Worst. Swords and Sorcery. Ever.

[AnotherSkip]

Originally posted by austenandrews

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/sf/eyeargon.htm

-AA

 

Erm actually it could have been worse, much worse.

 

I remember this now!!!!

 

yep read it in college. inspired me to write and my friends have never recovered.....

 

though chapter 7 1/2 is better than the others.

 

I also think this inspired one of the better short stories in Dragon magazine wherein the protagonist gets shuffled from wrong story to wrong story (each written in a succedingly worse style) by an uncaring editor

[austenandrews]

Originally posted by Catseye

I *tried* to read the TC series, even though the "hero" made my skin crawl. (He's not even a good anti-hero. He's a slimey self-absorbed amoral a--hole whimp who, when not whining or raping, is sitting in a corner feeling sorry for himself .)

 

But I lost it and just couldn't go on when i hit the "Giant Story." Very reminisicient of Tolkein's writing on Ents-- Donaldson's giants are very long lived and slow moving and giant stories are INCREDIBLY boring. Okay I got it. He didn't have to then make me READ one!

 

At that point I put the book down.

 

Tolkien at least had the sense not make me sit through the Ent-moot in all its detail.

 

Hey, come to think of it, that's about when I put down the book too! I was on a long plane flight at the time, too, so it's not like I had anything else to do.

 

Though for me, I liked the fact that Covenant was self-absorbed and disbelieving of the situation. That worked for me, probably because it demystified a world that was shaping up to be pretty self-absorbed itself, except dull. It was when Covenant sat in a corner for what seemed like a hundred pages that I gave up. I thought I was getting a wierd spin on generic fantasy, then the spin vanished.

 

-AA

[gewing]

I remember I read the first three, and had to restrain my urge to reach into the story and rend TC limb from limb. I read the 4th, and said something to the effect of "Why, Oh WHY, Did I bother to read these?!

 

Originally posted by austenandrews

Hey, come to think of it, that's about when I put down the book too! I was on a long plane flight at the time, too, so it's not like I had anything else to do.

 

Though for me, I liked the fact that Covenant was self-absorbed and disbelieving of the situation. That worked for me, probably because it demystified a world that was shaping up to be pretty self-absorbed itself, except dull. It was when Covenant sat in a corner for what seemed like a hundred pages that I gave up. I thought I was getting a wierd spin on generic fantasy, then the spin vanished.

 

-AA

[projecktzero]

I'm one of the few who like Shannara. The Sword of Shannara was pretty good. Elfstones was good, but Wishsong seemed like a contractual obligation. Years later, I read the prequel, First King of Shannara which was written sometime after the 1st trilogy. The writing was much improved. I like that Sword of Shannara eludes to a past that is like present day but something happened.

 

I read the first Sword of Truth books, and I started the second one. Most of it was pretty inventive, but I couldn't handle 100+ pages of the main character getting tortured. It was a little too graphic, and it went on too long. I put down the 2nd book when some witches/wizards started torturing a couple of new wizards.

 

Oh, my vote for worst would be nearly any low budget sword and sorcery film with bad acting, bad effects, and confusing swiss cheese plots. You know that ones you wasted money at the theater years and years ago.

[caris]

Re: My 2.5 cents.

 

Originally posted by NuSoardGraphite

Personaly, I don't understand where people are comming from when it comes to Jordan. I can understand if you don't like his style of writing or you find much of it boring (I do, sometimes, but just when I think I can't stand the boredom, he has his characters do something that catches my attention again) but I so often hear of Jordan's writings as being "bad" but with no explaination of how or why it is bad (just that it is). I want an explaination now!

 

For me it was about the umpteenth time that some one complained about not understanding the opposite sex. It was redundant, pointless, and just plain stupid. Why cann't any of these characters put a little effort into communicating with others.

[Catseye]

"I think that if someone can't communiate, the least he can do is shut up about it." -- Tom Lehrer

 

[Catseye]

Originally posted by projecktzero

I'. I like that Sword of Shannara eludes to a past that is like present day but something happened..

 

If that particular fantasy plot truns you on (I forget guys, is it standard fantasy plot 7 or plot 9 ??) then you might try Empire of the East. I haven't read it but I've been told by people I respect that its quite good and deals head on with this concept. (A fantasy world that comes about because of a technological catstrophe.)

 

Ofcourse Planet of the Apes came before all of them and may arguably be the first and original use of this plot.

[Stormraven]

Originally posted by tkdguy

These movies are more properly classified as martial arts films rather than sword & sorcery films, but they qualify for the worst list:

 

Fist of the North Star: Some of the action was all right, but the rest of it was BAD. I don't remember most of the cast, except for one Costas Mandelor (sp?), who played the villain. Hey, how can you forget that name?

 

Circle of Iron: Miles O'Keefe and David Carradine played multiple characters in this turkey. Either the filmmakers had a tight budget, or most actors had the sense (or weren't desperate enough) to stay out of this one.

