Bakker, Gene Wolfe, Dunsany, and Tolkien

[Anonymous No.19305256]

Rank em, fantasybros

[Anonymous No.19305296]

Wolfe, Dunsany, Tolkien <power gap> the literally who author.

[Anonymous No.19305297]

>>19305256
Obviously in the order you posted.

[Anonymous No.19305472]

Dunsany & Wolfe
MacDonald & Tolkien
Smith & Peake
Le Guin & Vance
Howard
Moorcock

<massive gap>

Martin
Sanderson & Bakker
Rothfuss

[Anonymous No.19305635]

Bakker has such an extraordinarily inflated sense of self-importance. It's wild.

[Anonymous No.19305766]

>>19305256
Wolfe is the only competent novelist among them

[Anonymous No.19305867]

>>19305766
LOTR is a romance, not a novel.

[Anonymous No.19305871]

>>19305867
it also sucks

[Anonymous No.19305874]

>>19305635
It really is. He’s just another liberal-scientific writer trying to offer apologetics for why he didn’t make it as a literary author or Academic and explain the problems of the liberal-scientific worldview without actually stepping outside of it. Though, after reading his blog, it all makes sense why he has such an over-bloated sense of self-worth.

[Anonymous No.19305877]

>>19305256
tolkien, wolfe, dunsany>>>>>> gay rape extraordinaire

[Anonymous No.19305883]

>>19305256
wolfe = tolkein > all other fantasy

[Anonymous No.19305884]

Wolfe > Bakker > Tolkien > Dunsany
I know this might make you mad because it's imprinted on you to think that Tolkien is good but deep down you know that he is a writer for children

[Anonymous No.19305892]

>>19305884
Better to write books for kids than to write books for sub-80 IQ pseudointellectual faggots like Bakker does

[Anonymous No.19305896]

>>19305874
Holy fuck is this real? It's exactly like one of those fat woman blogs where they talk about how someone started making pig noises at them

[Anonymous No.19305911]

>>19305874
what the fuck does "electronically balkanized" mean? that people spend time on websites with people who think like they do? people have always self segregated, long before computers even existed.

[Anonymous No.19305921]

>>19305892
As expected, another victim of can't think for himself unable to realize that Tolkien is liked only because of his cultural signifigance and not his mediocre children's books....

[Anonymous No.19305922]

>>19305874
>receive compliment
>swear under breath
>lecture compliment giver
>brag about it later on your blog

[Anonymous No.19306018]

>>19305896
Don’t read his blog then. It’s like a Reddit nerve center or an amalgamation given life. Though, I will say this, after I read his blog, and how he talks about the "Trump-Media-Combine" or some other pseudo intellectual bullshit and that makes a rantpost about how he's an atheist and got bullied for it. Bakker might be one of the most embarrassing pseuds writers alive. He's obsessed with his self-image but routinely gets passed over by people in his fields. Not to mention the man is incapable of accepting any kind of criticism.

[Anonymous No.19306058]

>>19305896
>Holy fuck is this real?
Yeah.
http://www.heliotropemag.com/Issue01/pdf/Heliotrope_pg32-38_SkepticalFantasist.pdf

"I was crossing campus not so long ago and I happened to bump into one of my old
professors. She greeted me with a warm smile and congratulated me on my success
writing children’s fiction. After swearing under my breath, I explained to her that I wrote epic fantasy, and that if anything, it was as adult as adult could be. The idea, I told her, was that in today’s electronically balkanized society, genre was the only place where it was possible to write ‘literature.’"

[Anonymous No.19306072]

>>19305896
>Holy fuck is this real?
Yeah.
http://www.heliotropemag.com/Issue01/pdf/Heliotrope_pg32-38_SkepticalFantasist.pdf

"I was crossing campus not so long ago and I happened to bump into one of my old professors. She greeted me with a warm smile and congratulated me on my success writing children’s fiction. After swearing under my breath, I explained to her that I wrote epic fantasy, and that if anything, it was as adult as adult could be. The idea, I told her, was that in today’s electronically balkanized society, genre was the only place where it was possible to write ‘literature.’"

[Anonymous No.19306133]

1. Tolkien
2. The rest of fantasy which is worthless schlock for man-children. Tolkien at least had some genuine sense of wonder even if his prose isn’t excellent.

[Anonymous No.19306184]

>>19305472
Somewhat conflicted on Rothfuss... I enjoyed his D&D before his books, but always struggled to accept the sum of his writing and his personality. He is quixotic in more ways than one, yet somehow his delusions are channeled into enthralling prose. I sincerely hope he can hold onto enough sanity to give us his conclusion, even if it only manages to be an indecipherable mess.

Also, Sanderson is the literary equivalent to a bad anime, and I hope none of you actually waste your time reading his work. His books are probably the greatest waste of paper next to Stephen King.

[Anonymous No.19306195]

>>19305256
Tolkien
Wolfe
Dunsany
POWER GAP
POWER GAP
POWER GAP
Bakker

[Anonymous No.19306221]

>>19306133
Dunsany and MacDonald are as deserving as Tolkien, if not more

[Anonymous No.19306272]

>>19306221
literally who x2

[Anonymous No.19306322]

>>19305874
Wait, Bakker is liberal? I never read any of his books before yet people praise him like if he was some super duper based and le repilled guy on /sffg/

[Anonymous No.19306357]

>>19306322
Bakker's work is the epitome of bugman materialist philosophy. It's just that liberals dislike him for all the rape and violence, and the irrelevance of his women characters. Hence /lit/ loves him. He owns the libs or something.

[Anonymous No.19306391]

>>19306322
>Wait, Bakker is liberal?
Bakker is literally a progressive. It should be clear to anyone that read his blog that Bakker is not only a liberal, but an American-style Democrat and a technocrat. And he’s also a self-proclaimed feminist.

>I never read any of his books before yet people praise him like if he was some super duper based and le repilled guy on /sffg/
Pretty sure those were shitposters who were caught multiple times samefagging.

