/lit/ - Literature

>>19523216
For fantasy, it's certainly a standout, one of the best series in the genre imo.
It filters a lot of retards.
It's not perfect and it's not le high brow literary fiction (although it has some interesting themes).
The author is a giga-autistic Canadian sperglord dungeon master type, which I personally find endearing.
A lot of retaded faggots on this site hate on it viciously, but haven't read it, or read it and stopped because they were either filtered, triggered or both.
RAFO.

I thought so. Some of the best genre fiction I've ever read, maybe the best.

However, I've had mixed experiences sharing it with friends. It's too violent and the characters too unlikeable and sexist for some people.

It is definetly true that many main characters are terrible people, although I thought that was the point.

>>19523216
Here's a proposition for you and anons that share your sheepish mentality that's reliant on /lit/ and similar groups for validation and recommendations regarding literature, stop obeying the hivemind to such a severe degree and go through a period of a few months where you're only reliant on yourself and your researching skills, as well as your internet ones. Have the balls to read a book not knowing whether you will like it or not, have the audacity to go your own way and don't obey norms, trends or fall prey to whichever work is currently "in vogue" so to speak. Read for yourself, for your own pleasure and for your own needs, I guarantee 9/10 anons are gonna have a much bigger use from using this approach than they ever will from numerous /lit/ charts that they've saved and bookmarked, but never actually went through and read as much as half of it, let alone all of it.

BTW, people will shit on the author for his blog. In part, this is because of leftist sentiments he expresses, but the other part is that he is very serious about is work, and operating without any levels of irony, with blatant sincerity about something that isn't prestigious, is really anathema to 4chan, and definitely to /lit/ in particular. It makes me sad, because while Bakker definetly seems like he could be a pedantic dick, it's sad to see people shit on for things they are genuinely excited about, or for people to get so afraid of authenticity that seeing it outside a small band of acceptable settings, is cringe inducing.

As for the book being "literary genre fiction." I'm not so sure. A huge proportion of the books is describing interesting lore, or big battles with sorcerers above and knights clashing below. Which is actually a good thing because the battle scenes are written very well, with the sort of roving scope that makes the Iliad so great.

The prose is quite good for the genre but also goes over the top and gets bogged down in itself at times. This is a bigger problem in books 4-5, where the plot has less momentum.

Where I think the author actually does complete his mission got l"iterary fantasy" as he describes it, is in turning various common thought experiments into plot devices. Neuropath is basically, "what is eliminative materialism was completely proven and science had unlocked almost complete control over the brain," made into a thriller. His main series frames a bunch of philosophical questions in the framework of the narrative.

Few authors do this well. Plenty have works more literary from the standpoint of aesthetics, but the questions their work takes on remain poorly defined. Bakker reminds me of Borges in being able to anchor the entire plot in these questions and explore them from there. The key difference being that Borges can flesh out an idea in a unique setting in 10 pages, and tie it in with a web of intellectual references, while these books take hundreds on a single idea and still don't hit the same clarity. That isn't too much of a knock though, since I consider Borges to be perhaps the best writer of the 20th century, at least in terms of the intellectual heft and clarity of his works

Camus is another guy who used this focus, but with him, I feel the narrative comes out pretty dry.

>>19523216
Take note, one and all, something remarkable has begun.

>>19523216
For modern fantasy it is very good. Compared to the best fantasy it is still good, but you can't compare it to literary fiction.

If you already read genre fiction then yes, 100%. But if you don't then it isn't different enough from other good fantasy really in terms of quality.

Don't you like reading? Just read it and figure it out for yourself

I read the first 50 pages years ago and thought it was generic fantasy tripe that /sffg/ was memeing for shits and giggles. Then much later, out of boredom I pushed myself through the whole novel and the whole trilogy and holy fuck it was the purest kino.

maybe.
but the fags sperging in /sffg/ completely turned me off of ever giving it a try.

>>19523216
it's just another children's fiction book.

>>19524605
I get the impression some of them actually hate the guy or are just trolling and trying to annoy people.

>>19523216
No. Read some better authors.

>>19523720
>Don't you like reading?
Not if the prose is basic as fuck
I'd rather read a summary or watch a YouTube breakdown of a book with shit prose than suffer through it for hours on end. Time is valuable and reading shit prose is a waste of time.