 

Never saw the first but I loved the second. I'll grant immediately that it's not for everyone, but it's a really good movie that explores Zen in an interesting way. Granted, I'd have preferred better actors in it, but they did a decent enough job.

[Pattern Ghost]

Someone said Gor was direct to video: I hate to say it, but I caught that one in the theatre. The second may have been direct to video, though. The books went WAY downhill after about the fourth or fifth. Up until then, the S&M element wasn't so pronounced (to put it mildly) and they read like mediocre adventure fiction. I don't know how bad the DnD movie was, but it'd be tough to top Gor on the crap-o-meter. I actually put out my mind's eye after seeing that tripe.

[BNakagawa]

My vote would have to go to the Lou Ferigno Hercules movie(s)

 

Special mention to Conan the Destroyer.

[FenrisUlf]

Having looked back through my own extensive collection of heroic fantasy, I can honestly say that some of the WORST HF I ever read was in Jessica Amanda Salmonson's first _Amazons_ collection.

 

It did have some good stories, mind, by authors like Andre Norton and Tanith Lee -- but it also had some unspekable drek by friends of Salmonson. Judging by what they turned in, I can only suppose Salmonson decided to run stories by her radical feminist friends to 'balance out' the stories told by the more apolitical (and professional) authors.

 

Case in point -- 'The Rape Patrol', a story about Goddess-worshipping women who track down rapists and sacrifice them to the Goddess in modern-day NYC. The tale was vile, not least for its hideous view that all males are rapists. Which, of course, excuses the in-story behavior of the women, who kill and abuse men left and right. It reads like a feminist version of the nastier 'Gor' or 'Horseclans'.

[Old Man]

Not anywhere near that bad, but I stopped reading Storm Constantine's 'Wraeththu" after chapter one made it clear that the whole book was a work of homoerotic fantasy. Not that I'm against it in RL, but I didn't really feel like reading about it. In fact I prefer my fantasy to be pretty much asexual.

[Thag13]

I just could never finish the Wheel of time series. And meeting Mr Jordan was a mistake also. Granted he could have been having a bad weekend, but I thought he was a jerk.

[Lord Mhoram]

My tastes in fantasy are rather odd. I don't really like a whole lot. I love Donaldson and Tolkien, as mentioned. Most of the rest of what I like is light fantasy - The Bazil Broketail series, Bahzell Bahnakson, some Hambly, the Riftwar books, spellsinger from Foster, Anything Harry Turtledove does, Eddings (even though it is derivitive), the first few Matt Mantrell books by Stasherff, and anything set in the world that Dragaera resides in by Brust, and Card's Seventh Son books. Most of the rest of my time is spent in SF.

 

 

In defense of Covenant - he is self absorbed and whiny. But to me there is never "nothing going on" - there may not be a whole lot of phsycial activity, but there is a whole lot of psychology going on. Thomas' situation is a psychodrama, and is played out in the Land - which is why we get so much of what he was thinking, and feeling even if it was none to nice. Part of the reason I like it so much, is as a teen I read it and really identified with Covenant (at the time I had undiagnosed clinical depression and spent a lot of time near suicidal or worse) here was someone who seemed to be as bad off and as much of a jerk as me, and he is still the titular hero of the books. As I grew up and reread the books, more and more I feel that Mhoram is the true hero of the first series, just not the protagonist.

 

I do find it amusing that the writer who wrote Covenant, and had the vile thing he did to Lena happen, in his next fantasy series won an award from a major femenist organiztion for a female character that shows all the things they look for in female empowerment (Teresa in the Mordant's need books).

 

 

And as to the worst, I can't believe I forgot Gor. I read half of a book and gave up.

[Nevenall]

I kind of liked the Covenant books too, but his other pair of fantasy books. The Mirror of Her Dreams, and A Man Walks Through It, are quite good. Better then most of the stuff I've seen lately.

However, if you think that Covenant was a nasty guy you should try reading the first book of Donaldson's science fiction series.

[Lord Mhoram]

Originally posted by Nevenall

However, if you think that Covenant was a nasty guy you should try reading the first book of Donaldson's science fiction series.

 

Yeah both Angus Thermopolye and Nick Succorso make Covenant look like a saint.

[tetsujin28]

Another one for the Convenant books. What a waste of time.

 

Mercedes Lackey

Storm Constantine

Shannara

And here's one that hasn't been mentioned: The Hildebrandt Bros. Urshurak, a complete load of hooey.

[Count Zero]

Originally posted by Lord Mhoram

In responce to the thread title (swords and sorcery) I would have to say Conan, Elric and the Fafred/Grey mouser stories. I read great chunks of all of these books (due to strong recomendations) and wanted that much time of my life back. After that I pretty much avoided the subgenre.

