Which epic fantasy writer writes the best prose, in your opinion?

[Elentarri]

Janny Wurts - absolutely beautifully lyrical writing.

 

[vanye]

patrick rothfuss

Now let‘s just hope that he gets back to writing soonest.

 

[soulsinging]

Is The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights by John Steinbeck epic? It's not especially long, but it's incomplete, and the story - a retelling of the Morte D'Arthur - certainly feels epic in scope. If so, I'd nominate him and Tolkien. To be brutally honest, I think there's been quite a lot of mediocre writing in epic in the past, but perhaps every genre has that to an extent.

I've always been on the fence about reading this one. I like Steinbeck and Arthur, but have never loved reading unfinished books

 

[J-WO]

I've always been on the fence about reading this one. I like Steinbeck and Arthur, but have never loved reading unfinished books

Did you hear read about Steinbeck having written a werewolf novel but his estate don't want to release it? Bit off topic I know but, crazy.

 

[Toby Frost]

Beast of Eden? Of Mice and Men and Wolves?

Personally, while it doesn't tell the whole Arthur story, I think that the Steinbeck Arthur ends at a good point. Also, the edition I've got has some very interesting material about the writing of the book at the end.

 

[tobl]

Did you hear read about Steinbeck having written a werewolf novel but his estate don't want to release it? Bit off topic I know but, crazy.

crazy? which part? the novel ou not being published?

 

[J-WO]

crazy? which part? the novel ou not being published?

The whole caboodle I guess.

 

[J-WO]

Beast of Eden? Of Mice and Men and Wolves?

Personally, while it doesn't tell the whole Arthur story, I think that the Steinbeck Arthur ends at a good point. Also, the edition I've got has some very interesting material about the writing of the book at the end.

Beast Of Eden should so have been the article headline. They missed a trick there.

 

[The Big Peat]

Lilith and Mythago Wood might contain some big ideas, but they feature a small cast of characters acting in a relatively limited physical space. I don't think you'll find a widely-held definition of epic fantasy that would encompass them.

Tbf, nobody blinked an eye when people put Ursula Le Guin in earlier in the thread, and if Le Guin's fantasy output qualifies as Epic, I don't think small cast of characters in a relatively limited physical space is unEpic...

... which I suppose on thought merely means nobody followed it actually being Epic Fantasy in this thread, rather than those works being Epic. Or perhaps that Epic Fantasy is so badly defined anything goes.


In any case, William Morris as Epic Fantasy does seem a pretty fair shout.


As for the question, sticking strictly to best prose... Guy Gavriel Kay writes beautiful stuff. I've always thought Robin Hobb is a very fine wordsmith, even if I don't much care for what she does with them.

 

[tobl]

The whole caboodle I guess.

can only speak about the novel if a read it one day. as for not publishing.. writers are multidimensional beings so they should

 

[Guttersnipe]

Ursula K. Le Guin, if she counts. Terry Brooks as well.

 

[HareBrain]

Tbf, nobody blinked an eye when people put Ursula Le Guin in earlier in the thread, and if Le Guin's fantasy output qualifies as Epic, I don't think small cast of characters in a relatively limited physical space is unEpic...

I would have blinked an eye if I'd noticed, certainly regarding the Earthsea books. Two of them do range over the known world, and they contain gods and dragons and stuff, but they nonetheless feel quite small in scale. They each contain only a couple of viewpoint characters, and the things those characters do or are involved in don't have big obvious effects on large numbers of people (as wars or migrations, for example, would have).

I guess my idea of "epic" might come from old movies -- "A cast of thousands!" etc.

 

[Bick]

If so, I'd nominate [Steinbeck] and Tolkien. To be brutally honest, I think there's been quite a lot of mediocre writing in epic in the past

There sure has. Epic fantasy, as its currently defined, is highly derivative of Tolkien. Great writers, including those with beautiful or striking prose, tend not to produce derivative work, but have their own take on things to create something new. Ergo, a paucity of great prose in modern epic fantasy. The likes of Hobb or Kerr might write appealing books, but are they genuinely great prose stylists?

 

[Toby Frost]

To be clear, it isn't Tolkien's fault, and much of the trouble happened after his death, but no genre has ever been crushed out of shape by one author the way that fantasy was squashed under the weight of Tolkien's writing (maybe the influence of Jane Austen on Romance, but I don't know enough to say). I agree that it isn't healthy for a genre to imitate one author, especially one who has such a distinctive writing style and setting. But people just wanted more of the same, I suppose, and "superficially similar" would often do.

Thinking about it, I'm not even sure that I'd say Tolkien is a great prose stylist so much as a distinctive one, partly because he lapses into a mock-old-fashioned style ("And the Dark Lord took it, and nursed it with fell meats" etc) that doesn't strike me as "good" so much as very suited to the kind of pseudo-mythical story he's telling. That said, is it appropriate that Peake uses the language that he does? I prefer Peake's writing, but I'm not sure what that says about actual quality. Not much, I suspect. However, I can say that both Tolkien and Peake are more innovative than, say, Robin Hobb.

