted by assault

This is called page bloat, and is a result of poor editing.

 

If you look at the _good_ Conan stories, as opposed to the ones written within the last twenty years, you will notice that they are very sparsely written. This is particularly true of those written by Howard himself. The Carter/de Camp stories are a bit more verbose. The fake stories are almost as flatulent as anything else on the market.

 

Of course, these are the very same Conan stories that feature some rather gratuitous T&A! Actually, that's part of the formula - it's not a Conan story without it, any more than it's a Conan story without the supernatural bit. Actually, the latter is probably more disposable...

 

Interestingly enough, I was watching the special features from the SE Two Towers DVD (I had the day off and didn't feel like painting miniatures) and they mentioned that Tolkien did this quite a bit... because he was an amateur. I don't think the details like Tolkien's are a problem... because he executed it well, but I figure the details of every meal the characters eat is a bit much, unless they are trying to show the how horrible or exceptional it is for that unique moment.

 

Jonathan

[Count Zero]

Originally posted by AnotherSkip

On Tolken and Sex: There is something kinda strange from this side of the sexual revolution about Sam Gamgees "loyalty" to Frodo. Perhaps it is one of the great things we have lost to the changes of times that men have a difficulty trying to express asexual fellowship without someone thinking they are trying to lay the object of their affection.

 

From what I understand it was actually suppose to be akin to the relationship between an officer and his "backman". Effectively the unlisted or non-com who is there to take care of the officier.

 

Jonathan

[austenandrews]

Originally posted by Count Zero

From what I understand it was actually suppose to be akin to the relationship between an officer and his "backman". Effectively the unlisted or non-com who is there to take care of the officier.

 

Say no more! "Backman," eh? Eh? Know what I mean? Say no more! A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat!

 

(See, this is why we can't have nice things anymore.)

 

-AA

[KA.]

Originally posted by Count Zero

From what I understand it was actually suppose to be akin to the relationship between an officer and his "backman". Effectively the unlisted or non-com who is there to take care of the officier.

 

Jonathan

 

I think you mean, weird as it sounds, batman

as in: (from Merriam Webster's M-W.com)

Main Entry: bat·man

Pronunciation: 'bat-m&n

Function: noun

Etymology: French bât packsaddle

Date: 1755

: an orderly of a British military officer

 

By the way, I think I can recommend some fantasy titles you might enjoy:

 

Eunuchorn by Munk - story of a unicorn who loses his horn and has no desire whatsoever . . . to retrieve it.

 

Armless Antoine on The Island of Solitude by Bishop -

tale about a man without arms, shipwrecked alone on a magical island.

 

The Swordless Knight by M.P. Tent - The story of a knight, trying to recover his lost 'sword'. Sadly, he never does.

 

 

 

Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!

I am being a jerk and I know it.

I don't like soft-core porn masquerading as fantasy either.

 

On the other hand, the idea of guys running around killing things without ever showing any interest in normal sexual relations, makes me a bit uncomfortable too. It is more like a glorification of serial killing than anything I would find "heroic".

 

I read plenty of books without any real sexual content.

 

I like the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis, I like Tolkien, but when you get to more of the "kill things with swords" type stories, a total lack of normal sexual interest (not rape, and not pornography, but enough to let us know that the hero is not the next Hannibal Lector) can be disturbing too.

 

And sorry again for teasing you. Sometimes this stuff pops into my head and I can't seem to keep it off the keyboard.

 

KA.

[Count Zero]

Originally posted by KA.

I think you mean, weird as it sounds, batman

as in: (from Merriam Webster's M-W.com)

Main Entry: bat·man

Pronunciation: 'bat-m&n

Function: noun

Etymology: French bât packsaddle

Date: 1755

: an orderly of a British military officer

 

On the other hand, the idea of guys running around killing things without ever showing any interest in normal sexual relations, makes me a bit uncomfortable too. It is more like a glorification of serial killing than anything I would find "heroic".

 

I like the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis, I like Tolkien, but when you get to more of the "kill things with swords" type stories, a total lack of normal sexual interest (not rape, and not pornography, but enough to let us know that the hero is not the next Hannibal Lector) can be disturbing too.

 

And sorry again for teasing you. Sometimes this stuff pops into my head and I can't seem to keep it off the keyboard.

 

KA.

 

Ah... batman.... damn brits on the DVD... stupid accent... we should conquer them and make them speak English like us.

 

I honestly hadn't really notice the teasing. I agree with you though... the flipside of the coin with excessive violence is just as bad. I like my fantasy characters to be more... well normal (psychologically speaking). Likes sex like any normal person and kills if they have to but doesn't reval in it.

