How highly do you rate Hobb?

[the_faery_queen]

her work isn't really mentally stimulating, not in the same way as martin's is, but i like the characters. i think she is more of a woman's writer. when i went to see her at a booksigning there were a lot more women than men there. i think she appeals to us more, maybe.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

There, hope that explains what I meant to say a little more clearly...

Not really, considering that the relative ranking of authors and books goes on all over the rest of the forum.

I admit that it's a harmless enough activity, I just wish it didn't replace actual discussion so much of the time, and for myself I fail to see the appeal.

 

[GOLLUM]

I admit that it's a harmless enough activity, I just wish it didn't replace actual discussion so much of the time, and for myself I fail to see the appeal.

Well you probably have a point there, I think the appeal is because some of us humans like to put things into boxes or categorize or compare various works and therefore the authors behind those works and also because some of us enjoy making comparisons and lists due to our competitive natures or maybe we're just control freaks. I'm only speculating here but there may be a grain or two of truth in that observation.

When members now ask me for recommendations I'm trying to use the PM service, so as not to detract too much from discussions where I may be prone to proclaim let's say that Erikson is my No .1 and some other author is No. 2 etc.. Sometimes it's hard though when you get people posting specific threads requesting rankings or comparisons or ratings of their so-called "top" authors, so I might try to employ the PM a bit more now rather than ignore outright contirbutions to those types of posts. On the other hand when someone requests a comparison b/w 2 authors or one's opinon on an author they've not yet read I'll probably end up posting warts and all....

 

[HieroGlyph]

I'm all for a coherent society and world ... but it shouldn't hamper originality as well. It's entirely possible to do both, as Mieville, Erikson and Martin show so well. The more in fantasy I read, the more I'm agreeing with these criteria:
http://www.rinkworks.com/fnovel/
...

Brys, thanks for that link! That had me in stitches on many a point
And Im quite in agreement with you: the more I read as a youngster, the more I needed a "no" to each and every question...

As for Hobb, I still havent made time for her...

 

[the_faery_queen]

my friends and i had fun with that link trying to work out which books in particular were being picked on. ok we're sad.

i was kinda glad that i only had one thing on the list that i had in my novel. and that was just the length of it one (its 4 books at the mo, might be more if it runs long and needs slicing in half)

 

[HieroGlyph]

... ok we're sad...

I dont know about being sad!
Ok, youre a woman, you prefer Hobb to others, hence 'rate' her (for whatever reason you see as reason) above other authors...
Are you telling us that you answered all those questions absolutely truthfully and came up with the one 'yes'? If so, I need to find your works

 

[the_faery_queen]

well its not that im female that i like her, i dont' think, cos my brain is actually fairly male! but i do prefer character driven stuff, so i can overlook other flaws in it, like plot, or magic systems, and stuff like that.

and seriously, i did only answer yes once. one was a maybe (the one about teh woman who existed for feminist ideals, cos she is a feminist, but that wasn't why i created her. and she is a lot more than that) so yeah, it was mostly nos. i have no quest, i have no daft old wizards, my hero KNOWS he's the heir (and then looses his throne) there are no gods. *shrug* so yeah! i was mostly noing all the way through.

you can read it yourself when it comes out in december, and then see whether i was just delluding myself! but i don't think i am a lot of those questions, after all, fit the big fairly epic, tolkein/eddings esque style of book, and mine is nuffin like that. mostly, cos i don't like that sort of thing

 

[Teir]

Hobb takes me to another place. Love her.

 

[Adasunshine]

I love her, bought her book (Assassin's Apprentice) purely because I saw it in the back of another book I was reading and was immediately hooked.

She took me to a whole other place, was great escapism and unlike some, I loved her writing, in fact, I think I read all 8 of her books in a matter of a few weeks (children permitting otherwise I'd have got it done sooner) then had to wait for Fools Fate - was not happy!!!

xx

 

[Rahl Windsong]

I'm afraid I rate Hobb very lowly although her Farseer trilogy was OK....

GRRM has her on his "What I am reading" list though he has not updated that in eons. Here is a quote from him about Robin Hobb.

Quote found here: http://www.georgerrmartin.com/reading.html

" I'm a big Robin Hobb fan, as I've confessed before. I think she's doing some of the best stuff in contemporary fantasy... and I'm bloody envious of how fast she writes. GOLDEN FOOL is the second volume in her current "Tawny Man" trilogy. It picks up right where FOOL'S ERRAND left off and never looks back. This one also brings some Bingtown Traders to the Six Duchies, tying Hobb's two previous trilogies (the "Assassin" and "Liveship" series) together in some interesting ways. As ever, it's a page turner, well crafted and full of vivid writing and finely-drawn characters. I'm already looking forward to the next one."

Just thought I'd mention that in this thread seeing a Mr. Martin is so highly thought of on these forums.

Rahl

 

[Snagas Tender Blades]

I'm afraid I got to sucked in to what was happening to notice all of the things that Bryce was complaining about, and personally I feel that authors who go into too much detail in an attempt to carry off realism forget about their sharacters or story. The only author I've seen done this well is GRR Martin.

And anyway, if I wanted realism I wouldn't read fanasy...