 

I picked up the Fafred/Grey Mouser series when White Wolf released them not to long ago. I read the first story and there were things I liked about it here and there, but as a whole I felt like the writer was a sex depraved looser. I really get tired of fantasy that is almost porno. It get really old. I am getting the new collections of the Conan stories soon, I am hoping that don't suck as much as the Fafred series. I have the feeling that it will because both sets of stories are from the same era.

 

Jonathan

[Catseye]

I wouldn't puts Fahfred and the Grey Mouser in the same sub-genre as Conan and Elric myself.

 

The defining difference is humor. F&G is full of humor and social satire.

("Iassac of the Jug" is one of the funniest satires on the "check your brain at the door" form of Christianity I've ever read.)

 

The other two are dead serious attempts at epic fantasy story telling.

[FenrisUlf]

Fritz Leiber a sex freak???

 

Originally posted by Count Zero

I picked up the Fafred/Grey Mouser series when White Wolf released them not to long ago. I read the first story and there were things I liked about it here and there, but as a whole I felt like the writer was a sex depraved looser.

 

Guessing that you meant 'depraved loser' there.

 

No offense, Count Zero, but you might want to watch the remarks about Leiber. If there's any old-school SF fans around here they will definitely view them as 'fighting words'.

 

And as far as Leiber being obsessed with sex -- from what I've read of him, he thought it was /society/ that was obsessed with sex. Hell, he thought PLAYBOY was pure crap and once idly tossed off a remark that 'the only reason you see so many ridiculously busty women in fantasy and SF is due, I think, to homosexual editors' contempt for women and those men simple-minded enough to like them.' He did several non-fantasy stories in which he lampooned kinkiness.

[Count Zero]

Re: Fritz Leiber a sex freak???

 

Originally posted by FenrisUlf

Originally posted by Count Zero

I picked up the Fafred/Grey Mouser series when White Wolf released them not to long ago. I read the first story and there were things I liked about it here and there, but as a whole I felt like the writer was a sex depraved looser.

 

Guessing that you meant 'depraved loser' there.

 

No offense, Count Zero, but you might want to watch the remarks about Leiber. If there's any old-school SF fans around here they will definitely view them as 'fighting words'.

 

And as far as Leiber being obsessed with sex -- from what I've read of him, he thought it was /society/ that was obsessed with sex. Hell, he thought PLAYBOY was pure crap and once idly tossed off a remark that 'the only reason you see so many ridiculously busty women in fantasy and SF is due, I think, to homosexual editors' contempt for women and those men simple-minded enough to like them.' He did several non-fantasy stories in which he lampooned kinkiness.

 

That may well be that he thought society was obsesed with sex, but I was rather turned off by the story when the first story I read had a sex scene in the first few pages. I felt like I was reading a book by a guy who never got out of the house. While there were aspects of the story that I liked (I thought the Ice Witches were cool) and the culture wasn't bad, it just seemed to have a little too much sex. That might have been because the people were "barbarians".

 

Jonathan

[assault]

Originally posted by Count Zero

I am getting the new collections of the Conan stories soon, I am hoping that don't suck as much as the Fafred series.

 

OK, well, don't bother reading the Conan stories.

 

If you do, don't bother telling us what you thought of them, because we're not interested.

 

Another author you shouldn't read is Poul Anderson. In particular, avoid "Three Hearts and Three Lions" and "The Broken Sword". You'd hate them.

 

Also: avoid Fletcher Pratt. Totally old school. "The Well of the Unicorn" would particularly annoy you.

 

Alan

[austenandrews]

Slam away, Count Zero. That's what this thread is about.

 

Nothing is sacred. If it is, all the better reason to slam it.

 

-AA

[keithcurtis]

Originally posted by assault

OK, well, don't bother reading the Conan stories.

 

If you do, don't bother telling us what you thought of them, because we're not interested.

 

Actually, I'm interested. It's kind of what this thread is about.

 

Keith "A man should speak his own mind" Curtis

[Count Zero]

Originally posted by assault

OK, well, don't bother reading the Conan stories.

 

If you do, don't bother telling us what you thought of them, because we're not interested.

 

Another author you shouldn't read is Poul Anderson. In particular, avoid "Three Hearts and Three Lions" and "The Broken Sword". You'd hate them.

 

Also: avoid Fletcher Pratt. Totally old school. "The Well of the Unicorn" would particularly annoy you.

 

If old school means so much sex it feels like I am reading stories to Penthouse, then I think I will pass... If that is what I have to expect them perhaps I will just skip Conan all together.

 

So I take it Paul Anderson and Fletcher Pratt can't write a story without a unecessary sex scene? If they can I might be interested. I get tired of the equivilant of chainmail bikinis and hot, elven girls, if this is what I have to expect from most fantasy, then I might have to pass. I grew up a while back, I like a solid story and can do without gratuitous sex. Please tell me Conan isn't that bad. If the other guys, who I have never heard of, are the same maybe I just need to give up on fantasy once and for all. It seems to be part of the genre. I'm not 14 anymore.

 

Please tell me there is some really good fantasy out there that is mature.

 

Jonathan