 

Jonathan

[Catseye]

Originally posted by Count Zero

From what I understand it was actually suppose to be akin to the relationship between an officer and his "backman". Effectively the unlisted or non-com who is there to take care of the officier.

 

"They say they make boys into men in the Brittish navy, well I can tell you first hand that they made me!"

 

A lewd line from some comedy i saw. Sorry, I just couldn't resist. But the fact of the matter is there is quite a history of "interesting" man to man relationships in the armed forces goign all the way back to ancient greece.

 

We just pretend by mutual agreement that they don't exist.

[tkdguy]

Wasn't that line from "Zorro the Gay Blade"?

[Catseye]

Okie two last comments on this silly subjects...

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by AnotherSkip

On Tolken and Sex: There is something kinda strange from this side of the sexual revolution about Sam Gamgees "loyalty" to Frodo. Perhaps it is one of the great things we have lost to the changes of times that men have a difficulty trying to express asexual fellowship without someone thinking they are trying to lay the object of their affection.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

What we've lost, if anything I think, is our shared agreement to pretend certain fictions. While its certainly true that one can have a close relationship with another human that is platonic (a term the irony of which I'll leave for another time), recent brain scan studys have in fact shown that in the human male the emotion "love" is tightly linked to sex drive. (In the female its more linked to other emotions and community/bonding things. Not to say that, as in all things, there aren't outlying examples in both populations.)

 

On the subject of Sex in literature., It can be handled maturely or immaturely. The same thing can be said for violence.

 

The difference is that, beign a puritan society, we tend to react more negatively to overt discussions of sexuality, mature OR immature, then we do to violence.

 

Just about all "adventure" oriented american fiction is, to varying degrees, imamture in its dealing with violence but noone seems to notice or care.

[AnotherSkip]

Originally posted by caris

Excuse me? I love Misty's work to death, but she is as much a victim of her own success as any author. Even most of her stand alone books are part of a larger world and or series. Granted she has been able to get away with her retelling of the fairy tales as pretty independent, but they are still obviously of the same world as each other. I doubt she would have been able to sell them to her publisher, if she hadn't demonstrated that they could be marketed as a series if they wanted.

 

True But a thing i like about her Valdemar is that the history _is_ relevant. "Why are we doing this?" "Because 2000 years ago an ArtificerMage tried to kill the biggest evil overlord the world was ever going to see...." and they more or less very hazily reference legendary

 

Very much so. She takes bits of her histories and then develops them.

Before the book Burning Brightly all we ever knew about Lavan Firestorm (one of the previous pyrokinetics to the "current age" in the Valdemar world) was: Where he died, against who, when he approximately existed, maybe a song and a few paragraphs. Now we have a (Duh) book about that period in time.

 

Also things that happened in the past get explained. Like: why was X war fought and we get an explanation of what happened, along with a good why. When prior to this we had a couple of paragraphs from only a single point of view.

 

 

Personally the one Story I have been looking for is a Baron Valdemar (yes _that_ Baron) story. Perhaps even a Trilogy. I could do with a trillogy there.

 

As of a matter of a fact if Valdemar were to be analogised into a tv series it would be bigger than the ST Television franchise.

 

though I think they could never capture an audience large enough if it were done to my standards.

[Galadorn]

I consider any movie under three stars not worth watching - I have better things to do with my time. And this includes Krull, which I thought was good at the time.

 

I try to focus on those movies that meet the three-star cut: Lord of the Rings, Dragonslayer, Lady Hawk, et. al. Problem is we fantasy lovers are so fantasy movie-starved, that many of us accept as good, that which is only fair - like Conan the Movie. The books are much better, though harsher. Conan #2 met the cut, I think.

 

I would echo alot of posts here. I haven't seen anything that I would disagree with, that I've notice so far.

[Galadorn]

Originally posted by archer

The Dungeonmaster. Starring Richard Moll (aka Bull from "Night Court") as a dark lord. It was bad and not in a "so bad it's funny" way.

 

The Shanarra books.

 

LOL. Indeed.

[gewing]

Thats kind of funny. Except for acting quality, I though Conan the Barbarian was MUCH better than Conan the Destroyer. Might have been my opinion that the soundtrack is absolutely awesome and the fact that the Princess in the second one drove me nuts.

 

Originally posted by Galadorn

I consider any movie under three stars not worth watching - I have better things to do with my time. And this includes Krull, which I thought was good at the time.

