/lit/ - Literature

Lord of the Rings, fucking duh.

>>6575025
Lol

>>6575005
Dune

>>6575005
There is no better series. Lit just hates them cause they're mainstream.

>>6575005
I don't hate them. I find the en masse masturbation about it to be a bit unbecoming, though.

I don't hate it either. The First Law trilogy is better, some of the books in the middle of the Game of Thrones series are really bland.

David Gemmell

I dont hate GRR though.

seriously hate on gemmell for being teen crap but its still good shit

>>6575005
>genre fiction
lel

Discworld.

>>6575076
I second this. After the 4th or 5th book of Gemmell in my teens I was like "why the fuck does every book end after a big bad battle?" but it was still great.

>>6575074
Are you fucking dense? A Storm of Swords is THE greatest fantasy novel ever made.

>>6575025
IMO, LotR is pretty much entry level at this point, whereas ASOIAF is deep.

>reading anything in a "series"

The Two Fellowships of the King.

>>6575005
>Well if you hate it so much can you name a better fantasy series?

For Plebs:
>The Black Company
>The First Law trilogy
>Malazan, Book of the Fallen
>The Prince of Nothing series
>The Wheel of Time
>Fafhrd and Grey Mouser Stories by Fritz Leiber

For e/lit/ists:
>The Worm Ouroboros
>Lord of the Rings
>Gormenghast
>The Book of the New Sun
>The Wizard Knight
>The King of Elfland's Daughter
>Conan Stories by Robert E. Howard
>Return to Neveryon
>The Once and Future King

For Kids (yes, even kid's fantasy is better than ASOIAF):
>Chronicles of Prydain
>Redwall
>Narnia
>Earthsea
>Wrinkle In Time series

ASOIAF has its moments but overall is very shit.

Harry Potter

No, seriously

>>6575207
This is literally "If its popular, then its shit" list.

>>6575207
>That entire for plebs and for kids list.
>Better than ASoIaF

No.

>>6575170
>>ASOIAF is deep.
>deep is edgy
>deep is having themes that you develop at a snails pace only after you pull away from your fetishes and your waifu
>deep is pointless descriptions of things that have absolutely no relation to anything
>deep is cartoony and exaggerated characters
I gave up halfway through book 3. There's too little for me to give a fuck and it can't possibly get better. If i was a cynic i'd call your comment bait, but plebs everywhere wanna love ASOIAF.

>>6575005
nope, but i also can't name a better bicycle than a huffy.

is huffy the best bicycle in the world?
probably not.

>>6575250
What a persuasive argument.

>>6575025
I could only finish reading the hobbit, lotr was just too much, honestly a paragraph+ describing the scenery was JUST TOO MUCH!

>>6575170
Are you dumb?

Lotr might be "entry level" but that doesn't mean it's bad.
ASOIAF might have a lot of characters who die every now and then but that doesn't mean it's deep.

>>6575307
>>6575265
Lotr is very entry level both aestheticaly and emotionally.

ASOIAF is great because every char can die at any point, whereas in lotr all main chars live till the end.

Lotr has silly and replacable chars (what is tom bombadil?), ASOIAF all the chars are into deep shit since the start.

Not only that, but ASOIAF gives much more perspective about shit that is happening in their world. Tolkien should have get some classes from GRRM and stop tunnel-visioing his story from Frodo.

Gene Wolfe

>>6575344
fuck off

>>6575231
>This is literally "If its popular, then its shit" list.

Just because something is pleb doesn't make it shit. I think The Wheel of Time, Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, and The Prince of Nothing are fine stories. The fact is they were written to appeal to a vast marketable audience. They were written for plebs....no way around it.

Stop getting your panties in a twist.

>>6575344
I want to say it's bait...but it's worded so poorly and so full of meme's that I'm scared it's not...I just..I can't....I feel like my brain will sink into retardation if I even attempt to engage with this individual.

>>6575359
Why? Am I starting to make sense?

>>6575231
a list of 20 book series that are both popular and good is literally "if it's popular, then it's shit" list?

>>6575207
>Gormenghast
Is this as good as LOTR?

>>6575400
Ask Micheal Morecock.

The way I see it, in a couple of decades Tolkien will be mostly forgotten. Millenials will replace him with George Martin. Which is understandable, as Martin is the superior writer.

