I want to preface everything below with the obvious: we are all entitled to our unique tastes.
When I was a wee lad of 11, the first book I read was the Xanth novels by Piers Anthony. Then came Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time Series. It wasn't until I picked up ASOIF that I realized I was missing something: the contrast of darkness versus light. Some people state that books like ASOIF, The Black Company, White-Luck Warrior and Aspect Emporer, Joe Abercrombie's Trilogy, and the Malazan Book of the Fallen are too dark. Characters are introduced only to have their necks bared for the sudden razor cut. The view and tone of the world is dark, nihilistic, and too gritty.
My response is the poetically cliche "without dark, how do you recognize the light?" I love the grit of the above worlds because you appreciate the happy moments, the light, the victories to a greater level precisely because the world is dark and gritty.
What do you think?
When I was a wee lad of 11, the first book I read was the Xanth novels by Piers Anthony. Then came Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time Series. It wasn't until I picked up ASOIF that I realized I was missing something: the contrast of darkness versus light. Some people state that books like ASOIF, The Black Company, White-Luck Warrior and Aspect Emporer, Joe Abercrombie's Trilogy, and the Malazan Book of the Fallen are too dark. Characters are introduced only to have their necks bared for the sudden razor cut. The view and tone of the world is dark, nihilistic, and too gritty.
My response is the poetically cliche "without dark, how do you recognize the light?" I love the grit of the above worlds because you appreciate the happy moments, the light, the victories to a greater level precisely because the world is dark and gritty.
What do you think?