 

[NSMike]

I must admit personally I got pretty annoyed with how crappy of an assassin Fitz ended up being. Especially since the Farseer trilogy had "Assassin" in every title.

 

[Teir]

If you wanted a perfect smooth criminal, you were reading the wrong set of books! LOL. And the word 'Assassin' in each title of the set was not an indicator of how well Fitz killed people but the identity, guilt and duty he carried because he killed and how that shaped his personality (in my opinion anyway). And besides, it was on all the books so as to link them as a set...i would have thought that was fairly obvious?

 

[NSMike]

I wanted him to excel! Is that so wrong?

 

[GOLLUM]

GRRM has her on his "What I am reading" list though he has not updated that in eons. Here is a quote from him about Robin Hobb.

Quote found here: http://www.georgerrmartin.com/reading.html

" I'm a big Robin Hobb fan, as I've confessed before. I think she's doing some of the best stuff in contemporary fantasy... and I'm bloody envious of how fast she writes. GOLDEN FOOL is the second volume in her current "Tawny Man" trilogy. It picks up right where FOOL'S ERRAND left off and never looks back. This one also brings some Bingtown Traders to the Six Duchies, tying Hobb's two previous trilogies (the "Assassin" and "Liveship" series) together in some interesting ways. As ever, it's a page turner, well crafted and full of vivid writing and finely-drawn characters. I'm already looking forward to the next one."

Just thought I'd mention that in this thread seeing a Mr. Martin is so highly thought of on these forums.

Rahl

Well what can one say? One man's meat is another man's poison hey?...

 

[Teir]

I wanted him to excel! Is that so wrong?

LOL no! I wanted him to excel too dude!

just thought id point out that its still a brilliant story and that whether he was good or not was not necessarily the point of the title or the books...

I think.....
..........
........
..........
Lets just say thats what I meant

*Teir skips off happily*

 

[Rahl Windsong]

I must admit personally I got pretty annoyed with how crappy of an assassin Fitz ended up being. Especially since the Farseer trilogy had "Assassin" in every title.

Aye Fitz hated the fact that he had to be an assassin therefore one could say he was a poor one. However had I lived in the Six Dutchies and somehow got on the wrong side of the Farseer line and I knew about Fitz as I do from the story I would be scared sh_ _less no doubt about it, and I really think that says all that needs to be said about his ability as a very reluctant assassin.

+++Spoiler+++

+++Spoiler+++

+++Spoiler+++

One final note: Fitz understood death better than possibly any assassin ever put into print after all he was tortured to death, burried, dug back up and restored to life. This has be considered when questioning his ability, at least in my opinion.

Rahl

 

[Rosemary]

I have read most of her books and have enjoyed them all. However I myself do not rate her as highly as Sara Douglass, David Eddings or GRRM.

 

[the_faery_queen]

for me, she's miles better than david eddings./ can't honestly stand that guy, he's so trite! but tthat's what taste is all about

but i agree, she isn't as good as martin, but she might be more accessible. but in my ranking table, she is second. but that's becausei don't read a lot these days, having been so disappointed by nearly every new book i have tried.

and for me, her farseer/tawny man will always be among my favs, despite the bad ending, just for the fool tho i don't think i will ever like the liveships. and i can't get into the shaman thing at all. its just bla.

 

[Brys]

Well what can one say? One man's meat is another man's poison hey?...

What I find really astonishing is that both Martin and Erikson agree on this

In fantasy, I think Robin Hobb is a very clever, very subtle writer.

And I love both Martin and Erikson, but don't really enjoy Hobb that much - she's above average in the fantasy genre as a whole, but nothing spectacular. Fitz was well characterised in the Farseer trilogy, but the last book seemed very weak and basically attempting to spin out a series beyond its natural length.

for me, she's miles better than david eddings

That really isn't much of an achievement in my mind - if she wasn't better than David Eddings, she'd be a pretty awful author. I think my central problem was that neither the world, nor the characters, felt entirely real - they weren't stereotypes and there was some development - but keep in mind I'd read Hobb after Martin. Martin equalled Hobb's characterisation of Fitz for a cast of c40-50 characters, Hobb did that for 1, and without the originality of worldbuilding. I think my main problem with Hobb is that she's writing relatively traditional epic fantasy, and she's not quite a spectacular writer, and now for me to rate an epic fantasy highly, it has to rank equal to Martin, Erikson and Bakker - if it can't do that, then it's unlikely I'll like it that much, especially if the series becomes too protracted (eg I really enjoyed Elantris by Brandon Sanderson - no, it wasn't as good as Erikson etc, and it was epic fantasy - but it was a single volume epic fantasy of 500 pages, and it was much more original than Hobb).

having been so disappointed by nearly every new book i have tried

I'm just wondering what new books you've been trying. Since I've discovered forums like these, I'm disappointed in roughly 1 in 20 books I read. In epic fantasy, there isn't that much (though 2006 looks like it's going to be an excellent year for the subgenre - Bakker and Erikson releasing new books, Daniel Abraham and Scott Lynch may turn out to be some of the best epic fantasy writers ever, according to initial reports, and there are a few other interesting debuts and other continuations of decent series coming out - like Greg Keyes' the Blood Knight).