/lit/ - Literature

>The Blade Itself
>anything by Joe Abercrombie

>>3978062
Alright thank you for warning me before i read it. I don't know if you have any suggestions, but I'm pretty new so any would be appreciated.

>The Wizard Knight
>Not Book of the New Sun
>Or Book of the Long Sun
>Or The 5th Head of Cerberus

Do you even Gene Wolfe?

I doubt there is any epic fantasy that is genuinely good.

>>3978072
stay away from these guys:

Christopher Paolini
Laura K Hamilton
Terry Pratchett
Patrick Rothfuss
Robert Jordan
George R R Martin

These authors have fans who will fight to the death to defend them, but if curiosity gets the better of you and you decide to check them out, don't expect anything good.

>>3978091
Woah there bud, there has to be. I mean Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, American Gods, Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit. There's good shit but idk where to find anymore>>3978091

>>3978085I thought The Wizard knight was the most highly acclaimed by him

>>3978096
>terry pratchett

god, his writing and plots are just so, so bad.

>hey, you are just the average 13-year-old nerd loser when one day BOOM PLOT TWIST you are actually the most powerful wizard in the universe! holy shit! who would have guessed!

why.

>>3978376


But that never happens once in Discworld. There's one eight year old girl, one pseudoGoth magical girl, and one bloke early on who gets apprenticed to Death.

>>3978139
Book of the New Sun is generally the one referred to as his best. Wizard Knight is his most accessible but all the ones I listed and then probably the Soldier in the Mist/Soldier of Arete/Soldier of Sidon are all better. Though the soldier ones are intentionally hard to follow and can be frustrating at times.

>>3978376
I'll defend Pratchett. His Discworld series, over forty-odd books, create an interesting parody of real life complete with interesting characters and lots of humour. Some of the works in the series are Young Adult, but they tend to cover more peripheral plot lines.

>and I'm watching Game of Thrones so I don't wanna read it.

You fucked up, op.

>>3978096
Not that I don't necessarily disagree with most of those examples, but you're a piece of shit.

>These authors have fans who will fight to the death to defend them

That should read:

>/lit/ has posters who will fight to the death to shit on them

>>3978376
When does that ever happen in a Terry Pratchett book?

I'm struggling here. Maybe you got him confused with another author?

>>3978376
Have you ever read a book by Terry Pratchett?Because that never happened. Hell, Pratchett usually overcompensates by making his characters all terribly inept at what they like.

>>3978096
Only one worth reading on that list is GRRM

>>3978096
I realize that passage is one of the cherry picked ones that gets blasted here on /lit/, but I honestly don't see anything tremendously wrong with it.

Check out the name of the wind, and the wise man's fear, AKA the kingkiller chronicles. He is a relatively new author - Patrick Rothfuss. There should be 1 more book coming, hence the trilogy. But, i have enjoyed the first 2 a lot.

>>3978440
speaking of GRRM, i've been dying for more. Are there any sets that include all of his short stories? Adventures of dick and egg or whatever the hell it's called. The only ones i've been able to find are the ones that include random short stories by like 15 authors.

>>3978096
>a queasy liquid feeling

that is a very uncomfortable description

>>3978573
What's uncomfortable about it?

>>3978055

Ursula LeGuin (sp?) and the Wizard of Earthsea stuff is hard to stomach. It's been awhile since I read it but I do believe it gets easier as it goes on.

In the beginning the prose is awkward, the characters seem rather inconsistent and so forth.

>>3978694
you mean that Le Guin actually knows how to write, i think. But Meh.

Would not recommend Wizard Knight to anyone save a confirmed Wolfe fan, and even then with caveats.

>>3978703

You really don't feel uncomfortable reading it in the beginning?

In one sentence she will describe a non plot/devopment crucial event or object using a page, and then something important will happen and she just fucking breezes over it.

Anyway I won't argue about it (anymore), I shall make a point of reading it again soon though.

>>3978055
I tried reading The Wizard too, OP, and also didn't finish it. I think I got about 100 pages in and it was doing nothing for me.

