George R. R. Martin v. Robert Jordan

[Anushka Mokosh]

That's interesting. That seems just fine for those growing up alongside the books characters but for someone reading these back to back now they are all released I wonder how that feels.

As I have said previously, I don't mind children's fantasy and still love rereading the Narnia series every now and then but I can't say I'd particularly enjoy the style changing during a series. Maybe I'm odd, or old and too set in my ways.

I actually like it. Characters are evolving as I read it and the plot, writing, and themes evolve with them.

 

[Boaz]

No, you are quite correct. I reacted inappropriately. I should have taken a step back and counted to 10 before posting my comment.

I'm a newbie to this site and have unfortunately realised that I have carried over the style I have got used to using when responding to the completely blinkered posters on the BBC sports forums!

I promise it won't happen again. After all it would be incredibly boring if everyone enjoyed the same things.

To quote The Gaffer, "You can't say fairer than that." If having an opinion and being a bit antagonistic was cause for immediate dismissal... well, I would not be here.

 

[Boaz]

Double post... sorry, but the quote function is not working when I edit....

Elyas, I'd like to jump in on your question regarding HP. Rowling's series is not perfect, but she uses a mechanic that I thought was simple, yet brilliant. Each book starts in late summer, on Harry's birthday... and each book ends with the end of the school year. As children's lives revolve around the school year rather than the calendar year, young readers easily identified with the structure. Harry turned eleven when the first book opened and he turned seventeen when the seventh (and final) book started. Rowling tried to match the life experiences of Harry to be appropriate to the life experiences of her readers. And so both the content and the presentation of the story changed over the course of the series. Harry and company are not static characters as are Spider-Man, Archie Andrews, James Bond (at least on film), Nancy Drew (16 years old for 34 books and she's been 18 for the last 27), etc... Now the overall style is still there, but she tried to let the characters mature.

 

[Koopa]

I agree with Boaz that the writing style and book arcs (start summer till end of school) remain the same throughout the 7 books. What changes is that the content becomes more mature in reflection to how the children involved mature. This in part cause of the popularity of her books, and the people reading it at the time the books came out. Whereas the first books are clearly more oriented at children (and read by children), the latter are more oriented at older teens, young adults (and read mostly by them) qua content (not writing style). Perhaps as a result of this, the books also become bigger. At first the lenght of the books were kept short, and the content minimal, just enough for the plot. In the latter books, the content is more fleshed out, allowing for extra's, besides the purely needed, without ever getting to big, dragged out. I always felt the HP books were edited quite well aside from the quidditch world cup.

 

[Narkalui]

I never understood why Harry didn't just get a gun and shoot Voldemort in the face... Probably more effective than waving a stick at him!

 

[Christopher Lee]

I'd go with TWOT because it is finished. I personally have only made it through the first two books, but I seem to have lost my taste for higher fantasy over the last few years. Only made it through the first three ASOIAF books as well.

 

[Koopa]

Well, UK isn't the US where every man, woman, child, baby, and everything in between can get their hands on a gun by going to the grocery store. At least i don't think that's the case.

Though i guess him being magical and all he could just have accio'ed a gun. Still if Voldy can block fire, i'l guessing he can block metal as well. Never did get properly defined what a protego spell did.

 

[Narkalui]

That is one thing I liked about Potter, the magic stayed suitably vague without being defined.

Everyone in the UK knows someone from school who's a little shady in one way or another and you can bet your bottom dollar that they know people shadier still. A journalist for the Guardian researched it a few years back, it took him about 3-4 hours I think, to find someone who showed him a gun and named the price. Scary!

And yeah, Harry could have charmed the bullets...

 

[chongjasmine]

Having read both series, I much prefer the wheel of time series.
I hope my preference does not offend anyone.

 

[Koopa]

Well, you hoped wrong

 

[Judderman]

You know, they have different styles. It is even possible to like both TWOT and ASOIAF!
Both require some patience in that books 4 and 5 of ASOIAF have slowed in excitement and the series is far from finished, while TWOT is a long series with quite a lot of criticism of books 7-10 (though some people still love them), but very well received early and later books. Both have a lot of details. TWOT has more use of magic in the story and is "high fantasy" where ASOIAF is more concerned with plots and intrigue. Both have a lot of praise overall. Whatever Fantasy series/book you pick some will criticize it.

I would definitely go along with Steven Erikson's Malazan series being another to consider, as well as Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Again, both have different styles.

 

[Elyas MACHERA]

You know, they have different styles. It is even possible to like both TWOT and ASOIAF!
Both require some patience in that books 4 and 5 of ASOIAF have slowed in excitement and the series is far from finished, while TWOT is a long series with quite a lot of criticism of books 7-10 (though some people still love them), but very well received early and later books. Both have a lot of details. TWOT has more magic and is "high fantasy" where ASOIAF is more concerned with plots and intrigue. Both have a lot of praise overall. Whatever Fantasy series/book you pick some will criticize it.

I would definitely go along with Steven Erikson's Malazan series being another to consider, as well as Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Again, both have different styles.

Hi Judderman

I won't read another Stephen King book as long as I live.

I've probably read at least seven or eight of his single volume books and without exception I have loved reading all of them and absolutely hated the ending of each one!!

He might just as well have stopped with a chapter to go and inserted a page saying "Write your own ending".

But of course, that is only my opinion and many others will disagree.

 

[Judderman]

I read a couple of King's horror books and wasn't convinced by them. The endings get a bit silly though of course the film adaption of The Shining is brilliant. The Dark Tower series is a very different style. He does though actually have a couple of pages written before the last chapter saying he would not recommend people to read the last chapter as he doesn't think it is necessary to know the ending of the story! Basically insulting people for wanting some sense of completion from a series. I thought the last chapter was very good. Though definitely the plot of the first 4 books are stronger than the last 3 so maybe you will get that feeling again.

 

[Narkalui]

I've only read Heart Shaped Box by King's son writing under the name Joe Hill. I thought it was ace.