[Anonymous No.19306420]

I've found myself increasingly fascinated by the scope of Tolkien's legendarium, and I have spent some time reading about him rather than his works directly, other than some excerpts from the Silmarillion.

It is natural that he isn't highly regarded within literature as the value of his work lies in his whole legendarium rather than any single work. And both The Hobbit and LOTR are in fact children's books - it was not until a few chapters into writing LOTR that he decided to merge it into taking place within the legendarium, possibly spurred by several publishers rejecting a version of the Silmarillion he tried to get published at the time. That said, compared to other fantasy writers LOTR holds up very well on its own.

Middle-earth is supposed to be a fictional history of our own world - the original mythology of the angles before being conquered by settlers from today's Denmark as imagined and reconstructed by Tolkien.

[Anonymous No.19306445]

>>19305256
Tolkien >>>> COSMIS-SIZED GAP >>>> Wolfe > INFINITY+ > everyone else

[Anonymous No.19306463]

>>19306445
>Tolkien >>>> COSMIS-SIZED GAP >>>> Wolfe
One of the most retarded opinions that exists.

[Anonymous No.19306542]

>>19306357
>Hence /lit/ loves him.
Kek, /lit/ doesn’t even love him.

[Anonymous No.19306574]

>>19306463
the only retard here... is you

[Anonymous No.19306618]

>>19305896
Bakker is insanely egoistic. The guy legitimately thinks he's a misunderstood genius. First he failed at philosophy, then he failed at neuroscience, and now he failed at fantasy. Watching him begging for scraps of attention from Daniel Dennett was truly hilarious. I want to say he can't go any lower, but I'll have to wait and see.

[Anonymous No.19306732]

>>19305256
Bakker is an asshole with a gigantic ego and a few good ideas. There were parts of The Second Apocalypse I liked a lot, but they all got undermined as the series went on.
Wolfe was a great novelist who deserves all the praise he gets.
Tolkien shouldn't be ranked with genre authors, not just because he was a better writer than most of them but because his intentions and style were radically different.
I don't know anything about Dunsany, but I bet he's similar to Tolkien.

[Anonymous No.19306886]

>>19305256
>Bakker
Who?

[Anonymous No.19306893]

>>19306072
Holy fuck this is embarrassing

[Anonymous No.19306897]

>>19306184
>He is quixotic in more ways than one, yet somehow his delusions are channeled into enthralling prose.
this is possibly the gayest sentence I've ever read, and I regularly read gay mpreg erotica

[Anonymous No.19306913]

>>19306272
Lord Dunsany is pretty good man. He was an early fantasy author, pals with Yeats, and a big influence on Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. His stories aren't great, but they're definitely worth a read if you're into fantasy at all.

[Anonymous No.19306921]

>Mogs them all

[Anonymous No.19306946]

Bakker > Wolfe > Literally Who >>>>> Anglo filth

[Anonymous No.19306951]

>>19306946
One of the most retarded opinions that exists.

[Anonymous No.19306968]

Wolfe over Tolkien for me but purely out of personal taste.
Dunsany is a bit like Wells' SF books, they're great to read to understand the foundation but they feel a little hollow on their own.
Haven't read Bakker.

[Anonymous No.19306972]

Tolkien the only real author there. Wolfe is only okay. Dunsany is a literal who and Baka is a retard.

[Anonymous No.19307052]

>>19306072
Holy cringe

[Anonymous No.19307063]

>>19306072
>>19305874
Bakker is a cringy liberal fag IRL but his works are actually stellar. I don't know how he does it, maybe a muse takes over his diseased leftie brain as he writes, but you wouldn't guess that a fantasy masterpiece like Prince of Nothing was written by a mentally ill canadian.

[Anonymous No.19307069]

>>19307063
>but his works are actually stellar.
No it isn't.

[Anonymous No.19307101]

>>19307069
cope

[Anonymous No.19307105]

>>19307101
rigged and illegitimate

[Anonymous No.19307116]

>>19307101
Cope from what? Bakker's work isn't stellar. It's a reason why he was dropped.

[Anonymous No.19307176]

>>19306968
>Haven't read Bakker.
Don’t bother.

[Anonymous No.19307900]

>>19305874
>>19306072
>Someone actually praises him for writing children’s literature.
>Can only seethe
Jesus, how mentally sick do you have to be to react that way?

[Anonymous No.19308481]

>>19307900
Autism

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.19308570]

Dunsany>Tolkien>Wolfe>Bakker

And if allowed to add others,

Dunsany>clark Ashton smith>Edison=McDonald>Tolkien >Wolfe>Bakker


I find it very hard to believe anyone putting Dunsany so low has actually read much Dunsany.

[Anonymous No.19309045]

>>19305871
No it doesnt

[Anonymous No.19309061]

You don't like Bakker you don't belong on /lit/. And you're probably a nigger.

[Anonymous No.19309514]

>>19309061
/lit/ hates Bakker

[Anonymous No.19309530]

>>19309045
yuh-huh

[Anonymous No.19309639]

>>19309061
>>19309514
Bakker is a /sffg/ meme. Genre fiction outside Wolfe, Tolkien and Herbert is not discussed much.

[Anonymous No.19309651]

>>19306072
>all the cache
kek, if you're going to use five dollar words to make yourself sound smart, you should at least spell them correctly

[Anonymous No.19309810]

Is Dunsany worth reading? Where should I start? I don't like fantasy much, but I've been reading loads of epic poetry and I need a break.

[Anonymous No.19309896]

>>19309810
>Is Dunsany worth reading?
yes

[Anonymous No.19309902]

>>19309810
>I've been reading loads of epic poetry
we're all super impressed

[Anonymous No.19309925]

>>19309902
>>19309896
Fuck both of you brainlets, where do I start? Elfland?

