<i>Good Omens</i> was pretty good. It’s hard to tell where Pratchett’s influence comes in, though, because apparently Gaiman writes exactly like Pratchett.
Everyone everywhere should read Sandman.
On the issue of bad books? Worst one I’ve ever read every page of is Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. God I hated that book.
Hades: I thought the “OMG, I GOTZ MAGIC” was particularily accurate. It just reflects a lot of how the whole thing goes. Incidentally, this thread made me want to watch the movie, so I did. And because I love Jeremy Irons. I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t severelry pre-conditioned towards it, but it was almost physically painful. Good LORD, Eragon is such an irritating ass.
<i>YES</i>
Which is a shame, since Brooks’ three Knight of the Word books were excellent, almost haunting. His recent “Genesis of Shannara” set was pretty disappointing though. He does his best work when trying to work with the real world.
I have officially completed my Discworld collection. Other than The Last Hero (graphic novel) and the three Science of Discworld books (half-book, half-textbook), I have every single Discworld book ever written, all in one glorious shelf. Damn that’s a lot of words. Btw, go read the Tiffany Aching books. Oddly enough, they’re far deeper and more poignant than the “real” series.
I’ve read the entire series so far and only because I was curious and could get the books from my cousin. I agree with the criticisms about the plot and the ‘hero’. The way it’s written you can predict him becoming his most hated enemy. After the chapter Weilla described they raid the tower and Eragon kills all the monsters there (there were four). I think the second last to die begged him not to since they were the last of their race. He kills him anyway, committing genocide. Not even Galbatorix (the main evil) could compare to wiping out an entire race.
I already tried reading Twilight…I don’t want to read something else that’ll make me wanna gouge my eyes out.
Hades: I, Claudius is fiction. It’s about a real Roman emperor, but the story is quite fictional. I didn’t catch that edit until just now.
So I’ve been reading the critique Weiila posted and… seriously, does Galbatronix actually DO anything evil? Or at least moderately mean? Sure, he killed all the other riders, but they were killing each other anyway. I can’t see how that’s exactly treachery, he just happened to win. It just really sounds like Brom is being a sore loser. And from what I’ve seen I’ve yet to find any real evidence that the Evil Empire is in any way oppressive, menacing, or even mildly inconvenient for the people. Hell, if you live in a medieval world and the kingdom does not suffer constant pillaging, raping, slaughtering, plagues and overtaxing and the people can openly state whatever they want about their rulers and even have lawns inside a walled city which you’d expect be pretty tight in regards to availability of space, I’d say whoever’s in charge of the whole thing is doing a pretty damn good job overall.
Galbatorix harbors the Ra’zac, who feed on the people Dras Leona, especially slaves he acquired by force from other lands. That’s a good enough reason to want to kill him. The number of people being sacrificed to bring him down doesn’t justify the war though, especially since, as you mentioned, he’s actually a pretty benevolent ruler, and in spite of his flaws, anyone else would probably cause MORE suffering inadvertently.
Hades, give Pressfield a try. I prefer Tides of War, Gates of Fire is the popular favorite.
I’ve read the second Tiffany book, The Wee Free Men, and it was better than some of the normal series once it got going. Then again, it was marketed as young adult after the insistence of Random House.
Please tell me those Nazgul ripoffs serve some other purpose aside from keeping the rebels at bay.
I want to. I really do.
So basically, if that blasted band of terrorists would just quit trying to get in their King’s way, he may be able to divert his resources from plagiarizing Sauron into more practical, less necromantic endeavours like building schools and sanitation systems and shit.
And these guys get backing?
Also, this bit was priceless:
In another show of brilliance Saphira stays close to the ground instead of flying high in the sky so that she might be mistaken as a bird. This is to hide from the soldiers that might be following them.
Do you know what that reminds me of? A ninja going around saying “Sneak, Sneak, Sneak.”
We have a blue dragon that can blend in with the sky trying to hide on the ground.
Brilliant.
Goodkind is a torture fetishist. Go ahead and read him if descriptions of cutting off the testicles of young kids and mashing them into paste gets you off.
Do you know what that reminds me of? A ninja going around saying “Sneak, Sneak, Sneak.”
Or “Nin nin nin!” Disgaea FTW.
So, after marathoning the critique of the first book, I actually went and picked up Eldest. Yes, I am very much a masochist.
Good lord, this is some heavy fucking purple prose. Professor Tolkien, I’m sorry, I’ll never complain about your descriptions again. At least those described something concrete and allowed Peter Jackson to build some pimpin’ sets. This is just timesink.
Also, did a dozen fucking untrained village peasants just obliterate a whole bleeding imperial squad? Seriously? Including the couple unbeatable Nazguls? What the fuck?
EDIT: Oh, sorry, no. They did not slaughter them. They scared them away. Okay, so it was a surprise attack, I still don’t buy it, but let’s let that slide. They just scare these guys without killing them. So they let them go, unharmed and well aware that the village has commited treason. They are imperial troops, and this being the imperial army, one would assume there are more from where these came form. And nothing is stopping them from coming back. Does anyone else see any particular flaws in this brilliant display of humanism?
I see one. The fact that they sent 20 men to that village when near the end of the book it’s revealed that they have over 100 000 at their disposal.
Never heard of it. By the sounds of it, I don’t want to read it. I’m spoiled by Neil Gaiman and Terry Brooks.
Okay so. New top worst book I’ve encountered is Twilight. I made it to page 52 before I couldn’t do it to myself anymore. I hated the main character so much and the writing was so godawful that it was a wonder the editor didn’t catch all of it. But I kept going because my sister was refusing to accept that I could argue about it before I read it.
But then I read the word “handsomer” do describe someone. I don’t care if that’s acceptable in America or whatever, it’s fucking awful to read that. On top of all the other instances of poor writing I just had to stop. God. Fuck you Twilight. How dare you be successful.