In the last few years I've introduced Brett, Weeks, Rothfuss, Abercrombie, Martin, and Lynch to 5 of my friends/co-workers. All of them say Brett is the best and are eagerly awaiting his next book.Originally Posted by MattL22
I loved The Warded Man and really enjoyed The Desert Spear but Abercrombie is my personal favourite, with GRRM a close 2nd.
That's interesting. I'd say Martin>Lynch>Weeks>Abercrombie>Brett>Rothfuss. Not by level of skill but by how much I enjoy them.
I haven't read Weeks or Rothfuss yet but otherwise I would agree, though I would include level of skill. I really like Lynch.
To some extent I feel similarly when people like the book, but it's clear that there are many people like you who do.
I haven't yet tried GGK, though I've bought both volumes of The Sarantine Mosaic and will get to them at some point. As for Tad Williams, I read about 40% of The Dragonbone Chair. I plan to pick it up again at some point, but I wasn't particularly impressed by it. Don't get me wrong, I didn't have any strong feelings against it, but the writing and dialogue seemed somewhat rough and simplistic for me. I would guess that at least some of that owing to the time (the 80's) in which it was published.Interesting the different tastes that people have. It would be interesting to see what books some of the Brett critics did like. For example, what were feelings toward a book like Tigana or even any of Tad Williams War & Peace endless novels. (I picked these for comparison purposes since I really didn't care much for either).
I quite enjoy Martin, Rothfuss, and Michelle West. I've enjoyed Butcher, Mike Carey, Abercrombie, Lynch, Cook. I just finished Berg's Collegia Magica series and liked that.
Sanderson is okay by me, much better imo than Brett.
My rank would be:
Martin with Rothfuss a close second.
Then Abercrombie just a hair before Lynch (though I'd rank Abercrombie better if we excluded The First Law Trilogy)
Then Weeks a fair bit below that.
And Brett is the worst fantasy writer I've yet read.
I enjoyed both books in the series. They are fast paced and action heavy, which is worth a lot to me when reading fantasy series because I've gotten burnt out on bloated description and meandering plots. They do have some flaws, but the flaws aren't nearly bad enough that they would derail my enjoyment.
I had the chance to meet Peter Brett a couple of nights ago at the Tor.com meet-up and he's a very nice guy. Had some good things to say about his progress on the third book, which I can't wait to read.
I loved Warded Man but still haven't read Desert Spear. I have heard so much negative stuff about it. And now it's been so long I feel like I need to re-read Warded Man. Sigh...not sure if I will ever get around to it or not. Maybe after the series is done.
Count me among the "got about 100 pages in and lost interest" group. I'd place Brett somewhere between Sanderson (a bit better) and Peter Orullian (solidly worse) on the mediocre side of the fantasy spectrum. Not as terrible as some here have remarked (imo), but not my cuppa.
Who are your top five then? Just curious. I'm always looking for other's opinions...
I've seen multiple people ITT say that they liked Warded Man but haven't read Desert Spear because of all the negative stuff they've seen about it. I say give it a chance, criticism and negativity always gets overblown and more play on the internet. I think it's pretty much on par with the first book. I was taken aback at first with it starting with a new character's perspective, but I was very quickly immersed in this new perspective and I enjoyed it as much as any other character.
Top five for fantasy, not sf? I suppose I'd have to go with:
Ursula K Le Guin
Guy Gavriel Kay
Patricia McKillip
CJ Cherryh
JRR Tolkien
Steven Erikson
R Scott Bakker
That's seven, I know, but it is hard to narrow it down.
I personally enjoyed Warded Man and Desert Spear. They were fun reads with enough plot and action to keep my interest and am looking forward to the next one.
People are saying Warded Man is better than First Law? I don't want to bash anyone's opinion, because opinions aren't wrong. But Abercrombie is heads and tails better than Brett. I didn't care for Tigana at all. Haven't read War&Peace. GGK is a very niche writer imo. He writes a certain style that someone people love, and others hate. It's not your typical fantasy. While I think both him and Tad are great writers, better then Peter V Brett, I don't care for their style. I did like Warded Man, I just don't think it even comes close to Abercrombie's work!
Then again I enjoyed Warded Man much more than Wizard of EarthSea. But do I think Brett is a better writer than LeGuin? Not at all. So enjoying a book more than another doesn't necessarily reflect on which writer is more skilled. All books really boil down to personal opinion. But Abercrombie is my favorite writer to date, so I get a little bias when comparing.
Last edited by chris777; March 4th, 2012 at 10:38 AM.
I've only read Best Served Cold by Abercrombie and while I didn't much like it, it wasn't because of how he wrote. My enjoyment level when reading both was pretty even, just felt Abercrombie was a much more polished writer then Brett.
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