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Comments
I'm about five pages later, and would like to revise my statement: Dalinar is pretty fucking awesome.
Thirty pages left.
It's like there's a massive, world-changing revelation on every other page.
Just finished.
O.O
O.O
O.O
Okay, so I'm looking at other books by Sanderson.
Both Elantris and Final Empire are around half the length of TWoK. That being the case, why are they more expensive?
Off-topic: I've been reading bits and pieces of The Martian Chronicles. I think that "There Will Come Soft Rains" is one of the most depressing things that I have ever read in my life.
GAAAAH, all this talk of a book I just started! >.<
^ Man, sometimes I have to wonder if we're kindred spirits, JHM, what with our propensity for depressing media.
Speaking of, Crime and Punshiment is shaping up to be my favorite book, ever (favorite series still being The Dresden Files, of course), and at the same time it makes me want to cry, and I'm not even fully halfway into it. I don't even know why it's created such a strong emotional connection; I've certainly never murdered my landlady.
>present tense and past tense in the same command
Anyway, I've actually decided that I'm gonna read Snow Crash alongside these other two books as well, and a Lovecraftian tale every Sunday, to see if I can keep myself from getting burnt out on any one book and keep a variety of stylistic vibes in my memory. But who knows, maybe I'll like The Way of Kings enough that I start reading it more; I certainly don't see myself powering through Crime and Punishment in a similar manner, much as I like it. In any case, Wednesdays and Saturdays are when I've elected to read it.
Not sure if intentional or just hilarious.
I disliked the later parts of Crime and Punishment, and hated the epilogue.
Most of it was good though.
I feel bad for not catching that.
I didn't notice it either, so...
It does end up feeling a bit rushed. On the other hand, it certainly works well; every one of those revelations changes the game, and by the end, nothing is the same.
I mean, Jasnah and Shallan are Knights Radiant. The visions Dalinar has been sent are from the Almighty Himself, and are a kind of post-death videorecording- and yeah, that means he's dead, and Odium is responsible for killing him. The Parshendi, and by the extension the Parshmen, are the Voidbringers, and they've been integrated into every part of society, meaning the rise of the Desolation, when the Voidbringers awake, could bring about the end of civilization as soon as it comes about. King Taravangar or whatever his name is (I don't have my copy of the book on me at the moment) has been killing people to record their dying messages, and is responsible for sending Szeth to kill very powerful, influential figures in order to bring about instability- pretty much Dalinar's goal, but gone about dishonorably. And Shallan's family has something to do with the Ghostbloods, the group Amaram is opposed to, and both Shallan and Amaram are headed to the Shattered Plains.
Oh, and Elhokar is a Knight Radiant too. Wasn't that a fun revelation?
@lrdgck
Sorry for replying so late, I was in Budapest for a couple of days.
Science fiction has never really got a hold among writers over here - apparently, there is a certain 19th century writer, Lazar Komarčić, who pioneered the genre in Serbia but was buried by critics; he is getting more recognition nowadays, although I haven't had the chance to read anything by him. Fantasy, on the other hand, is more popular - it's pretty much strictly low fantasy, mostly historical, with a bit of contemporary fantasy here and there. The most famous are probably the Kosingas trilogy, Constantine's Crossing, Long Nights and Black Banners etc.
However, most of the critically acknowledged and influential postmodern Serbian literature (starting somewhere after mid-sixties) could possibly be classified as fantasy or science fiction, being heavily influenced by Latin American magical realism. There you have writers like Borislav Pekić, Danilo Kiš (I definitely recommend you to start off with something by him - most of his books are fairly accessible collections of short stories that are translated in several foreign languages), Milorad Pavić, Zoran Živković, Milorad Pavić etc.
Speaking of Milorad Pavić, if you want to read a highly unique, bizarre, strange and even creepy book unlike anything you've read before, go with his Dictionary of the Khazars. It's really, really, tough to describe, so I'll just copy-paste the Amazon description.
The "much more" includes stuff like a hunchback giving himself regular blowjobs, a demon chick who secretes black milk while orgasming and a Nazi Belgian toddler. This book is the wet dream of your average pretentious, artsy, hipster type, but a fantastic read nevertheless.
Ah, Budapest. I've got... fond memories.
You got me with this much more. BTW we once had a thread on speculative fiction from around the world, or at least that's how I remember it. I wrote an attempt of a summary of Polish SF&F there.
EDIT: 'twas not a thread on speculative fiction, just Alex's longpost dumping ground.