[Anonymous No.19309931]

>>19309925
The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories

[Anonymous No.19309944]

>>19309925
The Fantasy Masterworks reprint collects almost all of his fantasy story collections; it's a bit pricey but it has almost all of his fantasy stuff so I'd say its worth the price
They also did The King of Elfland's Daughter in the same series
Penguin Classics has a collection of some of his fantasy and non-fantasy stories too, go with this one if you want a sampler of the different types of stories (not just fantasy stuff) that he did

[Anonymous No.19309955]

>>19309925
>>19309944
forgot pic; pic rel is the Masterworks' reprint of his fantasy short stories
the Penguins Classics collection is called "In the Land of Time: And Other Fantasy Tales"

[Anonymous No.19309995]

>>19309955
>>19309944
>>19309931
Thank you!

[Anonymous No.19310026]

>>19306072
this dude is great. everyone in this thread is a milquetoast faggot afraid of breaking the chains of sterilized and castrated consumer relegations which have crippled the literary canon with undeserving hacks. it's self gatekeeping and you all deserve better. maybe you don't, now that i think of it.

-Hanx

[Anonymous No.19310772]

>>19310026
>this dude is great.
He isn't.

[Anonymous No.19310786]

>>19310026
>relegations
is this the word you meant to use?
genuinely curious

[Anonymous No.19310793]

>>19305871
This.

Wolfe is also not the amazing art everyone thinks it is. It's good prose for genre fiction, that's it.

[Anonymous No.19310804]

>>19306897
Thanks for sharing your homosexual fantasies with us anon

[Anonymous No.19310824]

>>19305874
Weird.

I never would have thought he was liberal from his books. He is pretty into genetic determinism, and definitely rejects the noble savage may may liberals love.

Guess you never know.

[Anonymous No.19310866]

>>19306391
>Technocrat
Like this is a bad thing. Somehow retards and reality TV stars running things is better, right, because "muh democracy," or some shit. Plato was right about this entire thing. Asking the winners of popularity contests to rule is like asking a plumber to fix your computer, or asking a programmer to do your heart surgery.

>Muh bugmen
I'm glad I saved this anon's post because I've been able to post it several times to make people in occultist and gnostic threads seethe. Never have I see any compelling responses. It's not like empiricism doesn't have the weight of results behind it, but apparently "but what about my feel feels!" is considered a good rebuttal to it.

[Anonymous No.19310878]

>>19305867
>i-it's not supposed to be good

[Anonymous No.19310891]

>>19305256
Bakker > Wolfe > (gap because I've read but didn't particularly enjoy Tolkien) > Tolkien

Haven't read the other guy.

[Anonymous No.19310903]

>>19310891
One of the most retarded opinions that exists.

[Anonymous No.19310929]

>>19310903
Fuck off. I stand by it. Wolfe had the best prose but the narrative didn't grab me because it's too disjointed and the world wasn't anything special as far as genre fiction goes.

Bakker had pacing issues and says most of the interesting stuff he has to say early on, but it is an interesting fantasy world. Prose is ok, except that the names are fucking dumb and pretentious and the story drags at times. This is helped by good battle scenes.

Tolkien is a mix of unexceptional prose, boring predictable plot, flat characters, and an ok world.

[Anonymous No.19310935]

>>19310929
>Tolkien is a mix of unexceptional prose, boring predictable plot, flat characters, and an ok world.
Okay, now I know you're just taking the piss.

[Anonymous No.19310960]

>>19310824
It's a different type of leftism from wokism. Ligotti is a lefty too, and Lovecraft supported rule by an elite but was an FDR fan and anti-Marxist socialist. William Durant kind of fits the mold too, very high brow aesthetically, not big on mob rule, but also saw major tenants of conservatism as essentially vestigial barbarism.

[Anonymous No.19311282]

>>19310960
>It's a different type of leftism from wokism.
No it isn’t.

[Anonymous No.19311294]

>>19311282
>"Hurr durr, a single one dimensional spectrum can define all politics."

Lovecraft hated Blacks and immigrants but turned to socialism on economic and aesthetic grounds. He's a lefty but a Boogeyman of the Woke.

On the flip side, if a Spartan was teleported to today and caught up on modern politics they would find modern conservatism's focus on markets and economic gain absolutely abborhent, and wouldn't see a problem with collectivism per say.

[Anonymous No.19311336]

>>19311294
Yeah, now how about we talk about a modern author in a modern political setting?

[Anonymous No.19312020]

>>19310804
you are very welcome

[Anonymous No.19312327]

>>19306322
>he was some super duper based and le repilled guy on /sffg/
Nah, those are just his Reddit supporters. They even post in Reddit.

[Anonymous No.19312332]

>>19306184
>He is quixotic in more ways than one, yet somehow his delusions are channeled into enthralling prose
>somebody wrote this and thought it was a good idea to post
Topkek. This shit is pasta material

[Anonymous No.19312368]

>>19305256
Wolfe > Dunsany > Tolkien > Bakker

[Anonymous No.19312412]

>>19305256
Tolkien is good despite contrarians ITT

[Anonymous No.19313396]

>>19310866
One of the most retarded opinions that exists.

[Anonymous No.19313677]

I like all of them (´｡• ω •｡`)

[Anonymous No.19313920]

>>19306184
>Somewhat conflicted on Rothfuss...
you do not deserve to speak, much like Rothfuss should not be allowed to write

[Anonymous No.19314479]

Dunsany
<slither of a gap>
Tolkien
Wolfe
Peake
Dave Eddings
Vance
Baker isn't even in the running. Stop memeing him.

[Anonymous No.19315376]

>>19314479
>Baker
Who even is he?

[Anonymous No.19315438]

>>19315376
The Cuckold That Cums After The Darkness That Cums Before

[Anonymous No.19315982]

>>19315438
Why are you guys such faggots.

[Anonymous No.19316055]

>>19315982
The cuckoldry is without beginning or end. The cuckoldry is without beginning or end. The cuckoldry is without beginning or end

[Anonymous No.19316109]

>>19306913
>He was an early fantasy author, pals with Yeats

Who was better at portraying faerie, Dunsany, Yeats, or Keats?

[Anonymous No.19316143]

>seething this much about Bakker
>same fagging like there is no tomorrow

Ngl, it does feel really good knowing that you are promoting my favourite fantasy author for free after being filtered hard.

