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The Fantasy Section in the Book Store (And Why Most of it Bores Me)

FatCat

Maester
I've always imagined looking through the fantasy section akin to garbage picking. You have to run around for about an hour until you find something somewhat interesting, but chances are you have to look for much longer than that to find true gold. This isn't limited to just fantasy, although fantasy seems to be absurd at times. At least I've found some good suggestions on this site.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
No writing style is inherently poor. Twilight just reads like a bad first draft, that's all.

Hardly. Though you get that from writers who like to hate on it. I suspect if it were completely unknown and you asked the same people for comments, the feedback would be quite different. The fact that it is so popular irks writers.
 

Mindfire

Istar
Hardly. Though you get that from writers who like to hate on it. I suspect if it were completely unknown and you asked the same people for comments, the feedback would be quite different. The fact that it is so popular irks writers.

I don't know. People will always mock bad writing regardless of popularity, or lack thereof. For example: Stanek.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
They mock him for infamy. The mock Meyer for fame.

Yes. And apparently many of them wouldn't know really bad writing if it bit them in the rear. It is mostly jealousy (among writers) and a kind of hipster-like reaction to mainstream popularity. This is the only reason you see the book still brought up, seven years after publication, by writers stuffed with sour grapes when even the fans of the series have moved on to something else.
 

shangrila

Inkling
Really? Really?

Disagree with my opinion if you want, but don't try and brush it off as some attempt at conformity.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Really? Really?

Disagree with my opinion if you want, but don't try and brush it off as some attempt at conformity.

I don't know about your opinion in particular, shangrila, but with respect to many of those opinions generally, when the comments are so far over the top and so overwrought as to be well beyond anything reasonably justified by the actual work...well, that tells me something else is going on.
 

Mindfire

Istar
Yes. And apparently many of them wouldn't know really bad writing if it bit them in the rear. It is mostly jealousy (among writers) and a kind of hipster-like reaction to mainstream popularity. This is the only reason you see the book still brought up, seven years after publication, by writers stuffed with sour grapes when even the fans of the series have moved on to something else.

Actually, I mock Twilight because its fun. Honest. No other reason. That might make me a terrible human being, but there it is. Granted, it's not as fun as it used to be because most of the fans have moved on. Not as many wackjobs and zealots to mess with anymore. Now I just wish the Twilight discussion would fade into obscurity. Along with the rage over the Phantom Menace. Although that's going to be hard with Lucas re-releasing it for the 7th time in blu-ray, 4-D extra shiny edition.

Also I notice in retrospect that it was never as fun (for me) to mock Eragon as it was to mock Twilight. I think that's because Eragon never had as many zealots as Twilight did. Sure the writing was bad terrible criminal and the plot was a knockoff and it was worse than Twilight in every way. (At least Twilight had artistic integrity.) But at the end of the day, the fun to be had in mocking a work depends solely on too things: the laughs you can have with friends and the zealots you can piss off.
 
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korabas

Dreamer
The urban fantasy/dark fantasy/paranormal romance shelves actually make me cry a bit inside.. it's the cover designs, they are hideous!

But speaking of cover designs, I tend to make quick initial judgements based on the cover designs of fantasy books.. if it has a nice cover, i'll typically pick it up and flip through. If it has a cheesy cover, I won't. Gollancz do some nice covers.

I loved the UK cover for Lies of Locke Lamora, and that was enough for me to buy the book. I also liked the cover of Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss, and picked it up several times, but didn't like the blurb. When I saw the cover design again on Amazon I actually read a bit more about the book, picked it up, and loved it! Covers are important.
 

Varamyrr

Minstrel
The urban fantasy/dark fantasy/paranormal romance shelves actually make me cry a bit inside.. it's the cover designs, they are hideous!

But speaking of cover designs, I tend to make quick initial judgements based on the cover designs of fantasy books.. if it has a nice cover, i'll typically pick it up and flip through. If it has a cheesy cover, I won't. Gollancz do some nice covers.

I loved the UK cover for Lies of Locke Lamora, and that was enough for me to buy the book. I also liked the cover of Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss, and picked it up several times, but didn't like the blurb. When I saw the cover design again on Amazon I actually read a bit more about the book, picked it up, and loved it! Covers are important.

Covers are really important. The latest Mistborn covers are so fine, that it just makes me want to read it.
 

korabas

Dreamer
Covers are really important. The latest Mistborn covers are so fine, that it just makes me want to read it.

That's a good example! I wasn't interested in Brandon's work, except for knowing that he was finishing WoT, but I eventually picked up The Final Empire because of the lovely cover and actually really enjoyed the series. I guess we can judge books by their covers!!!
 

shangrila

Inkling
Really? I thought the new Mistborn (and his entire work) covers were all kind of bland. Too much white, not enough...anything.
 