My dad has that book. I had no idea it was Serbian.I think so. But the true litmus test lies in you enjoyment of Thomas Ligotti's Songs of a Dead Dreamer, which is... kind of hard to find. I had to borrow it from the library system of a neighbouring township to first read it.
If you can find it for less than $20 in non-sucky condition (i.e. VG or better on ABE Books), then by allmeans, buy it immediately. If you love that book, then welcome to the soul brotherhood; if not... well, resale value is probably nothing to sneeze at.
If you want an explanation of the content, think of Lovecraft's early, dreamy, Poe-influenced works like "The Music of Erich Zann" or Fungi from Yuggoth, but more modern, less overwrought, doused with Nabakovian black humour and filled with this kind of surreal melancholy, like a vivid but distant memory of something inexplicably sad or ominous. Ligotti's later work is excellent as well, but I feel that his first book is, if not his strongest or most original—though he is never unoriginal—certainly his most fun, if you can call it that.
Also, "Vastarien" is the best dream horror story ever, just because.
I'll stop gushing now. At this point I might begin to lose blood...
I dunno, I think Ligotti's own sad sack indignant brand of pessimism philosophy would bleed over into the books to much and make me keep going, "Man fuck this shit only keeps happening because the author too the premise of that everything ever sucks and wouldn't shut up about it"
Have you ever actually read any of the man's work?
Seriously, I hate when people whinge about Ligotti's philosophical views when they have no real firsthand experience with his fiction. Granted, I think that his personal convictions actually make his work more potent by depriving his denouements of the kind of "promise of escape" that makes more optimistic horror stories feel half-assed, but even if you take that as a negative, his (fictional*) work is never really preachy about it. More, it's just the way the world of his stories works: Things are screwed-up on a fundamental level and this makes screwed-up things happen. It's just a great place to set horror stories in.
So, yes, I'm not trying to start a fight, but please: Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.
*Yes, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race is one long rant about how much everything sucks, but I don't think it's so much intended as a polemic as it is a... musing, I guess.
And how is knowing thing are fucked up and going to end terribly not half assed horror? Without the possiblity of escape it's just a slog to the inevitable.
Not at all. Think of it like this: The whole raison d'être of horror and related fiction is to unsettle the reader. A story that ends on a "happy" note is, by definition, not going to unsettle the reader as much as one that ends on an unsettling one. For someone reading a horror story, that inevitable closing trap isn't unsatisfactory, but the very point of the excursion.
Now, you may ask, why does someone do that? Simple. As Ligotti himself proposes at the end of his essay "The Consolations Of Horror", what a reader gets out of reading a true blue horror story or weird tale—the kind that ends on a sublimely nasty or morose note—is a kind of sympathy with the author through realising that someone else out there is afraid of the same things as they are.
Also note that this applies almost exclusively to short stories, vignettes and novellas; it's harder to pull this off in a longer work because of the time investment required and the way that novels are generally structured, which is entirely different from a short story. Which is probably why I find Ligotti's work so effective: It's almost entirely condensed into short, controlled pieces that say what they need to and leave before they overstay their welcome.
Of course, he did write one short novel ("My Work Is Not Yet Done"), and it's pretty excellent, but the fact that it's so different from most of his other work really says something.
P.S. I also take umbrage with your assumption that the fatalism outweighs the quality of the prose, along with the implication that a fatalistic work is somehow week because we expect the ending. What does that make Shakespeare's tragedies, or Death of a Salesman? Hell, if we're narrowing our lens to horror, what about Lovecraft or Poe?
Lots of stories have sad endings. That doesn't make them boring.
Really, just read something by the man. Please. What do you have to lose?
P.P.S. I am well aware that I am entirely too invested in this argument, but you're insulting my favourite(-ish) author without having read anything by him, and that bothers me genuinely pisses me off.
Hey guys! I remembered I have a shelfari!
Follow me and I'll follow you back!
You're getting me wrong. I'm not objecting to the inevitability of a sad ending, so much that with Ligotti I know exactly what I will get the second I go in. There is no suspense or interest in that sort of horror where I know that by construction there is no hope for a better ending. I don't need that happy ending, but I want there to be a possibility of one existing. I'd like the plot to have some bearing on the characters actions and decisions, rather than just a checkmark of tragedies because of the setting.
Besides man, Ligotti generally sounds like a loathsome and horrible person. Why should I be inclined to give him or his fiction the benefit of the doubt in any way?
Because it's (allegedly) good?
I think it's ridiculous to not read fiction because it's made by horrible people.
Fun fact: 90% of writers? Assholes.
Well, sometimes the moral issues bleed into their work. Like with Orson Scott Card.