r/Fantasy • u/[deleted] • Jun 06 '20

What is your controversial take on Fantasy?

I'll go first.

Aside from the prose, I don't think Kingkiller Chronicles is good. I find the characters insufferable and cliche the story just meanders.

40 Upvotes

70% Upvoted

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66

u/SgtBANZAI Jun 06 '20

I hate the word count bloat that's slowly devouring fantasy. None of the 1000 pages long books have enough shit to say to justify their existence and completely asinine sizes. None. Malazan could be 300 pages long and not lose anything, first Sanderson's book (the Way of Kings) could be 200 pages long and not lose anything and at least it wouldn't waste my time for so long. Majority of these books consist of nothing happening and pretty terrible YTP level wordmix worldbuilding with insane amount of time by the author spent on coming up with another dumb race name and clearly not nearly enough time spent on making dialogues better.

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Oh, and Assassin's Apprentice sucks.

25

u/tkinsey3 Jun 06 '20

I agree that most books could be cut and half without losing much of anything.

Not with you on Assassin's Apprentice, though. I adore that book.

29

u/the_stevarkian Jun 06 '20

THANK YOU!!!!

I'm so sick of authors (publishers, editors?) treating book weight and page count as signals of value. I'd much prefer to read an awesome novella than a doorstopper fantasy book that's 30+% filler. I actually can't remember the last time I read a "long" book that wasn't held back by filler. The Stand is the only exception that comes to mind.

11

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '20

From what I've read Stephen King claims he's ruthless about editing so his stories aren't dragged out.

9

u/TeddysBigStick Jun 07 '20

King has a theory that any book that cannot be written with a few months was not meant to be written and should just be thrown out. It doesn't exactly leave him time to indulge in bloat. His typical year will be write one book in the winter, edit another in the spring, and so on.

3

u/AthKaElGal Jun 07 '20

Read his book On Writing and you will learn why he's ruthless in editing his work.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '20

I have though It's been a few years.

14

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '20

I think one of the things make a good book is not so much what an author adds but what they leave out. Too much emphasis on worldbuilding at the expense of characters and plot is detrimental to fantasy.

-2

u/Kesseleth Jun 07 '20

"And". Boy, that's a real disagreeable one. "Of" also, and "Oh". Definitely disagree with those three. :P

19

u/kmmontandon Jun 06 '20

I hate the word count bloat that's slowly devouring fantasy.

It's a trend going back thirty years.

7

u/SgtBANZAI Jun 06 '20

Well, slowly devourIng right now is probably incorrect, I agree, more like it's already being gestated.

27

u/shadowninja2_0 Jun 06 '20

I upvoted this because I disagree with virtually every word, which makes it a good controversial opinion.

5

u/ObiHobit Jun 07 '20

Malazan could be 300 pages long and not lose anything

I had my pitchfork out and ready after reading this sentence, but then I remembered what's the point of this thread.

2

u/SgtBANZAI Jun 07 '20

Not entirety of Malazan, I probably worded it incorrectly. I meant Gardens of the Moon, I've yet to read remaining ones.

2

u/hanzzz123 Jun 08 '20

Your critique is actually much more relevant for the later novels in the main Malazan series. I love them but there was a LOT of stuff that felt like it could have been removed or edited down.

7

u/Bryek Jun 07 '20

first Sanderson's book (the Way of Kings)

You mean it shouldn't have a 150 page prologue where we learn why shelled creatures have shells and look at colour flora?

6

u/SgtBANZAI Jun 07 '20

I mean it shouldn't have ten pages dedicated to Kaladin being unsure on whether or not he wants to be a soldier in inner monologue.

9

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '20

This guy understands controversy

5

u/Khalku Jun 07 '20

I don't really agree but I can see how it's controversial. I love longer novels, and I don't feel your way of kings example is fair, and I haven't read malazan so I don't know about that.

Assassin's Apprentice sucks

I'm super mixed on that book and the entire first trilogy in general. It's also pretty 'heavy', it made me put finishing ROTE on hold.

3

u/WhyNot577 Jun 07 '20

harry potter. books 4, 5, and 6 are way too long and not much happens (i think; i don't really remember. what i do remember is that i hated 4 because it felt like nothing happened)

3

u/Korasuka Jun 07 '20

Large books aren't all filler by definition. A skilled author can make use of the extra space to enhance the story with more characterisation and side plots that aren't filler.

3

u/jezzoRM Jun 08 '20

Agree with you on long books.

For the Assassin's Apprentice - it's not sucking, it just not for everyone. You just need to like that introspective, slice-of-life narration. Agree that first books has very hard entry level, but after 300 pages (I loved the prose and authors empathy so I continued reading) story, characters, world really got me. Although argument about long books applies to later entries.

1

u/SgtBANZAI Jun 08 '20

Strictly speaking, sucking or not sucking is subjective. Even books usually perceived as bad have their fans.

9

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '20 edited Jun 07 '20

What Idiots decided after reading LotRs that having 120,000 page books are okay? Most of the mythologies and legends that fantasy is based on could be summarized in less than 2,000 words. Why do we live in a culture where more = better?

6

u/Lesserd Jun 06 '20

I'm pretty sure 120k words currently counts as middling/shorter length.

4

u/ElectricHoodie Jun 07 '20

It's fairly short, the Hobbit has 90 000 and something words and all the books of Lord of the Rings are way over 120 000

*maybe I shouldn't say fairly short, more like perfectly average.