[Anonymous No.19316148]

>>19307105
I accept your surrender.

[Anonymous No.19316150]

>>19316143
>>seething this much about Bakker
There's no seething about Bakker.

[Anonymous No.19316156]

>>19307101
Holy shit, is Sanderson that bad?

[Anonymous No.19316163]

>>19316150
>He does it for free

Keep indulging me.

[Anonymous No.19316172]

>>19316150
Just the filtered part then?

[Anonymous No.19316173]

>>19316163
Anon, just because people think Gene Wolfe, Dunsany, and Tolkien are better than Bakker doesn't make them seething.

[Anonymous No.19316179]

>>19316172
That and the samefagging.

[Anonymous No.19316180]

Wolfe
Wolfe
Wolfe
Wolfe
Tolkien
Who?

[Anonymous No.19316182]

>>19316143
Actually I'm the one posting about cuckoldry and I'm a Bakkerchad. A good dunyain knows that hating on Bakker just makes him more powerful.

[Anonymous No.19317456]

>>19305296
>>19305472
>>19305635
>>19305874
>>19305877
>>19305892
>>19306018
>>19306195
>>19306618
>>19306886
>>19307116
>>19307176
>>19309639
>>19312368
>>19314479
>>19315376
>>19315438
these niggas get it.

bakker is a thin-skinned prick. he can't write for shit, he's obsessed with gay rape as a coping mechanism to try dealing with his own personal demons, and he burned just about every bridge with publishers with his last series. seriously, dude tried astro-turfing a fanbase to get paid more for not editing his 4th book down enough to fit into a trilogy and then pulled his stereotypical "you just don't understand me and muh genius!" rants.

the dude has all sorts of horrible things in his personal life (almost certainly victim of sexual assault, pain medication addictions, brain consumed by every far left-wing fad, etc.), and that has all seeped out into his writing. his biggest success is convincing all these incels that they can become like killhouse by mastering the darkness that cooms before.

as to the OP's original question, gonna put Tolkien above Wolfe, but that's not a giant gap there. I can't rate Dunsany as i haven't read any of his. Bakker chases Sandersoy around the bottom of the barrel, 2 fish of equally-detestable flavor.

[Anonymous No.19318203]

>>19317456
>. I can't rate Dunsany as i haven't read any of his.
You should really read Dunsany

[Anonymous No.19319022]

>>19317456
Dunsany By is above Wolfe

[Anonymous No.19319094]

Tolkien >>>>>>> Wolfe > literally who > Bakker

[Anonymous No.19319484]

>>19317456
Pathetic. If Bakker was in front of you just one look from him, one look from that icy intelligence would be enough to stop your gibbering. At a single utterance of His word, a single slight inclination of the head, I, or any other Bakkerite, would slit your throat for Him. I would pull your eyes from your skull just far enough to show you the mewing atrocity I had made of your face. For this is what your impudence deserves.

You speak of victimization, morality? A genius like Bakker has no more sense of morality than a hurricane. It is power, absolute.

[Anonymous No.19319557]

>>19316182
I mostly shit on Bakker, despite only reading most of the first Cooms book and actually finding it pretty interesting, because he doesn't have literary clout.

Like, I found Tolkien fucking boring. I had to do an audiobook for LOTR on a long drive to get through it. Even the movies, while I did love them as they came out, also have boring parts and all go on too long. But Tolkien spawned a genre and is cited as a big inspiration. He's like the only genre writer with clout (you're kidding yourself if you think Wolfe is considered with Pynchon, Morrison, or McCarthy, or even with Ligotti).

I want to be a famous writer so I'm not going to waste my time with people considered trash.

If Bakker's whole point is that we're ruled by our circumstances and desires, then he should understand why no one would call him a great unless someone with clout to give had already given it to him, which they won't.

Based on what I read, I thought he was sort of delivering Dennett in a much more digestible form of interesting fantasy. Ok, plenty of good writers make their hay explaining philosophers through narrative. The problem for Bakker is that literary types and those that could give him clout are EXACTLY those who would hate that sort of bugman shit. Bugman philosophy might have a lot of empirical support and win over a bunch of pencil necks at a psychology conference, but it's going to make literary people absolutely hate you.

Second, if you want to make hay explaining philosophy through easier to understand narrative, don't throw 25 page graphic demon sex scenes into your book.

[Anonymous No.19319620]

I hate Bakker because I had the idea for Neuropath in 2008 when I was finishing a degree in neuroscience and had the plot sketched, just had to write it, and this fucker stole it from me.

I mean, mine was a bit different, it was going to be a Saw type thing where people can escape by solving puzzles but the puzzle is such that the part of their brain that has been damaged will block them from being able to do it, but it was close enough.

And then I had the idea for a fantasy novel set in an Ancient Greece type setting, with philosophers as magicians. Ok, this isn't that unique, the connection between philosophy and magic goes back at least to alchemy in the Middle Ages. But it seems like Bakker bit my shit off there too, and he didn't even do anything that interesting with it from what I can see. I was going to have schools of magic debate as a vehicle for framing arguments in ancient philosophy. Instead he mostly uses words and descriptions that call some sort of magic via semiotics, but for all practical plot points it's basically just normal magic. No Pythagorean laser triangles, or Platonists hurling the form of a hammer at the skull of a Peripatetic sorcerer, just to have his form degraded into a harmless, merely psychic class or genus.

Dude fucking stole me whole shit. And Dan Simmons stole my idea for a sci-fi Iliad and it wasn't even fucking good because he wrote 1,800 pages of it and then just ends it suddenly because he wrote himself into a box.

[Anonymous No.19320695]

>>19319484
Seek help

[Anonymous No.19320764]

I'm convinced that Wolfe is just Malazan for pseuds. Both fanbases only argument in face of criticism is "but it gets good X books in" or "it makes sense on a reread!"

[Anonymous No.19320794]

>>19306921
I'm suprised Eddison isn't more popular on /lit/. Seems like he would be right in this boards wheelhouse.