>>6575207
BOTNS is Sci-Fi

>>6575386

>silly and replacable chars (what is tom bombadil?)

Definitely bait.

>>6575400
>Is this as good as LOTR?

Yes, but for different reasons. It is far more literary in terms of aesthetics and themes. It is definitely NOT high/epic fantasy in vein of LOTR but still fantastic. It's got a very Alice In Wonderland feel to it. Strange characters, places, and prose, but somehow they all coalesce into a fantastic amalgamation of imagination and cohesion.

The last book kinda falls flat, but the first two (Titus Groan and Gormenghast) are fantastic.

>>6575427
To be fair, Bombadil's chapters are the low points of the series.

>>6575231
The Lord of the Rings is one of the best selling novels of all time, and it's in his /lit/ section, so not sure where you're coming from there m80

>>6575250
>>That entire for plebs and for kids list.
>>Better than ASoIaF
>No.

I would rather read Redwall, Narnia, Prydain, or Earthsea over ASOIAF any day of the week. Just because they were written for children doesn't discredit their literary merit--all of which hold far more literary merit than ASOIAF.

Keep trying kid.

>>6575005
>series
Dropped. Tolkien's grwatest sin is not to have attracted overweight neckbeards to what is now fantasy and basically a bad ripoff of his work. It's popularizing the idea that fantasy has to be written in fucking trilogies and sequels of thousands of pages instead of a single book that can stand by itself. All this autistic worldbuilding is the worst part of fantasy, and people don't even put half as much effort into it as Tolkien did.

>>6575170
>A Storm of Swords is THE greatest fantasy novel ever made.

Admit it, you've never read any fantasy outside of GURRM and Rowling.

Back to /tv/ with you.

>>6575583
>Tolkien's grwatest sin is not to have attracted overweight neckbeards to what is now fantasy and basically a bad ripoff of his work. It's popularizing the idea that fantasy has to be written in fucking trilogies and sequels of thousands of pages instead of a single book

Tolkien wanted to publish it as a single book. His publisher told him he couldn't do that for a couple reasons. The War, printing costs, and uncertainty at its success by his publisher were the primary reasons it was split into three separate books.

>>6575047
>There is no better series. Lit just hates them cause they're mainstream.
Almost right. /lit/ hates everything that is fun. Hence the fascination with Jamba Juice and Bulius Ebola.

>>6575307
>Lotr might be "entry level" but that doesn't mean it's bad.
From the greatest meme translator of them all, Åke Ohlmarks

>if you can suffer the first 300 pages with the endless expositions on tobacco, postal service, mild-mannered family feuds and totally exaggregated family stories then you're in for another 200 pages of meandering ploddering, but if you haven't accidentally ODd on heroin then it finally starts to become somewhat fun

>>6575599
I now that, and he couldn't have forseen what it later have rise to. It's just that badly written fantasy us so much worse when people spread it across three books and 1200 pages.

>>6575612

But you could apply the same criticism to pretty much any genre of literature.

For example crime/detective fiction still follows the serialized model which made Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Chesterton's Father Brown so popular and profitable.

Holding a grudge against a writer due to the sins of the publishing world and its after-effects is retarded.

>>6575610
I literally only wrote that being entry level doesn't make the book bad, you fucking drooling retard. I said nothing about other things that might affect the book's quality. In fact, I agree with the criticism you posted, but it has literally nothing to do with my post, you fucking cretin.

>>6575005
I think the series is good, but it relies way too much on shock factor. At some point, the small tragedies that constantly happen just tired me out. I was no longer surprised by any of them, I expected characters to die and I ended up losing interest in any of them because you were either fucked or you were a terrible person. That's no way to write, it's neither deep nor is it terribly realistic, it's a puddle on a dark spot that leaves you disappointed when you step in.

For what I think is better, I want to go with The Black Company for a similarly dark fantasy where people die just the right amount and men are bad but good is there. There're other series I prefer to ASoIaF but The Black Company is the closest in what it tries to be.

>>6575170
>IMO, LotR is pretty much entry level at this point, whereas ASOIAF is deep.
Solid meme.

I give it 3 out of 5 MPs (Meme Points),

>tfw can't fanthom how people who read very high calibre literature and prose here can possibly think ASOIAF is good.

