[Hemingway]

There are quite a few authors who release a few novels, and then their quality slowly diminishes, or at times abruptly disappears. To me this is astounding. Shouldn't the experience act as a supplemental resource to further guide you into improved writing? You should have a better perception of what it takes to consistently improve in your ability. Of course there are moments where you will come into a lull, and ideas will become more elusive for a period, but one day you must recapture the magic. I believe a large portion of these writers are those who have created a world, and they use every resource within the world, and then instead of creating another, they simply attempt to squeeze a story out of a world where nothing is left to tell. The true writers have thousands of ideas constantly swirling inside of their heads, and those that may never look beyond the constructs of one cleverly conceived world, should not be considered as great writers, rather they should be seen for what they are: a one hit wonder.

[ChrisW]

I believe a large portion of these writers are those who have created a world, and they use every resource within the world, and then instead of creating another, they simply attempt to squeeze a story out of a world where nothing is left to tell.

Hrm well I can't even think of a large amount of writers that have mainly stuck with just one world. The only ones that come to mind are Feist and Brooks and perhaps Gemmell to a lesser extent.
I can't comment on Brooks as I have not read his work but Feist really does need to move on. Riftwar and Sepent War and the books in between were great but continuing on this war against the nameless one is dragging out a good thing a bit to far imo. I'm also not to sure about him letting other people write in his world. He has shown with Faire Tale he can write outside of Midkemia but I guess he just doesn't want to take the risk of introducing a new world/all new characters to his readers. That or he really feels the need to tell the story or the everlasting War against the nameless one.

I suppose I could add Hobb to the above list but her three trilogies are really a nine book series and she has kept the world and story fresh by moving it away from the main character(fitz) in the three middle books.

I don't mind authors jumping back in timeline of there original world(Gemmell) if the story is completely unrelated to the first one.

What does get annoying is when the author continues with the same theme. Eddings is the prime example of this. "Redemption of A" was probably a great book if you had not read any of his previous stuff but if you had you couldn't help noticing that you had read it before. Gemmell also is becoming a bit to predictable with the alternate realitly thing.

[allanon]

Well, I sometimes love the repetition, especially in three authors which Caldazar mentioned - Feist, Brooks and of course, my favourite - Dave Eddings. I tell ye why.
Because I'm sure that the author won't disappoint me. I love The Begariad and that type of fantasy - so when I saw RoA I thought - cool, more nice characters, more humour, more evil gods:)
The same is with Feist. And with Terry Brooks.
What I dislike, and I see it in Gemmel - well, the guy had a great story and wants to tell it again. BUT WHY IN WORSE VERTION? I read The Ghost King and the Last Sword of Power, they were excellent and then came the Shannow stories, which, IMHO, are profoundly disgusting, however, with similar plot 'lonely hero against evil king".
And authors with "many" ideas? Many, or no ideas? A man - especially an author much have opinions and beliefs, which he defends in his books. If he changes his mind every new book - I think he hasn't got ANY ideas, just writes what occurs to him.

[Ouroboros]

Originally posted by allanon
What I dislike, and I see it in Gemmel - well, the guy had a great story and wants to tell it again. BUT WHY IN WORSE VERTION? I read The Ghost King and the Last Sword of Power, they were excellent and then came the Shannow stories, which, IMHO, are profoundly disgusting, however, with similar plot 'lonely hero against evil king".

What was it that bothered you about the Shannow novels, beyond the alleged similarity of plot to the other sipstrassi novels, bearing in mind that as they are part of the same series, shared characters and ideas are inevitable? 'Disgusting' is an interesting choice of word. :D

As far as Gemmell 'just writing what occurs to him'... You might enjoy reading through the various interviews with him. He has a particularly well-developed philosophy running through all of his novels, I can think of few writers in the fantasy genre who are as comitted to actually saying something in their work as Gemmell is.

[Colonel Worf]

I think if a book becomes a hit, authors just slack expecting all their books to be that good.

[Cadfael]

Not specifically Fantasy... more Horror...

James Herbert, author of The Rats, The Lair, The Fog and Fluke. These books were amazing.

However his latest books are been all of the same old same old... a bloke, strange things happen... he finds out it is a legacy from his past...

book after book of it!

[allanon]

Sorry, if I offended you, Ouro. I just dislike most of the Gemmel-books, because I read the "Last Sword of Power" and found none of his other works competitive to this.
About "philosophy", I have goosebumps of writers, who pretend to be Kafka or something. I read fantasy,'cause it is cool.

[Ouroboros]

Originally posted by allanon
Sorry, if I offended you, Ouro. I just dislike most of the Gemmel-books, because I read the "Last Sword of Power" and found none of his other works competitive to this.
About "philosophy", I have goosebumps of writers, who pretend to be Kafka or something. I read fantasy,'cause it is cool.

No, no, I wasn't offended: I was genuinely interested. There are people who disagree with elements of the morality in Gemmell's work, he is effectively quite far to the right in some aspects of his thinking regarding justice, punishment etc. Just curious....

[Rob B]

Originally posted by Hemingway
I believe a large portion of these writers are those who have created a world, and they use every resource within the world, and then instead of creating another, they simply attempt to squeeze a story out of a world where nothing is left to tell.

One author who works primarily in one secondary world is Steven Brust. He's got a series of 9 books with one primary protagonist, Vlad Taltos, and a few other books that are connected to the world, but all the books are fresh, entertaining, original and enjoyable.
Originally posted by Hemingway
The true writers have thousands of ideas constantly swirling inside of their heads, and those that may never look beyond the constructs of one cleverly conceived world, should not be considered as great writers, rather they should be seen for what they are: a one hit wonder.
That's a pretty vague, sweeping generalzation.

[Llama]

And a faulty one, as it would make the likes of Tolkien, Peake -- hell, even Marcel Proust -- "one hit wonders" rather than "true writers" .