So you may have heard of Eragon by the teen writer Christopher Paolini. It topped the bestseller list and spawned a movie most notable for special effects
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Teenage WastelandrobertmaprilApril 15 2007, 04:03:42 UTC
I'm sure he knows. I think some writers of Young Adult or Children's fiction are simply lazy. And I'm not gonna go on record here because I have not nor do I intend to read the books (I haven't even read the Harry Potter books, for shame!) but I think that someone somewhere said "we need a franchise, quick and dirty-like, to sell books when JK isn't" and in steps this Eragon thing. It's the same theory behind why you always see disaster movies travel in pairs. Two comet movies, two volcano movies, two Mars movies, any two movies starring Ben Stiller...
I generally take a pass on all High Fantasy these days because of the Tolkien parallels. The last HF book I read was Bridge of Birds and that was because it was (a) recommended to me and (b) set somewhere other than a pastiche of dimly thought-out parallels to Medieval Europe and Elves that, prior to the 1930's, never looked much like people and lived in Great Cities with their Rings of Adamant(TM). One of these days I'll get around to reading the Potter books in part on the strength
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Re: Teenage WastelandlockholmApril 15 2007, 04:22:06 UTC
Interesting. I don't really know the definition of High Fantasy now that I think about it, but I never would have put Bridge of Birds in that category before tonight.
I'll definitely add my vote to the "read the potter books" camp, and you don't need any persuasion to stay away from Eragon. I'll hold off on any other kid/YA lit fantasy recommendations. ;)
The idea was proposed in the numerous reviews on Amazon that this book would be disgustingly calculated if it came from an adult - taking all the best bits from good successful authors and making one mega-story. I'm a little unwiling to attribute that kind of calculation to the author, at least when he started writing the fantasy novel that mommy and daddy had published, but those very characteristics might be why the mega-marketing-machine has seized upon it to such effect. Blech.
Re: Teenage WastelandrobertmaprilApril 15 2007, 07:44:34 UTC
Okay, so I looked this kid up just now because your initial post didn't seem as clear to me that he was an actual youngster as opposed to just someone writing for youngsters. Hrm. Conflicted. On the one hand, I feel almost obligated to say, hey, good on ya. The guy's 23, my brother's age, and wrote himself a novel by the time he was nineteen. Better than I've done with my time. And it does make the sponge like nature of his world a lot more understandable. Not a damn thing I wrote when I was nineteen was worth anything on its own. Which is not to say again that there aren't good artists that have produced good material before they're twenty, I just don't feel from what it sounds like that Paolini's one of them.
He has the book published by his parents too, in a vanity press, which, while the ads in Writer Magazine remind me that Joyce and Woolf did it, I have never and will never trust or respect. And of course he knows. You show me somebody under the age of Seventy who is not my Children's Lit prof in college who doesn't know from
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Re: Teenage WastelandlockholmApril 15 2007, 14:30:51 UTC
Ooops, sorry. In my efforts to be compact I thought "teen writer" conveyed his age without considering it might simply convey his genre. Yeah, he's still a kid, though by the time he wrote the afterword to this latest book he was 21
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Yeah, Eddings has pretty much one set of characters that he deploys with minor variations in this and other series (the Sparhawk books read pretty similarly) To his credit, the books are fairly entertaining, but after a while they all blend together
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While agree that the Elenium and its twin suffered the same problems as Eddings' other efforts, I found the political aspects, along with the more innovative approach towards magic, refreshing. That said, still a bit of a repetitive hack.
Sadly, I find myself inexplicably drawn to Jordan when in airport bookshops and finding nothing else to read (Hudson News has appalling selection, unsurprisingly). Also, sadly, I actually almost enjoyed his last effort, as the story actually moved forward. I say almost enjoyed, as it did nothing to remove the utter disgust I had at his previous book where, literally, nothing happened for 900+ pages. Setup, schmetup.
I don't think Martin is that similar to Tolkien but in name. There are dragons, yes. But that's about the extent of the similarity. I think you're apt in your description of Martin as in the historical fantasy genre that isn't mainly about magic, wizards, conflicts with gods, or similar things in the general fantasy genre.
Isle of View, MathavengerrobertmaprilApril 15 2007, 16:03:52 UTC
I'm gonna step in and defend Piers Anthony here just for a moment, him being such an influence on me as a kid. I think his Xanth books did quite a bit, much of it tongue-in-cheek, with their setting, while the Incarnations series, while it puttered off and became boring and incomprehensible, was also fantastic in its setting and in the anthological nature of its story, which upset me as a sixth grader expecting to follow Zane through all the books, but strikes me as pretty ballsy now.
"Maybe he says to himself every night: all fantasy is derivative. I wonder if all this acclaim for a reasonably crappy set of books will allow him to view them with an unbiased eye as he ages. Maybe he'll still be able to learn from them so that his inevitable Paolini's Lisramillion will never come out."
No; do you know what he says every night? He goes to the window, throws it open with glee, shouts "SUCKERRRRRRRRRRRS!" at the top of his lungs, and then giggles himself to sleep on a pillow stuffed with $100 bills.
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I generally take a pass on all High Fantasy these days because of the Tolkien parallels. The last HF book I read was Bridge of Birds and that was because it was (a) recommended to me and (b) set somewhere other than a pastiche of dimly thought-out parallels to Medieval Europe and Elves that, prior to the 1930's, never looked much like people and lived in Great Cities with their Rings of Adamant(TM). One of these days I'll get around to reading the Potter books in part on the strength ( ... )
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I'll definitely add my vote to the "read the potter books" camp, and you don't need any persuasion to stay away from Eragon. I'll hold off on any other kid/YA lit fantasy recommendations. ;)
The idea was proposed in the numerous reviews on Amazon that this book would be disgustingly calculated if it came from an adult - taking all the best bits from good successful authors and making one mega-story. I'm a little unwiling to attribute that kind of calculation to the author, at least when he started writing the fantasy novel that mommy and daddy had published, but those very characteristics might be why the mega-marketing-machine has seized upon it to such effect. Blech.
Reply
He has the book published by his parents too, in a vanity press, which, while the ads in Writer Magazine remind me that Joyce and Woolf did it, I have never and will never trust or respect. And of course he knows. You show me somebody under the age of Seventy who is not my Children's Lit prof in college who doesn't know from ( ... )
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Sadly, I find myself inexplicably drawn to Jordan when in airport bookshops and finding nothing else to read (Hudson News has appalling selection, unsurprisingly). Also, sadly, I actually almost enjoyed his last effort, as the story actually moved forward. I say almost enjoyed, as it did nothing to remove the utter disgust I had at his previous book where, literally, nothing happened for 900+ pages. Setup, schmetup.
I don't think Martin is that similar to Tolkien but in name. There are dragons, yes. But that's about the extent of the similarity. I think you're apt in your description of Martin as in the historical fantasy genre that isn't mainly about magic, wizards, conflicts with gods, or similar things in the general fantasy genre.
Reply
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No; do you know what he says every night? He goes to the window, throws it open with glee, shouts "SUCKERRRRRRRRRRRS!" at the top of his lungs, and then giggles himself to sleep on a pillow stuffed with $100 bills.
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Sure, it's mindless punnery, but it's amusing :)
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