[Anonymous No.19320835]

>>19320794
That's implying people here read.

[Anonymous No.19320847]

>>19319557
Bakker's Apocalypse books are just exploitation. I heard a lot about them, and when I started reading, I laughed at every pearl. Bakker specifically writes that everything was scary, disgusting and disgusting. He even comes up with scary names. But in reality, all this is an operational farce. Bakker scares me, but I'm not scared. Besides, I see the prototypes of his world. This passage from the game Disciples, this passage from the Fall from Haven mod.

[Anonymous No.19320872]

>>19319484
>icy intelligence
Guess I'll just bring a stove then lol

[Anonymous No.19320889]

>>19311294
Lovecraft hated blacks because blacks committed crimes (gang rape of two white girls on a train). Lovecraft hated the Irish because of their insurgency against Britain.
At the same time, Lovecraft had an acquaintance with a black intellectual, married to a white woman, and calmly communicated with the Irish in his literary circle. He did not hate ethnic groups, he hated the atrocities these groups do.

[Anonymous No.19321018]

>121 Posts
>44 IPs

Imagine being this filtered by Bakker.

[Anonymous No.19321105]

>>19320764
Kek, it does be like that sometimes.

[Anonymous No.19321205]

>>19307052
>>19306072
If you feel cringe from Bakker then Bakker wanted you to feel cringe. Do you think that your response was somehow beyond his ability to predict?

Then you have not realized the autobiographical reality of Annasurimbur Khellus.

[Anonymous No.19321292]

Bakker is unironically the greatest living fantasy writer.

[Anonymous No.19321452]

For genre fiction:

Dan Simmons > Alistair Reynolds = Tolkien > Frank Herbert > Gene Wolfe = Glen Cook > a bunch of one offs I read and weren't particularly memorable > R. Scott Bakker, which I forced myself to read and didn't like.

[Anonymous No.19321558]

>>19305256
Bakker is a gigachad and his books are unique and wonderfully written. The fact that he makes /lit/ pseuds seethe so hard is hard evidence of his superiority.

[Anonymous No.19321572]

>>19321558
It's just a couple of /sffg/ brainlets who are angry because they can't discuss Sanderson in peace.

[Anonymous No.19321661]

Tolkien, Wolfe, Dunsany, and David Gemmell. Bakker is a meme and super literay fantasy only gets worse the further you get in the series.

[Anonymous No.19321832]

>>19321452
>>19321248
Imagine copying and editing someone else's opinions to try to generate unique samefags because some author made you seethe.

[Anonymous No.19321916]

>>19321292
>>19321572
hello pseudshits

[Anonymous No.19321934]

>>19321661
No, not really.

[Anonymous No.19322065]

>>19321292
There really is no competition, is there?

[Anonymous No.19322083]

>>19322065
Yes, several authors are better than Bakker.

[Anonymous No.19322088]

>>19322083
In fantasy? Not really. Not alive, anyway.

[Anonymous No.19322091]

>>19322088
>In fantasy?
Yes. Several authors are better than Bakker.

[Anonymous No.19322104]

>>19322088
I wasn't asking.

[Anonymous No.19322108]

>>19322088
It's not hard to be the best in fantasy, though. He should write more fiction. Fantasy is below him, anyway.

[Anonymous No.19322122]

>>19322108
I mean, when was the last time you've read a groundbreaking series like the Second Apocalypses?

It's fucking depressing.

[Anonymous No.19322128]

>>19322122
>groundbreaking series
>Second Apocalypses
You should read more.

[Anonymous No.19322138]

>>19322122
There's a reason why I've almost stopped reading fantasy, you know? There's a lot of good shit in fiction. Have you read Borges?

[Anonymous No.19322151]

>>19305256
funny how all the Wolfe fanboys that are so above Tolkien fail to realize that Wolfe absolutely loved LOTR and wrote a whole essay about it https://www.scifiwright.com/2015/10/the-best-introduction-to-the-mountains-2/

[Anonymous No.19322170]

>>19320835
True. But even without reading him, the fact that he's semi-obscure and has a reputation for being something of a right wing traditionalist should endear him to /lit/.
that said, his books really are remarkably good. The ending of Mistress of Mistresses is one of the most intense passages of fiction I've ever read

[Anonymous No.19322173]

>>19322108
He tried writing crime and scifi and it was bad desu. And yes he could use an editor. But consider passages like this.

>And set in its heart, like some shrine to intellect and intention, the enormous Obsidian Gate, looming over the ruins of an ancient fortress.
>The company gathered on the platform beneath it, loose clots of men drifting to a halt, mouths open. The Skin Eaters had expected many things, daydreams of a storied destination, but they were quite unprepared for what they beheld. Achamian could see it in the way they craned and peered, like emissaries of a backward yet imperious people trying to see past their awe.
>The entrance was unbarred, an ovoid of impenetrable black set in an immense arched recess, which was panelled with reliefs that formed a skein over yet deeper narratives, so that the scenes depicted possessed a startling depth. Nonmen figures twined across every surface, weathered to the point where you could scarcely distinguish the armoured from the naked, frozen in antique postures of triumph or ceremonial tedium. Shepherds with lambs about their shoulders. Warriors fending lions and jackals. Captives baring necks to the swords of princes. On and on, the lives of the dead in miniature. Four pillars flanked the threshold, the outermost pair soaring tall as netia pine, yet hollow, great “cylinders of interlocking figures and faces; the innermost solid, three snakes intercoiling, their heads lost in the vaulted gloom, their rattled tails forming three-pronged bases.
Curses filled the silence, some murmured, others spoken quite out loud. Such was the monumental delicacy, the profusion of figure and detail, that the forms seemed more revealed than rendered, as though the sheeted cliffs were naught but mud rinsed from the stone of ossified souls. Even half-ruined, there was too much, too much beauty, too much detail, and certainly too much toil, a grandeur made wicked by the demands it exacted on simpler souls. It was a place that begged to be challenged, overthrown.