It's one of the most bumblingly incompetent of the "popular" books I've read in terms of pace, plot and handling of its material. Each chapter and book is very carefully structured to getting you hooked on wanting to know what happens next, however rarely ever satisfying you ("page-turning" cliffhangers fizzle to nothing by the time you get back to a chapter that is supposed to deal with them), and the process of reading itself is not satisfying because it's 50% shopping-list descriptions of knights' gauntlets or boiled leather armour sludging everything down.

So essentially you're reading through frustrating writing in the vague hope of finding out what happens next to all the characters you're trying to get back to and the majority of the time not getting anything interesting when you do get back to them except the same frustrating writing to wade through. You can't read ASOIAF to enjoy the writing and rarely is each scene itself enjoyable, that's for sure. Only the overarching tangle of what is going to happen to all the characters and houses (which are becoming increasingly less interesting as lower-calibre characters replace the ones who had died) and the escapism to another world is enjoyable.

>>6575025
ASOIAF fan boys LOVE to compare their beloved to this series when they are hardly comparable. You just handed them their favorite bait

>>6575265
So much this.

I only made to the end of book 1. Never bothered beyond that because some of the characters I just can't stand

>>6575809
Book 1 was my least favorite actually

>>6575005
Past Sins.
yea

>>6575207
>no last unicorn
>ctrl+f
>still no last unicorn
:(

>>6575005
Fantasy is shit itself.

>>6575170
Storm of swords isn't even the best novel in the series bud

>>6576355
Some of the seminal western works are full of fantasy, m8.
It's high fantasy what is shit.

>>6575207
>The Wheel of Time
>For Kids
Those series are worse than ASOIAF.
Game of thrones is still poop.

Also Gene Wolfe is sci-fi.
poophead.

>>6576355
fail troll gtfo

>>6575281
please be joking

>>6576463
>>For Kids
>Those series are worse than ASOIAF.

I can objectively say that Narnia, Prydain, and Earthsea hold far more literary merit than ASOIAF.

The Wheel of Time is better than ASOIAF if for the sole reason that it is actually FINISHED.

Which brings me to my next point, all these Martin fags claiming ASOIAF to be the greatest fantasy series of all time are beyond stupid. The series isn't even finished. You can't even give an honest assessment of its place alongside other series for the sheer fact that it's unfinished. Even if you could, the series has taken a SHARP turn towards mediocrity, redundancy, and meandering plot lines that seem to be going nowhere and will amount to nothing.

I swear Martin fans are the most delusional lot I've encountered.

>>6576501
Careful not to burst a blood vessel there

>>6575265

>stopping on book three

i didn't even know this was possible

>>6576501
>all these Martin fags claiming ASOIAF to be the greatest fantasy series of all time are beyond stupid
Stop listening to them.

it's boring

>>6575005
The Farseer trilogy. It's well written and interesting. Which is more than I can say for Martins babble.

>>6576508
I watched the first season, bought all the books, took me a year to start reading them. Got to book three and one night i was moving some shit, saw them all stacked on my shelf. I was like nah fam.

>>6576546
I like Farseer and Liveships, but GRRM is easily a better writer than Hobb.

Eragon :^)

>>6575610
>Hence the fascination with Jamba Juice
If you don't think James Joyce is fun you're probably illiterate.

>>6575610
> /lit/ hates everything that is fun. Hence the fascination with Jamba Juice

lol what the fuck are you talking about dude ulysses is one of the most fun books of all time

Discworld- there is nothing that can compare

>>6575207
i have never met another person who has read The Worm Ouroboros
it truly is great.
i could add some books by Ursula Le Guin
earthsea books are good, but most of the rest i like are more on the science fiction side though.
The Left Hand of Darkness is amazing...

Diana Wynne Jones for top tier for kids or adults, i recall liking the Dark Lord of Derkholm.
on the other hand, prydain is a odd mixture of unreadable and nightmare inducing.

>>6575005
>Well if you hate it so much can you name a better fantasy series?

More historical novels than fantasy, but yes.

God why can't you guys take off your contrarian shades for once?

The Stormlight Archive.

>>6575207
Ursula leGuin is my favourite author, but I never found the Earthsea series to be that good tbh. Much prefer her sciencefiction fantasy stuff.