Fantasy writer similarities and differences

[okstate91]

What do yuo guys think Rj, Terry goodkind, and david eddings have in common or in wat ways are they completely different. the poll is kind of worthless, but it adds a certain finess...

[darron]

RJ is my favorite right now, however its followed closely by Goodkind, having never heard of the other guy, i wouldnt be able to judge him. Despite all the things people say about the SOT series, its still good, although similar in some aspects to WOT, its still has its own totally different story. Some parts in WOT remind me of Lord of the rings. Shayol gul (Volcano thing) and Mount doom! Still RJ takes the cake.

[Kaznen]

In Eddings Riven Codex he went over the 10 things all fantasy stories have to have. It holds true for the most part, except if you talk about the Wizards of the Coast books. Those are about people living in a fantasy world, and their stories aren't always about saving the world.

[Guest Egwene]

I have pretty much read all the books by those three authors and I like them all... like different music for different moods, I pick up one or the other depending on the moment. However, given the choice of being allowed to take only one with me if I was shipwrecked, Robert Jordan would be it. No other series has ever left me with so many ponderings even after re-reading for the fourth, fifth time... whatever.

 

Though comparing these authors directly, is wrong in a way. It's like saying choose your favourite cheese out of all the cheese available. Whereas you should compare within sub-categories, like soft cheese, blue cheese, hard cheese etc...

 

I would certainly say that TG has a different target audience and a different story objective from the other two. You can't compare x-rated to PG certificate.

 

Eddings and RJ probably are comparable. Though in my opinion Edding's Belgariad is simpler and easier to understand for a younger audience.

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[Gondring]

Of those 3? Definatly RJ. Sheerly because of the depth his story has to it, and that i can and want to re-read it as many times as i can just to figure these things out.

[Guest Majsju]

Out of those three it's so easy it's almost ridicilous. Eddings writes for a bit younger audience, and goodkind is just a lame hack who writes like he belongs to that younger audience. If his books hadn't had a picture of him I would have guessed goodkind was a geely 16 year old without any friends.

 

It's almost insulting to RJ to compare him with those two.

[okstate91]

i just used the 3 top fantasy writers that i could think of. david drake is upn coming, but he is soooo repatative...

[Werthead]

Out of those three? Jordan, easily.

 

i just used the 3 top fantasy writers that i could think of. david drake is upn coming, but he is soooo repatative...

 

Hmm. In terms of profile, Terry Pratchett and JK Rowling have higher profiles (and sales) than those three. Jordan comes next. Raymond E. Feist, Terry Brooks, David Eddings, Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman are all below Jordan, but ahead of Goodkind. In terms of sales-per-book (although Goodkind has more sales due to having nearly three times as many books out), George RR Martin is neck-and-neck with Goodkind and highly likely to overtake him in the next year or two (since 25% of GRRM's sales have been in the last eleven months, since his last novel came out).

 

Critically, of course, the situation is different. George RR Martin is currently the most critically acclaimed fantasy author out there by some margin (admittedly using the non-scientific yardstick that Time Magazine declared him the best American fantasy author around last year, and the more scientific yardstick of how many major SF&F awards he's been nominated for). R. Scott Bakker and Steven Erikson are also well-regarded critically, but their sales are modest due to only recently being printed in the USA.

 

Among newer authors, Scott Lynch is by far the biggest and highest-profile new fantasy author to emerge this year.

[Hannibal King]

Of the three, Goodkind finishing first, RJ coming in in a close 2nd, and Eddings isn't even an honorable mention.

[Werthead]

Eddings isn't even an honorable mention.

 

For once, we are agreed. Eddings' The Tamuli may well be the worst epic fantasy trilogy ever published. His other books were okay to read when I was about ten years old, but that series just left me slack-jawed with disbelief at how awful it was.

[Sirayn]

I protest! Eddings can at least string a sentence together. The title of worst epic fantasy work goes, without a doubt, to Robert Newcomb's Fifth Sorceress. :P

[Marrow Rahien]

Not to bag on anyone that's made a career of writing fantasy fiction....but I was really surprised how poorly Eddings' work held up when I read it again in my mid 20s, after having been such a fan of it during my teen years.

 

I used to really love Sparhawk and company....but I just couldn't hold any interest in the books primarily due to how the story moved. It was just....meh.

 

Goodkind just killed my interest around book 4 or 5...The escalation of enemies, empires, and what not just sucked me out of the mode.

 

 

 

Of course, with that said, it took nearly seven years and three tries for me to finally force myself to get past the first 200 pages of 'A Crown of Swords', so even RJ isn't always solid platinum for me.

[Guest Egwene]

I think Marrow's story illustrates quite nicely how different books often appeal at different times in a person's life. If you have grown out of something, I don't think that makes the books bad... just not suited for your reading interests anymore.

 

Siryan, positive identification of the bottom spot *grin*

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[Guest Majsju]

While the Tamuli failed in every possible way to catch my interest, it is still worthy of the Nobel prize compared to goodkind.

[Marrow Rahien]

Egwene Said

I think Marrow's story illustrates quite nicely how different books often appeal at different times in a person's life.

 

 

I think part of it is a person's reading experience as well. Up till 13 my interests in fiction had primarily been more modern day. I'd read all the Clancy, Grisham, and James Bond books (at least what was in print at the time) before I ever read a fantasy fiction (or hell, a science fiction either) book other than the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, and I'd read those when I was in elementary school. Eddings work, largely due to some attention grabbing Parkinson book covers, was really the first fantasy fiction I'd read -- so it's only natural that it seemed better to me, because I hadn't gotten used to the structure of fantasy fiction yet. Ten years and a thousand or so books later, and I understand how it all works a bit more now...and I can spot huge gaping flaws that I never noticed the first time around.