His writing about the Nonmen, the Inchoroi, hell, and his maddened deconstruction of Tolkien's canonic work are all very interesting to me. Desu I've read all the other canonic /sffg/ authors in full as well. Bakker is still a standout.

[Anonymous No.19322177]

>>19305256
Wolfe>Mervyn Peake >Howard>Vance>William Hope Hodgson>Clark Ashton Smith>Chambers>Madeline Miller>Bakker>Dunsany

Tolkien is fodder for midwits

[Anonymous No.19322230]

>>19322170
>the fact that he's semi-obscure and has a reputation for being something of a right wing traditionalist should endear him to /lit/.
Anon, just read this thread and it tells you more than enough that /lit/ doesn't know what a right wing traditionalist author is.
I've been meaning to get Zimiamvian Trilogy soon. Are his other works worth getting?

[Anonymous No.19322293]

Tolkien > any other fantasy author since I've never read them.

[Anonymous No.19322546]

>>19322293
this

[Anonymous No.19322632]

>>19305256
JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and TH White are the only three fantasy authors anyone needs to read. Maybe Richard Adams at a push.

>But what about this non-English fantasy author that I have here?
Not interested.

[Anonymous No.19322649]

>>19322632
Mervyn Peake, E. R. Eddison, Dunsany and Jack Vance are also worth reading.

[Anonymous No.19322704]

>>19322293
You need to be 18 to post here.

[Anonymous No.19322732]

>>19321452
>Frank Herbert > Gene Wolfe
Wow really?

[Anonymous No.19322773]

>>19322177
Why the fuck is Dunsany lowest? His prose is one of the best in fantasy.

[Anonymous No.19322904]

Can someone give a semi-detailed response as to why they dislike Tolkien’s prose? I personally find it deeply enchanting. Gandalf’s lines are especially engrossing and the narration presents a real sense of wonder in his detailed universe.

[Anonymous No.19322998]

>>19322904
It's written for children.

[Anonymous No.19323041]

>>19322998
The one written for children is, yes.

[Anonymous No.19323044]

>>19323041
Yes, the Lord of The Rings.

[Anonymous No.19323054]

>>19323044
This bait is decades old.

[Anonymous No.19323056]

>>19323054
What bait?

[Anonymous No.19323110]

>>19305874
>>19305892
>>19306195
>>19306618
>>19306886
>>19307116
>>19317456
Holy shit, the amount of seething samefaggotry over being filtered.

Bakkerchads win through sheer weight of OC. That's what convinced me to pick them up and they were really good

[Anonymous No.19323111]

>>19323110
Hell? Based Department?

[Anonymous No.19323172]

>>19323110
You're cuck author is shit. Inserting cuckoldry doesn't make a story deeper nor philosophical.

[Anonymous No.19323187]

>>19310878
>retard doesn't know what romance means

>>19305256
Ranked not necessarily as writers, but rather as *fantasy* writers:
Tolkien > Dunsany *gap* > Wolfe *gap* > b*kker

Real fantasy is traditional European folklore. Anything that wants to call itself fantasy must follow traditional European folklore in it's style, topics, themes, progression, etc... and most importantly, it must capture it's SOVL.
Tolkien did that marvelously. He wasn't the only one to achieve, but he did it the best.

There are many, many good novelists, but if we are talking about "fantasy" as a genre, then the master of it is Tolkien and there's no two ways about it.
Seriously, before reading any contemporary book I'd always recommend reading the classics of European literature. The Song of Roland, Beowulf, the Illiad, the Cantar del Mío Cid, the Kalevala and the Nibelungenlied already have between them more beauty than almost everything that was written in the 20th century put together and much more than everything written so far in the 21st century. To someone who enjoys traditional fantasy, Tolkien's works read like a love letter that just fits seamlessly.

>>19305921
>>19305884
>Tolkien is for children
What does it even mean that something is "for children"? Because if you think that Tolkien's story is simplistic or that it has no intellectual, philosophical and spiritual depth you simply don't get it.
Next you'll tell me the Mahabharata is for children.

[Anonymous No.19323199]

>>19323172
Not my problem you project yourself in the role of a cück. I chose the BVLL lifestyle.

[Anonymous No.19323204]

>>19323199
Based.

[Anonymous No.19323214]

>>19305472
Sanderson goes at the bottom, his writing is a complete absence of soul. He literally writes in a mechanical way like an AI would.

[Anonymous No.19323217]

>>19323172
If a book containing a cück character really disturbs you, I can only conclude that you're an insecure involuntary cückold yourself.

I'm female, btw

[Anonymous No.19323222]

>>19323214

[Anonymous No.19323229]

>>19323214
>>19323222
Meh, Sanderson doesn’t take himself seriously, unlike that Bakker guy, so he should be above him in ranking.

[Anonymous No.19323234]

>>19323229
You're trying way too hard, sweetie.

One more time.

[Anonymous No.19323254]

>>19305256
Baker is King,

Simple as.

[Anonymous No.19323261]

>Imagine invoking Sanderson in a discussion about real writers.

[Anonymous No.19323270]

>>19323261
The same with Bakker.

[Anonymous No.19323276]

>>19323270
>NO U

I accept your surrender.

[Anonymous No.19323280]

>>19323276
>No argument

[Anonymous No.19323300]

>>19323187
This post is pretty near peak cringe.

[Anonymous No.19323301]

>>19323222
Holy shit, is that real?

[Anonymous No.19323372]

>>19321292
You're not wrong.

[Anonymous No.19323410]

>>19305256
Is OP pic a political compass?

[Anonymous No.19323892]

>>19323410
Yeah, why?

[Anonymous No.19323992]

>>19323217
Cuck

[Anonymous No.19324124]

>>19320764
Wolfe pretty much writes for paying attention to details and rereading (if you want to, I don't). It's enjoyable to piece things together and it helps that he's a much better writer than most other fantasy writers. That's all there is to it.

[Anonymous No.19324991]

>>19324124
Is that why he’s highly praised?

