OT: Vance Autobiography

Lane Haygood · 18 Dec 2008, 01:30 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: lhaygood at gmail.com (Lane Haygood)
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:30:16 -0600
Subject: (urth) OT: Vance Autobiography
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I never could get into Erikson's stuff, and I picked it up because it had a
blurb from Stephen Donaldson on the cover, and I like Donaldson's work.
 Erikson's characterization wasn't as sharp as Martin's, his prose nowhere
near as solid as Jordan's, and he lacked Martin's ability to work in
different narrative voices to the same story.  I felt it was a shame,
because it seemed like the rarest of all birds, good epic fantasy (in terms
of what he wanted to do with the series, which from reading websites,
Wikipedia, etc., and talking to my friends, seems rather awesome).  I hate
to sound like one of those guys who always says that the oldies are the
best, but for that kind of fantasy, I find Glen Cook to be an undisputed
master.  And what luck!  You can get his "Black Company" novels in anthology
format now.  I have both "The Chronicles of the Black Company" and "The
Books of the South" on my bookshelf right now and they're both excellent.
For modern authors of epic fantasy that have thrilled me, Patrick Rothfuss'
"The Name of the Wind" was a good exercise in frame stories, extraordinarily
well written and very easy to get into.  Scott Lynch's Locke Lamora books
remind me a lot of one of my absolute favorite authors, Fritz Leiber.  And
finally, Joshua Palmatier's "Throne of Amenkor" series is refreshingly
original and a blast to read.

Lane

On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 7:04 PM, Craig Brewer <cnbrewer at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Very different, but if you like "mystery" sf/fantasy, at least in the sense
> of starting without a clue and slowly having to puzzle your way toward
> figuring out what's going on, Steven Ericson's "Malazan Book of the Fallen"
> series is a fun read. It's a very different kind of read from Wolfe. But if
> you find yourself at all attracted to the the Robert Jordan/George R. R.
> Martin 10 book epics, this is the best of the bunch, imo. It has its
> problems, but I also find that it has its fair bit of puzzling that
> increases the fun.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> To: urth at lists.urth.net
> Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 5:34:02 PM
> Subject: Re: (urth) OT: Vance Autobiography
>
> I will second that, on both counts. And add The Deep and Beasts, as well.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 10:17:04 -0800 (PST)
> From: "Tim Walters" <walters at doubtfulpalace.com>
> Subject: Re: (urth) OT: Vance Autobiography
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Message-ID: <37532.198.1229537824.squirrel at o2.hostbaby.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
>
>
>
> > > It's just probably not the sort of stuff that inspires me to get online
> > > and try to hash out what the hell is going on with some other readers.
> >
>
> For that, I would recommend John Crowley, especially _Engine Summer_ and
> _Little, Big_.
>
> -- Tim Walters | http://doubtfulpalace.com ------------------------------
>
>
>
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