In completely unrelated news....

[digitaldiscipline]

... I am functionally incapable of appreciating traditional High Fantasy as a genre.

I picked up George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones from the office library to read with lunch, and, thirty pages in, I give up. I can't make myself care about the bulk of the characters being so carefully and tediously presented, I already have ideas and suppositions about how things will ultimately happen and.... I just don't give a shit.

Similarly, I don't even bother trying to pick up Tolkien. If I wanted to read boring historical recountings, I'd do something useful and pick up The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire or something.

Contrast this with how many times I've re-read Steve Brust's Taltos series - same general universe, completely different reaction. There are characters who don't fit every boring, cliche'd archetype, who have actual personalities and histories, and don't appear to have been picked up like so many pre-fab Lego People to stiffly pose through An Epic World-Altering Conflict. Snarky humor wins a lot of points with me, true, but there's enough show don't tell going on there that I don't feel like throwing the book across the room to keep from being put to sleep by the fucking thing.

I think I need to hit B&N for the latest installment of Dozois' Opinion.... I mean, The Year's Best Science Fiction.

Comments

[trystbat.livejournal.com]

While I adore Tolkien (s'thing about being weaned on it), I could not stand Martin. I forced myself to read that whole book bec. ppl whose taste in books is often quite similar to mine adored it & called it "crack for fantasy fans." But it did nothing for me, didn't have any of the lyrical intricacies of Tolkien or weirdly fascinating personalities working wacky magick of the other fantasy authors I dig.

I don't read books for snarky humor tho. That's what the intrawebs or Jon Stewart are for. Thems are free too!

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I enjoy Brust's wisecracking assassin and his merry band of miscreants.

[ladylabyrinth.livejournal.com]

(re-commented cuz I suck at closing my HTML)

called it "crack for fantasy fans."

Those people are on crack themselves. It's NOT for fantasy fans, really, IMO. While it is an epic fantasy series, it's not the monsters and magic and dragons that draw me - it's the palace intrigue. I think of the Song of Ice and Fire series as a high falutin', fictional People magazine - gossip, murder, backstabbing, philandering, seduction, who's who in a fantasy setting. It's literary soap opera, and that's great for me, but I wouldn't recommend it for a fantasy lover.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

This goes a long way towards explaining my reaction to it, and "soap opera" is precisely the right term (which it would have taken me quite a while to stumble upon)

[theonebob.livejournal.com]

"If I wanted to read boring historical recountings..."

You're funny when you don't know what you're talking about. ;-) But then again, I won't open any Anne Rice books because I think she keeps writing the same one over and over again.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I think you're wise to avoid AR's dreck.

[ms-cantrell.livejournal.com]

i was raised on tolkein, but i do see he gets dry. i like guy gavriel kay for fantasy, and that's pretty much it. with sci-fi i'm less easily irritated, so there's more to choose from.

[ladylabyrinth.livejournal.com]

see my above comment, darling. It's a fantasy setting, but it's a soap opera story. yes?

[helcat.livejournal.com]

i can't stand eddings, goodkind, jordan, or ANY of the fucking high fantasy midlist, but I love A Song of Ice and Fire to the Point of fanatic. But I'm also the sort of person who will say that some books can't get started in enough time to land some readers, either, and rereading the first book not too long ago, I was struck by how it started out all sentimental and dumbassy and how on earth did I get past this?

[vatine]

I've read 2 or 3 in that series and (from memory) it was a bit bogging-down in the middle, but as I snagged it for reading-while-commuting, it was an easy hump to get past. On the whole, I quite like what I have read so far, but it miht be telling that I haven't picked up further books in that series.