[thechat] Cadfael

[Lachlan Cannon]

Canfield, Joel wrote:
> wanna share some names? I admit I haven't looked too hard, but I've
> tried a handful and haven't found anything close to LOTR as far as
> keeping my interest.

I suppose it really depends on what you find interesting about fantasy. 
Certainly my favourite fantasy is diametrically opposed to that which Ian and 
Kevin spoke about. For one, I absolutely cannot stand Hobb (though I only tried 
the Liveship traders).

Off the top of my head:
Isobelle Carmody (especially Legendsong and the Gathering)
GRRM
Tad Williams (once you get past the slow start that all his stories seem to have)
and for that matter Steven King's Dark Tower books (minus a good amount of books 
6 and 7 which were disappointing)
far superior to Tolkien's works.

Pratchett of course is a great fantasy writer, but his stuff almost fits into 
another genre altogether...

Tolkien had his good points... he was able to create an 'epic' world, and flesh 
its mythology out well. But his sense of pacing was *far* off imo (really slow 
starts, even worse than Williams) and was far too ready to wander off into 
lavishly describing things that really weren't important.

The other problem I have is that your regular epic fantasy is so overdone now 
that even though Tolkien's is better than most of it, it just all starts to feel 
the same.
-- 
Lach
http://illuminosity.net/