I know that I said that I would go back and read (or reread) fantasy books from the 70s, but I just can't bring myself to reread the Sword of Shanarra. After forty years of lying fallow, I must confess that I am still tired of the Shanarra books and I have no desire to slog through them again. Mind you, I formed this opinion when I was young and impressionable and liked everything that I read, so if I was less than that generous back then, I rather suspect that I will be even more ill-generous now. Perhaps, if I find a cheap or free copy, I may read some of it. Maybe. Or maybe I'm still pining to get all those hours of my life back from 1978.
The main selling point of this books seemed to be that it was long. What it gives you, it gives to you generously and without reservation, although I am not sure that you want everything that it gives you. I suspect that this book is partly responsible for the miserable tendency of fantasy these days to continue oozing out impossibly long and complicated sagas that ceased to have a point within fifty pages of their first books.
Rather than read this book next, I'll table it and come back to it later. If I am fortunate and God is with me, then my resolve will never be tested.
The main selling point of this books seemed to be that it was long. What it gives you, it gives to you generously and without reservation, although I am not sure that you want everything that it gives you. I suspect that this book is partly responsible for the miserable tendency of fantasy these days to continue oozing out impossibly long and complicated sagas that ceased to have a point within fifty pages of their first books.
Rather than read this book next, I'll table it and come back to it later. If I am fortunate and God is with me, then my resolve will never be tested.
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dacuteturtle- Douglas Milewski
- The Endhaven Project
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I suspect there were some really good short series and one-shots before Game of Thrones threw us back to long and convoluted sagas, too.
As it is, I've been a fan of Terry Brooks for awhile, but the quality of the books does seem to be going down. The last series-within-a-series I really liked was the Ilse Witch. The most recent book, a one-shot-within-a-subseries called The High Druid's Blade, got me excited at first because it looked like it was about to starkly diverge from his usual formula, but then after a short while it slipped back into formula, and also threw in a strangely incompetent villain.