I don't read many books, but the ones I like are really popular. Johnathan Strange, Dresden Files, Game of Thrones.

The foundation of good fantasy is a good reality. Those 3 books get the reality right and that makes the magic, the people, and the events more real.

I imagine most books I pick up and pass over are like this: The bad guy is bad, so i will stop him. It's why CSI and Crime drama is so common on TV right now. The Hero is passive, he has zero investment in the plot. But, with CSI, it is OK to be passive, because that is the Hero's job. His motivation is just as paper thin, but he has an "excuse".

All creative endeavors are a crap shoot. Statistically, most things are going to suck.
 

korabas

Dreamer
Really? I thought the new Mistborn (and his entire work) covers were all kind of bland. Too much white, not enough...anything.

I think I like them because the characters have a sketch-like quality, and I like the contemporary mix of monochrome and limited colour palette. I can see how they wouldn't appeal to everyone though, as they are quite different.

My favourite covour recently has been the lovely green one for Lies of Locke Lamora, and also the UK covers for the temeraire series have a nice quality to them.

I love the ebook covers for Jordan's Wheel of Time series (as shown on Tor.com) but I can't stand the original covers for the US books - it's a bit too 'cartoon' fantasy for me.
 
I agree about covers! And sometimes less is more. I used to detest those old Darryl K Sweet covers--gaudy primary colours (all in one individual's clothes), cod-medieval style no matter the setting (parti-coloured hose,naff 'Robin Hood' caps) and every character with a long red nose and side-parted reddish hair! They really put me off even picking up the books! It was nearly as bad as in the 'bad old days' (showing my age here) when every fantasy book seemed to have a generic cover with a bug eyed alien or a bimbo in a tin bra...
I find I do bost of my buying online now too, often through recommendation. I always look in the bookstore but I find much of what I look at very bland and repetitive. I tend to read page 1, just as an editor would. If I see the things I hate (in particular characters who read like modern people in fancy dress) the book goes back on the shelf.
 

yachtcaptcolby

Minstrel
Given that pretty much all of the bookstores in my area have closed, I rely pretty heavily on recommendations from friends, family, and Amazon--especially now that I carry a Kindle everywhere I go. There are days when I miss carefully making my way through the fantasy aisle. Then I remember how frustrated I got with how similar it all looked and how hard it was to find something different and interesting.

That's another reason I decided to self-publish; I didn't want to be lumped in with a lot of the stuff I saw on the shelves, and I didn't want some editor or publisher asking me to make my novel fit in better by toning down some of its more creative parts or by putting a frickin' vampire in it so they'd have something to put on the cover. But maybe I'm nuts.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
That's another reason I decided to self-publish; I didn't want to be lumped in with a lot of the stuff I saw on the shelves, and I didn't want some editor or publisher asking me to make my novel fit in better by toning down some of its more creative parts or by putting a frickin' vampire in it so they'd have something to put on the cover. But maybe I'm nuts.

There's the same danger with self-publishing though. If you don't make your cover, synopsis or whatever stand out in some way, then you'll be lumped in with all self-published writing that's guilty of the same problems traditionally published books have.
 

Okay, I exaggerate. It reads as a mediocre first draft.

Though you get that from writers who like to hate on it. I suspect if it were completely unknown and you asked the same people for comments, the feedback would be quite different. The fact that it is so popular irks writers.

Nah, it doesn't irk me. I mean, that's probably true for a lot of people, but it never bothered me. Meyer wrote a book that, for one reason or another, a lot of people actually enjoyed and that earned her considerable fame and fortune. And, you know what? That's fair. If you write a book a million people loves, you deserve all the fame you get from it. I can't deny her that seeing as one of my own goals in becoming a writer is to earn huge piles of money - literally piling it up, I mean.

And believe me, I honestly tried to be as fair and objective to Twilight as I could. But I still found myself actually editing it in my mind as I was reading it. Why is Bella spending most of the opening paragraph talking about her clothes? I thought. In fact, this entire paragraph could be cut out, because the next one makes for a better opening anyway. And so on.

Twilight has one of the most insanely constructed sentences I have ever seen in a book. I actually had to stop and underline it with a pen just so I would be able to find it again. I'd quote it here, but I'm not sure where I have my copy of the book. Trust me, it's amazing.

What I'm saying is, it's the lack of quality control that surprises me. I think it should have gone through at least another draft before it was published. And, really, the blame is probably more on Meyer's editor than Meyer herself.
 

yachtcaptcolby

Minstrel
There's the same danger with self-publishing though. If you don't make your cover, synopsis or whatever stand out in some way, then you'll be lumped in with all self-published writing that's guilty of the same problems traditionally published books have.

That is certainly true. Ha! Now I'm not sure which crowd I'd rather be lumped in with...
 
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