[Anonymous No.19326002]

>>19324991
Pretty much. It's also why people get defensive if you don't like the books.

[Jimondo No.19326007]

>>19323892
a

[Anonymous No.19326829]

>>19323172
Kek, is there cuckoldry in the book? The fuck is wrong with leftist authors inserting sex into everything.

[Anonymous No.19327216]

>>19305256
>Dunsany
>POWERGAP
>POWERGAP
>Tolkien
>POWERGAP
>Wolfe
>Bakker

[Anonymous No.19328124]

>>19305256
>>19305256
Dunsany > Tolkien >> Wolfe >>>>>>> Bakker

[Anonymous No.19328238]

>>19327216
Why the fuck is Wolfe that low in this ranking?

[Anonymous No.19328270]

Bakker unironically needs to have sex

[Anonymous No.19328280]

>>19322230
So far I've only read Ouroboros, which is fantastic, and Mistress of Mistresses, which is even better. In MoM everything is on point, the prose, the characters, the way the plot unfurls, and the underlying philosophy. Both books took me a long time to read, not because I didn't enjoy them or found them difficult, but after reading about 20 pages my brain just felt saturated, and I also found myself rereading passages over and over again. I have Fish Dinner in Memison, but I haven't started it yet. I would like to check out Styrbiorn the Strong

[Anonymous No.19328287]

I wish Dunsany's stories had a bit more "meat" in them.

[Anonymous No.19328700]

M. John Harrison and his works are really underrated, anyone who likes the works of Vance and Wolfe should read the Viriconium series.

[Anonymous No.19329075]

>>19328700
Where does he rank?

[Anonymous No.19329326]

>>19329075
Just a tad below Wolfe IMO

[Anonymous No.19329346]

>>19305256
My personal taste goes
>Wolfe
>Tolkien
>Bakker
<POWERGAP>
>Dunsany.
I have no taste for the man even after reading The Queen of Elfland's Daughter and much of Time and the Gods. He is another lukewarm Victorian fabulist who writes amorphous, pastel scenes that have no real depth. Even Bakker, imitator of Tolkien as he is, is capable of better description and depth of character. Dunsany's only claim to fame is that he was lionised by Lovecraft, and the old gentleman's word is all too often taken as Gospel. I would rate Dunsay below Wilde as a writer of fantasy.

[Anonymous No.19329354]

>>19308570
Classic example of image over content. Dunsany and CAS don't even come up to Lovecraft's coattails, yet alone Wolfe's.

[Anonymous No.19329472]

>>19329346
>The Queen of Elfland's Daughter and much of Time and the Gods. He is another lukewarm Victorian fabulist who writes amorphous, pastel scenes that have no real depth.
Filtered.

[Anonymous No.19329482]

>>19305256
>>19305256
Bakker > Wolfe>> Tolkien>>>>>>> Dunsany

[Anonymous No.19329592]

>>19306322
Bakker was banned from twitter making fun of trans women.

[Anonymous No.19329652]

>>19329592
holy shit i love bakker now. best fantasy author of the century

[Anonymous No.19330118]

>>19329472
A reply with as much substance as Dunsany's work.

[Anonymous No.19330205]

>>19329354
When you actually read his stories, Lovecraft's ideas and themes are 'ok' at best, and underdeveloped and unexplored at their worst; His actual writing style is really bad; clunky, often repetitive, and too wordy. His plots are underdeveloped and simple, and his characters flat and nonexistent.
Clark Ashton Smith's plots and characters are about the same as Lovecraft's (most of the time; in some of his stories, like Necromancy in Naat, he does actually make some interesting characters), but the one thing that puts him head over shoulders above Lovecraft is that he is a very, very good prose stylist and poet; where Lovecraft comes off as stilted and dull, CAS is elegant and ornate and decadent. Dunsany ranks lower than CAS but higher than Lovecraft because while his fantasy stories are just exercises in worldbuilding (more like 'mythologybuilding'), he is a very good stylist (he very skillfully uses that grand high 'KJV' diction to evoke a real sense of a kind of 'lost mythological age' in his fantasy stories), and his non-fantasy stories are also very good.

[Anonymous No.19330627]

>>19330205
You have to admit that for all his stumbling and false starts, Lovecraft has a very firm understanding of how to create suspense. His best stories have a sustained menace to them that comes directly from this skill. When you take the time to read Lovecraft's letters you can see that he saw writing almost like plucking his audience's heartstrings, like Poe his main objective was to elicit terror from his audience, and by the end of his life he was very good at that. The only short stories of CAS that come close are his personal bests, which to me are Necromancy in Naat and Isle of the Torturers.
Dunsany to me is the definition of a stilted and dull imitator whose work only rarely elicits emotion. He captures melancholy rather exceptionally in Elfland, but to me that is the absolute height of his powers. The rest doesn't stack up/

[Anonymous No.19331426]

For me it's Bakker all the way, he really captures the excitement of cuckoldry in his books and I can tell he's a kindred cuckold soul. Even my wife who's not big on quality literature unlike me enjoys reading him and likes to compare Kellhus mindfuckery to the protagonist of 50 Shades of Grey. I tried to get my wife's bf to pick him up as well but he isn't too big on reading....lucky for her he's big where it counts lol

[Anonymous No.19331798]

Wolfe is my favorite and imo literarily the strongest but I'll give top billing to Tolkien because if I don't the nerds I work with who all have this weird "originals ONLY" mindset will REE

[Anonymous No.19332105]

>>19331798
What are they going to do, call you a stupid pussy faggot?

[Anonymous No.19332110]

>>19332105
God I hope so

[Anonymous No.19332269]

>>19305256
Dunsany > Wolfe > Tolkien > Bakker

[Anonymous No.19332535]

>>19332269
>Dunsany > Wolfe > Tolkien
Why is Tolkien Third?

[Anonymous No.19332562]

>>19332535
He wrote children's books.

[Anonymous No.19332657]

>>19317456
The bakkerfags made two new threads as cope for this one.

[Anonymous No.19333262]

>>19328287
What do you mean by meat.