Abercrombie's great, one of the best fantasy writers at the moment and with a consistent output. Definitely read the First Law trilogy. The first book isn't anything to write home about but it gets excellent by the third.

>>3978425
>>3978431
I'll bet he means Terry Brooks or Terry Goodkind.

>>3978072
Choose others if you like.

This guys >>3978096
is right that:
>Christopher Paolini
>Laura K Hamilton
>Terry Pratchett
>Robert Jordan
Are shit writers

is the Earthsea series any good?

I read a tenth of Latro in the Mist before stopping.

It's just bad. Does it get better?
I usually like fantasy but this is just meh, yet I keep hearing about it again and again.

>>3980569

God, I tried reading the Priestess of the White by Trudi Cavanan and it was so shit. Is her editor to intimidated by her fame to tell her to fucking rewrite her book, or does he just not care?

>>3978055
If you have a low tolerance for
>amateurish
prose, fantasy epics are probably not for you.

>>3978055
The Blade Itself is alright. I didn't like the second book in that trilogy, and have no desire to read the third. Earthsea is great, but more for a child/early teens audience, so bear that in mind.

>>3978096
Terry Pratchett has been trolling. All the time. So get your ass on the program, please!

>>3978485
It's because it isn't written in a detatched faux 1800s style about some stiff upper lip brit fighting rabid thugees in India while having a severe case of the runs and is missing his wife, yet has strange, sinful thoughts about his perky coolie.

With that high a standard, everyone loses.

I-I thought /lit/ liked Pratchett? Don't you guys have him confused with Terry "in this moment i am euphoric" Goodkind?

>>3978055
>Alright someone please explain to me how The Wizard Knight is ranked as the "God-Tier Multivolume on the Recommended Reading.
'Wizard/Knight' is very, very, very good, 10/10 literature.

It is, however, an extremely multilayered and referential work. (Think Tolkien writing a post-modernist novel.)

Unless you're willing to read beneath a superficial level (and 99% of readers _aren't_), then you're not going to get much out of it.

>>3982880
So it's the same as BOTNS?

>>3982902
Not quite.

BOTNS draws a lot from pulps and sci-fi, so it's at least more accessible at a retarded surface level. (Spaceships and ancient aliens, whoo-ee, etc.)

'Wizard/Knight' is a straight-up, unembellished remix of Norse myth and medieval feudal stories. (No AD&D shit, and no post-Tolkien influences.)
Very little for a mass-media-addled mind to latch on to, and what there is probably feels too 'generic'.

That said, 'Wizard/Knight' is probably the only honest and accurate reimagining of European myth besides Tolkien. Wolfe sets a very high bar for himself, and he succeeds very well.

>>3982854
Most of the Pratchett-related posts here are defending him from one anon who's probably trolling or very confused.

>also insert oligatory '/lit/ is not a single person' here

>>3982917
10/10 interest piqued. I haven't read anything fantasy in ages and tend to assume it's baaaaad, but the idea of something more ambitious does intrigue me.

>expecting anything good from a book called The Wizard Knight
Oh neckbeards...

>>3982801
I found it ok... but i read it years ago. Don't feel like hazarding a reread.

>>3982801
She's not exactly considered good among fantasy circles. It's aimed at middle aged women. I'm not sure why people on this board would be tempted to read any of her books in the first place.

>>3983232
Black Magician was GREAT
We aren't talking about Shades of Grey or w/e is passing through your mind.

Currently reading The Prince of Nothing and loving it.

Wondering if anyone else has read Scott Bakker and what you think of it.

>>3978062

ignore this troll post

Abercrombie writes entertaining stories and visceral action, and is probably the most similar to RR Martin's Game of Thrones

so if you watch the show you'll enjoy Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy

Terry Pratchett is funny, laugh out loud fantasy, and there's no reason to defend him because his writing will outlive the shitposter in this thread

I recommend you give the first law trilogy a chance.

I'm gonna recommend The Night Angel books by Brent Weeks. Kind of amateurish, he's basically a nerd trying to write a cool assassin character. But it still came together pretty well.
Also The Dark Tower. Does that count as epic fantasy?