 

I try to focus on those movies that meet the three-star cut: Lord of the Rings, Dragonslayer, Lady Hawk, et. al. Problem is we fantasy lovers are so fantasy movie-starved, that many of us accept as good, that which is only fair - like Conan the Movie. The books are much better, though harsher. Conan #2 met the cut, I think.

 

I would echo alot of posts here. I haven't seen anything that I would disagree with, that I've notice so far.

[Old Man]

Originally posted by gewing

Thats kind of funny. Except for acting quality, I though Conan the Barbarian was MUCH better than Conan the Destroyer. Might have been my opinion that the soundtrack is absolutely awesome and the fact that the Princess in the second one drove me nuts.

 

I could go on for days about why Barbarian was better than Destroyer, but probably the main reason is that Destroyer lacked both the epic feel and the character motivation of Barbarian. Barbarian starts off with the decapitation of boy Conan's mother before his very eyes and just builds and builds to the final confrontation at the standing stones. In Destroyer, Conan undertakes a quest mostly because he has nothing better to do.

 

And the soundtrack to Barbarian has to be one of the best movie soundtracks of all time. It was then mangled and reused in Destroyer.

[gewing]

Yeah, Destroyer felt like some of my old gaming groups stuff.

 

"I'm bored, what are we doing this weekend?"

" I Don't know, lets wander around and find out what kind o stupidity we can find. "

 

I might hve considered it an ALMOST adequate sequel if they had at least brought Subotai back.

The "duel" between the wizards was one of the better parts, imo. Grace Jones was OK, but...

 

the ape wizard bit was pretty silly, but I liked the way it ended, I guess.

 

Man, It has been so long since I saw it, I am having trouble remembering anything except the fight in the ruins and the fight at the end.

 

Lucky ME.

 

Originally posted by Old Man

I could go on for days about why Barbarian was better than Destroyer, but probably the main reason is that Destroyer lacked both the epic feel and the character motivation of Barbarian. Barbarian starts off with the decapitation of boy Conan's mother before his very eyes and just builds and builds to the final confrontation at the standing stones. In Destroyer, Conan undertakes a quest mostly because he has nothing better to do.

 

And the soundtrack to Barbarian has to be one of the best movie soundtracks of all time. It was then mangled and reused in Destroyer.

[Galadorn]

Originally posted by gewing

Thats kind of funny. Except for acting quality, I though Conan the Barbarian was MUCH better than Conan the Destroyer. Might have been my opinion that the soundtrack is absolutely awesome and the fact that the Princess in the second one drove me nuts.

 

Well the scene I liked was the wizard battle at the stone mouth/door. Pretty funny scene, as well as riveting.

 

Actually, maybe the third was better. It's been so long since I've seen any Conan movies, I could hardly remember. LOL

[keithcurtis]

Third???

 

I remember waiting in frustration through the whole of the abysmal Red Sonja waiting for Arnold to revela that he was Conan. If he wasn't, then what the heck was he doing in the picture?

 

It's like watching Young Indiana Jones and having Harrison Ford be cast, only to find out that he plays a British sea capatin or something.

 

Keith "Master of the weak analogy" Curtis

[Galadorn]

Originally posted by keithcurtis

I remember waiting in frustration through the whole of the abysmal Red Sonja waiting for Arnold to revela that he was Conan. If he wasn't, then what the heck was he doing in the picture?

 

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, way back when it was made. LOL.

 

It's like watching Young Indiana Jones and having Harrison Ford be cast, only to find out that he plays a British sea captain or something.

 

Well, I guess it depends on how you do it. Many actors have shown up in sequels to their movies, with beards or such, and then revealed they were really who you thought they were. LOL. But, they could have been just another character.

[Old Man]

Originally posted by Galadorn

Well the scene I liked was the wizard battle at the stone mouth/door. Pretty funny scene, as well as riveting.

 

That scene might have been good except for the evil sorcerer's Wonder Woman ringing bracelet schtick. What was up with that? Plus it amounted to another telekinetic duel between wizards, which is so common in Hollywood films it really annoys me.

[Old Man]

Originally posted by keithcurtis

I remember waiting in frustration through the whole of the abysmal Red Sonja waiting for Arnold to revela that he was Conan. If he wasn't, then what the heck was he doing in the picture?

 

He was finishing up his contract to do three Conan films so that he could get on with the Terminator. The Conan series threatened to typecast him, so he wanted out as quickly as possible.

 

While Sonja was also a Howard creation I don't think they really had much to do with each other. I don't even think Sonja was set in the Hyborian Age. If so, it would have been really strange for Conan himself to show up in the film. But I could be wrong.

 

I know that didn't really answer your rhetorical question, but hey.