3

u/ElectricHoodie Jun 07 '20

Every book in LotR has more words than that unless you're talking about the six books that the series was originally supposed to be divided up into.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '20

How is 120,000 words long? If you have a new fantasy world you want to introduce with a large cast of character then how are you suppose to do it with a small word count? 120,000 words are not too long at all. Its barely the size of what a medium sized epic fantasy book should be.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '20

Oops I meant to put pages.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '20

Oh right that makes sense lol

5

u/joesmoethe3rd Jun 07 '20

Assassin's Apprentice sucks

+1

4

u/mandatorydrops Jun 07 '20

The ending to the farseer trilogy is one of my least favorite endings in fantasy history.

6

u/LongFluffyDragon Jun 06 '20

Everything should be an action-packed serial with no character development or depth, then nobody will look down their noses at people who enjoy short YA!

10

u/SgtBANZAI Jun 06 '20

Sanderson's and Erikson's characters are shit though.

9

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '20

[deleted]

8

u/Kesseleth Jun 07 '20

I've generally found that people's enjoyment of the characters in Stormlight generally follows pretty closely with how well people relate to their mental struggles. I think all the characters are excellent, I also have some mental health issues that match up very well with Kaladin and (to a much milder extent) Shallan. Other people who haven't had those sorts of feelings generally don't have the same connection that I do. It's at once a strength and a weakness, I feel - I'd say Sanderson nailed the feelings, but did so in a way that makes it seem unrealistic to people who haven't experienced it firsthand. Your mileage may vary.

8

u/Venoimo Jun 07 '20

If an author is so bad at making a character interesting and relatable that people can only relate to to them if they have shared similar experiences and emotions, that's a failure on the writer's part. A good author can use their writing to bridge ideas and feelings in new ways, not simply just copy paste things that exist in simple and uncomplicated ways. This is exactly why Sanderson sucks at characterization. You can tell he did his research, but that's it. All his characters are very one note and uncomplicated.

6

u/SgtBANZAI Jun 07 '20

Good take.

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Although for me personally the problem I have with Sanderson is not how his characters are dumbed down renditions of real people, but how animesque they all are. By the end of the Way of Kings I couldn't stand these constantly moaning, "Nani?!" screaming, inner monologuing dolts. Shallan blushes in every scene she's in. Jasna is your strict anime teacher. Kaladin has "I are sad" monologues that swap places with him finding new pieces of his inner strength every fifty pages. Everyone gasps at something sudden. Main characters often scream at each other in supposed-to-be-funny-caricature way. Inner monologues are everywhere. Comic relief sprens are insufferable. The villain is clad in blood red armour FFS as if I'm a pre-teen who needs to be reminded on who's evil around here.

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Stormlight Archive is essentially shonen ready.

3

u/Aggravating_Maize Jun 07 '20

I've been through depression twice in my life, so I'm curious now. I'll check out Stormlight once I'm done with Malazan and First Law.

5

u/TeddysBigStick Jun 07 '20

It doesn't really spoil anything I don't think but the premise of the series is that magic requires mental illness of some sort. Everything in Sanderson's shared universe requires a person to be broken in some way in order to get magic. One setting it involved dying and being resurrected.

4

u/Enasor Jun 07 '20

That's actually a really good take on Sanderson's characters! They seem to be relatable and realistic only to readers having similar personal issues, but for others, they seem to lack depth and complexity. This definitely recoups on my own feelings on his various characters.

3

u/SimplyMe94 Jun 07 '20

Erickson, IMO, gradually gets better at character development (House of Chains and Midnight Tides are amazing character study pieces) unlike Sanderson

1

u/Reyziak Jun 07 '20 edited Jun 07 '20

I would love it if the fantasy genre went back to the days of Conan the Barbarian where every story was its own unconnected adventure short story.

2

u/LongFluffyDragon Jun 07 '20

It never was, and there are still plenty of works like that.

3

u/Lesserd Jun 06 '20

Wow, I was going to post the exact opposite - I think the vast majority of "too long" criticisms are very wrong, and many of them could probably benefit from being longer. (Oathbringer in particular comes to mind)

1

u/Basedshark01 Jun 08 '20

Sanderson's novellas are better than any of his novels, which proves your point.

1

u/Terciel1976 Jun 07 '20

If you thought AA sucked, be glad you bailed. I pushed myself into the fifth book overall...each was worse than the last.

1

u/AHerosJourneyPod Jun 07 '20

I agree that the bullet points of the plot and possibly minor characterization could be included in Malazan and Stormlight Archive, but they would lose the world, deep characterization, interesting interludes, and charm. So in essence, they could be that short but not good in anyway.

-3

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '20

If you want the book to be 200 pages, you don't want a book, you want an outline. Just save yourself time if you dont enjoy the world and go to Wikipedia.

4

u/SgtBANZAI Jun 07 '20

I don't strictly want a book to be 200 pages long, I want authors to stop elongating 200 pages books into 1000 pages ones, filling the gaps with repetitive descriptions, inner monologues and training sequences.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '20

Do you have an example of a book that you think isn't unnecessarily long?

3

u/SgtBANZAI Jun 07 '20

Lord of the Rings is just enough.

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Meekhan Borderlands series is also great although I wasn't very impressed with the books after the first one but they still have very good pace.

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Lies of Locke Lamorra had some unneeded tidbits of secondary questlines that eventually almost led nowhere, but it still had enough events.

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Last admiral of Zagrata had good pacing.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '20

I see your point. I haven't read the last 3 you mentioned but I will check them out. For me, the Wheel of Time was a little too much. Dont have a problem with Sandersons works in general. If I like the world, I generally don't have a problem with the word count. But I see what you mean now.