One of the criteria I'd use to decide if prose is "great" is how much I remember by heart from reading, and how often the book seems to hit the nail on the head with description (not just of physical things/people, but of ideas, feelings etc). On that basis, I've never read any epic fantasy that is as well written as, say, a Raymond Chandler crime novel.

 

[vanye]

The likes of Hobb or Kerr might write appealing books, but are they genuinely great prose stylists?

Kerr surely is to my mind. Or maybe I should rather say „to my heart“, because if I start to analyse the prose style instead of just hurrying from page to page, the story and the author have failed to captivate me. And then, why should I care about the prose style?! To me, style is something felt rather than analyzed, at least when I read for pleasure.

 

[Bick]

And then, why should I care about the prose style?! To me, style is something felt rather than analyzed, at least when I read for pleasure.

Well, of course that's fine and there's no reason you should care, but the thread asked the question about which epic fantasy writers wrote the best prose, not enjoyable books, so it's fair to answer the question literally, I guess. Indeed, some of my favourite writers, in the sense of those I love to read are not known for their great prose. I enjoy other aspects of their books.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

... and much of the trouble...

Indeed! The exact word to use.

 

[vanye]

Well, of course that's fine and there's no reason you should care, but the thread asked the question about which epic fantasy writers wrote the best prose, not enjoyable books, so it's fair to answer the question literally, I guess. Indeed, some of my favourite writers, in the sense of those I love to read are not known for their great prose. I enjoy other aspects of their books.

Yes, of course your anwer is perfectly fine. I was trying to say that how I decide if I like a certain prose style is not analytic. And - since I am an unapologetically subjective fellow - „I like“ equals „good“ for me. In a professional context the opposite applies. Maybe that is why the distinction is important to me.

 

[worldofmutes]

I really like Kate Elliot. A few years ago I read King’s Dragon, I own all 7 books- and need to get around to them.

 

[The Big Peat]

I'm always intrigued by the concept of objectively good prose. There must be something to it or there wouldn't be as much consensus as there is, but it does seem an incredibly nebulous thing. I feel like the most you can say is we can objectively assess whether something fits into the most commonly given standard of good prose - but even the idea of what the most commonly given standard will be subjective. As for whether that standard originates from people we should be listened to? I'm reminded to a certain extent of A Reader's Manifesto by Myers. Some of the examples he gives of hyped prose that's actually drivel I quite like. Some though, I think, are indeed drivel.

Take the statement "great prose stylist". We've been told the highest use of prose is style. Why don't we talk about "great prose communicator"? To me this ties into what vanye said. Style is something you analyse. What's the word for making us feel things? Communicator? Manipulator?

I look at this first definition I grabbed off of t'internet:

"A "great prose stylist" writes sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and/or books using impeccable grammar, an enormous vocabulary, and fresh, judiciously chosen figures of speech (similes, metaphors, etc.)"

I feel like the last one is what a lot of people think about when they talk about great prose. Whether they're innovative, to pick a word from Toby's post. But whether a writer is innovative or not often has little to do with whether we get that feeling of connection.

For me, great prose means a few things. One of them is indeed lines and descriptions that catch my eye and make me go "ooh". But beyond that - clarity and the ability to have me so lost in the flow of their voice, I turn page after page without really thinking about it. And that often doesn't really go with the sort of writing that's trying to fit highly innovative and lyrical descriptions in all over the place.

A lot of what's held up as objectively good prose by classic literature standards just doesn't do that for me. Subjectively, I don't think I can agree about what the objectively good standard should be if that's the standard. To me, it's like how some people think good cooking is something that looks amazing and makes people think "isn't this clever" - and some people think good cooking is what has people finishing their plates and asking for seconds. I don't want to dismiss the qualities of the former, but damned if I think it should it claim good all for itself and be permitted to judge everything by its own standards.


Also, given I'm in a conversation on best Epic Fantasy prose stylist where the newest author is Rothfuss, I'm not sure I believe people here are sufficiently up to date as to be casting judgements on how Epic Fantasy is currently defined, nevermind the whole fantasy genre.

I would have blinked an eye if I'd noticed, certainly regarding the Earthsea books. Two of them do range over the known world, and they contain gods and dragons and stuff, but they nonetheless feel quite small in scale. They each contain only a couple of viewpoint characters, and the things those characters do or are involved in don't have big obvious effects on large numbers of people (as wars or migrations, for example, would have).

I guess my idea of "epic" might come from old movies -- "A cast of thousands!" etc.

Well this here is a bone of contention. I had a similar conversation the other day with someone on Villoso's Bitch Queen series and whether that counted as Epic. And the truth is, I don't think anyone really knows. I think people as a whole simply slap the Epic Fantasy label on everything that moves which features a pre-Napoleonic setting unless it is so overwhelmingly not the case as to be ridiculous to do so. Take Sam Hawke's Poison War Duology. It's mostly about the fate of one city with two PoVs (iirc, I've only read the second and not the first). We don't see the world, save the world, any of that. I think it is legit to question whether it's Epic Fantasy - but that's what everything calls it.

It's a very debased and meaningless term these days outside of very broad strokes, sadly.