[Anonymous No.19333838]

>>19328287

[Anonymous No.19334026]

>>19310929
>an ok world
It's a terrible world. Middle Earth is like a map from a Final Fantasy game where the "world" is like a dozen villages each with a couple dozen NPCs living in them. It feels like fuck all is at stake.

[Anonymous No.19334422]

>>19334026
kek retard

[Anonymous No.19334692]

>>19334422
that map is dramatically out of proportion; himring was only a few dozen miles from forlindon, and at no point was it further west that any point on the mainland
it should be around where the "a" in "thargelion" is

[Anonymous No.19335601]

>Imagine not knowing about the meat
NGMI

[Anonymous No.19335682]

>>19335601
I don't read shit series.

[Anonymous No.19335693]

>>19306184
PR is 25% great, 75% hack cringe.

[Anonymous No.19335720]

>>19335682
Filtered.

[Anonymous No.19335995]

>>19335601
>fantasy fags are also booktube simps

but of course

[Anonymous No.19335999]

>>19335995
>mfw she hated it
>mfw she disabled comments on video due to the backlash
>mfw she was literally filtered

I accept your defeat.

[Anonymous No.19336039]

>>19305883
B for BAAAAASED. Christians and fiction are a mix as good as steak and fine wine.

[Anonymous No.19336050]

>>19310866
Occultist and Gnostic threads need to fuck off back to ——-> /x/. Idk why so much dipshits like talking about it here.

[Anonymous No.19336067]

>>19336050
They like to feel smart for basic bitch takes.

[Anonymous No.19336073]

>>19334026
>Middle Earth is terrible its just like a map from a final fantasy game bla bla bla
>other retarded nonsense from Anon

HARD cope. You clearly have never read the books. But hey, those movies are visually stunning amirite?

As for Final Fantasy:
https://levelskip.com/rpgs/final-fantasy-origins-sources-influences

[Anonymous No.19336082]

>>19335601
>also dates Daniel Bugman Greene

[Anonymous No.19336110]

>>19336039
Probably because the whole Jesus thing is a wonderful piece of fantasy fiction

[Anonymous No.19336262]

>>19336110
Seethe harder, Fedoracuck.

[Anonymous No.19336537]

>>19305296
FPBP, entered thread to post literally this.

[Anonymous No.19336549]

>>19305256
Dunsany >>>>>>>> Wolfe > Tolkien >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Bakker

[Anonymous No.19336568]

>>19336073
>HARD cope. You clearly have never read the books.
what he says is more true in the books than the movies. it absolutely reads like an rpg, because rpg’s made themselves like lord of the rings.

[Anonymous No.19336767]

>>19305256
Bakker > Wolfe >Tolkien

Never read the other guy.

[Anonymous No.19336990]

>>19329346
>I have no taste for the man even after reading The Queen of Elfland's Daughter and much of Time and the Gods.
Those and The Gods of Pegana are his worst works, though. Most people who love Dunsany do so primarily on the basis of the Book of Wonder.

[Anonymous No.19337002]

>>19330205
>Dunsany's stories are just exercises in worldbuilding
Another anon who only read the Pegana material, apparently. The Book of Wonder is like 80% ironic fairytales written in exceptionally good prose.

[Anonymous No.19337047]

>>19336073
>As for Final Fantasy:
>https://levelskip.com/rpgs/final-fantasy-origins-sources-influences
I'm confused, are you actually trying to prove my point?

[Anonymous No.19337873]

>>19336537
Based

[Anonymous No.19337914]

Jack Vance is primarily known for Science Fiction but the Lyonesse trilogy is as good if not better than LOTR and most of Dunsany works.

[Anonymous No.19337915]

>>19307101
What's some quintessential Other?

[Anonymous No.19338311]

>>19337914
>Jack Vance
Give a quick rundown

[Anonymous No.19338394]

>>19305256
Correct

[Anonymous No.19338411]

>>19337914
>Jack Vance is primarily known for Science Fiction
Nah, Jack Vance is primarily known for the Dying Earth stories now. It's true that in like 1978 he was primarily known for SF, but the explosion in popularity of D&D changed all that, likely permanently.

[Anonymous No.19339424]

>>19305256
Dunsany, by a hair over...
Tolkien, by a hair over...
Wolfe
Bakker

[Anonymous No.19339457]

Glad to see Peake getting love in this thread. Those first two books were absolutely amazing and his prose was like watching a painting be made one brush stroke at a time.

[Anonymous No.19339625]

>>19338311
He was a fantastic sci-fi author and his works have inspired authors like Gene Wolfe and Dan Simmons.

If you're into sci-fi you should read his Tschai series or his Demon Princes series.

His other fantasy series, The Dying Earth, is also great and was a huge influence on the Science-Fantasy setting of BOTNS.

[Anonymous No.19339832]

>>19320794
The Worm Ouroboris will be my next read. I'm going through the big works in sci-fi now though. Just finishing up with Ender's Game.

[Anonymous No.19340179]

Anyone who is a fan of Tolkien should give this book a try, it's an amazing book even though it's rather short, has a very similar feel to Tolkien works (very inspired by Norse mythology) but with a much darker story, almost like a Greek tragedy.

[Anonymous No.19340290]

Which fantasy author has the best prose?

[Anonymous No.19340298]

>>19340290
Tolkien, Wolfe, Dunsany <power gap> the literally who author.

[Anonymous No.19340351]

>>19340298
I mean in general.

[Anonymous No.19340365]

>>19305883
Wtf… based?

[Anonymous No.19340406]

Haven’t read the other two, but it’s hard to imagine Tolkien and Wolfe can be topped.
>>19306921
>>19320794
This is literally only the second time I’ve heard about him. Seems like he could be good, though.

[Anonymous No.19341400]

>>19340351
Tolkien, Wolfe, Dunsany <power gap> the literally who author.

[Anonymous No.19341926]

>>19305871
>>19310793
>redditor contrarian response.

[Anonymous No.19342614]

>>19336549
This