[Ulf64]

Is this book any good? It sounded kind of neat when I read the overview on booksontape.com, and I was thinking of renting it.

As far as what I'm reading right now....I only have 120 pages left of "A Clash of Kings" - a great read! I'm enjoying it as much or more than the first book. Can't wait to get the next one.

By the way, you might be interested to know that via booksontape.com you can get the whole WOT series - unabridged - on tape! You can rent it (like I did) or buy it.

[Cannon Fodder]

The entire unabridged WOT on tape? How many hours of tape would that have to be?!

[Rob B]

I've not heard good things about this book.

[Ulf64]

...and unabridged. I actually listened to them all. You miss things when you listen to tapes, so I actually read each book after I listened to them. Also, it's a much better way to while away the time in your car if you have a long commute.

[Radone]

It's big, which is almost a necessity these days with epic fantasy and also pretty cliched. The main character is a dolt in the beginning (and of course the prophecized "Chosen One"). Through the book, he gets taken out the shed and gets the snot beaten out of him, finally learning wisdom. Is it good? I thought the writing was adequete, but nothing spectacular. The storyline was standard, but the villains were these insane female sorcereresses. I never got a sense of why they were insane or what they wanted to do with their power. That's boring- a bunch of females who just want to kill or maim or something. Whatever. The villains are so cartoonish in their evil, and this drags the entire book down as well. Also, the way that these women were kept alive at the end of a very bloody war which everyone agrees they caused had no hint of credibility. Couldn't get past the stupidity of it.
The blurbs say the author is the next Terry Goodkind. This book doesn't even come close to Goodkind-and that's even for those who don't like Goodkind.
BTW, after reading the book, I went to the author website. This is the first book Newcomb has ever tried to write, but he had always wanted to try his hand at it. He had read WFR by Goodkind immediately prior to writing tFS and that was the extent of his reading in the field of fantasy. He decided to write fantasy after reading WFR, but freely admits that had he read a thriller or horror or mystery at that point in his life, he probably would have tried to write in those genres instead. So, we have a first time author who has never been passionate about fantasy, larked into writing fantasy, and gets his first book published in hardback with a huge promotional campaign behind it. Am I jealous? Damn right!

[Rob B]

Originally posted by Radone
BTW, after reading the book, I went to the author website. This is the first book Newcomb has ever tried to write, but he had always wanted to try his hand at it. He had read WFR by Goodkind immediately prior to writing tFS and that was the extent of his reading in the field of fantasy. He decided to write fantasy after reading WFR, but freely admits that had he read a thriller or horror or mystery at that point in his life, he probably would have tried to write in those genres instead. So, we have a first time author who has never been passionate about fantasy, larked into writing fantasy, and gets his first book published in hardback with a huge promotional campaign behind it. Am I jealous? Damn right!

Goodkind also claimes or did at one point not to read fantasy. Both Goodkind and Newcomb should know the territory before they play in it, me thinks.

Too many comparisons to Goodkind for my liking.

Sheesh, he should have picked up a book by Matthew Stover or Tad Williams and maybe he would have written a better book.

[Ulf64]

That's an interesting point! I get much more intrigued about a fantasy novel when the "evil doer" has some substance behind him/her/it. I've had this problem with many an otherwise well-written fantasy novel. Yeah, there's an evil "dark lord"....but why? What made him/her/it evil? What motivates them? Etc., etc. It seems many an author don't lend enough credibility, depth and substance to their evil doers. They portray them as "cartoonish" characters or shallow...or at least their mannerisms are too stereotypically "evil". Must they always wear dark cloaks, be hideously ugly, and desire to turn the world into a desolate, lifeless landscape with foul-smelling steam belching out of the ground?

[swampfaye]

well... do you think Tolkien had to research fantasy before he wrote it? Isn't the point of fantasy that it's unreal? A totally unique world, etc? Why wouldn't you be able to just write a fantasy novel cold turkey if you were a "writer"?

[Rob B]

Originally posted by swampfaye
well... do you think Tolkien had to research fantasy before he wrote it? Isn't the point of fantasy that it's unreal? A totally unique world, etc? Why wouldn't you be able to just write a fantasy novel cold turkey if you were a "writer"?

Not to totally deter the topic, but I can't help it....

Tolkien DID do a lot of research, though he probably considered it a labor of love. He was a historian, a linguist and AN OXFORD UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR. Middle-Earth was based on some legends, I think Welsh and Celtic-at least the names and cultures to some extent.

Tolkien spent HIS ENTIRE LIFE constructing the most fleshed out and wondrous secondary world, Middle-Earth.

Any fantasy world should have some kind of basis in reality, or modeled on some type of known civilization, etc.

I can't say for definite how Newcomb has handled this, but with any type of creativity, a person should know the ground they are working on.

Yes Fantasy is supposed to expand our imagination, etc. But it HAS to be plausible.

Again, I haven't read Newcomb's book so I can't exactly speak about his strengths or shortcomings.

[Radone]

well... do you think Tolkien had to research fantasy before he wrote it? Isn't the point of fantasy that it's unreal? A totally unique world, etc? Why wouldn't you be able to just write a fantasy novel cold turkey if you were a "writer

Couldn't let the question about Tolkien go by without answering. Tolkien spent the better part of three decades fleshing out Middle Earth (read the Silmarillion). The world he created was inspired by many Celtic, Welsh, and Norse legends, along with a fair sprinkling of Judeo-Christian creation myths. As has been pointed out, he was a professor at Oxford in Linguistics. He created at least two elven languages, dwarven, and I think Orc. All of these things stemmed from his imagination, but they were probably based on his expertise in linguistics.

So to answer the question, yes Tolkien did plenty of research.
This doesn't mean that one has to do research, but, it sure makes the world you create a lot more fun. The problem with Newcomb's book in that sense is the world is so flat. Look at the map of his world. Places have names like "Lower Port" and "Upper Port". This doesn't quite have the ring of Rivendell, Mordor, or Lothlorien.