My pet peeves on any Fantasy novel-esque thing:

-Too much close calls with sex. I can deal with it in -passing-, but...I don't want any detail. I want magic and adventure. Not that adventure.

-Pain, suffering, despair, etc. I can deal with it normally, but I don't want to read two chapters about the main character being in some..kinky torture dungeon. (real book, here)

-Storylines that take waaaaaay too long to get into full swing.

-'Aspiring Writers' that decide to put a swear word every other sentence to make it seem like it'll actually be published.

-'Aspiring Writers' that decide to put in really gross things that'll make their stories seem good. May just be my personal tastes, but, meh... (I.E: Violence, sex, emo stuff, zomgemo vampire, incest...makes me wonder if they really want to write a -novel-.)



But even then, there's still a good bit of reads out there.

I disagree with you about Martin. He had to split it into two - otherwise he wouldn't have been able to give all the characters the time and development they deserve.

My pet peeve - decompression (ie Robert Jordan).

So Furien - I guess by your post that you hated Stephen Donaldson? I am kinda the opposite way - I don't mind anything, AS LONG AS IT FITS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE STORY.

But that's exactly my point. It's not a pet peeve that he has to write two novels for the current "installment" of the story; it's a pet peeve that he's managed his story in such a way that necessitates it.

I know not everyone enjoys Tolkien's work, and I understand that. Somehow, however, he managed to write an epic, episodic fantasy story involving a host of characters and portray an immersive world in three novels, none of which are nearly as long as any of Jordan's or Martin's.

I have some pet peeves with Tolkien's books, too (and they came to a small hill, which in the Sindar tongue is called aluennahal telas - which is to say, "small hill"), but he certainly was able to keep from losing control of his own story, and I think part of it is that he didn't have ten chapters dedicated to Eowyn's internal dialogue, or once he introduced some Gondorian footman or another, didn't feel as though this merited its own story arc that should be pursued.

Have you read A Feast for Crows, yet? You have to get at least two thirds through the book before anything significant plotwise actually happens.

Hmm. Those are some viable peeves....

...but what about:

(1) Poor style. I have a fair amount of difficulty thinking of fantasy authors who write well. Most compensate for painfully poor language by constructing sensationalist plots.. which amuse (if you aren't too irritated by the style), but only in the same way that Xena Warrior Princess or Stargate SG1 amuses. I.E, it's crap that you'll watch only because you're bored and it's on tv. Then you take one step further down the line and you find someone like Dan Brown who should simply not have been published.

(2) Identical characters in every book... take David Eddings for example. Every book is EXACTLY the same from the point of view of the characters and the way the characters interact.

(3) It's actually moderately irritating that so many people waste their time indulging in this excremental literary genre when there are so many really excellent books out there to enjoy. Outside Tolkein, Lovecraft.. and if you count him, Pratchett.. there's nothing more there which is worth more than a casual glance at a dustcover..

Agreed, although I'm not quite jaded enough to be at 3, yet. On rare occasions, I find someone who does something different with the genre and/or writes in high-quality prose.

Your 2 reminds me of another peeve: characters that talk and think exactly alike except for the occasional "gruff character." I'm not talking about accents, either. I mean the way they phrase things.

Umm, About Tolkien. You forget that he also wrote the Similiauron(sp?) which answers lots of questions that people would otherwise have. However, since so many people know much of the content of the Tolkien bible, without having have read it, you think the 3 books are just fine.

But you are probably correct that people like Jordan and Martin should write side bibles to their world, and keep their story more condensed.

Also, I remember that terry goodkind book with the 2 chapters of kinky torture and pain/pleasure rods.


p.s. Many of these pet peaves sell books, though. Or makes lazy editors happy. You should read Ivory Sword. It doesn't have these problems.

Also, you should read Ivory Sword. It avoids many of these pet peves.

I think one should remember that the pet peaves you mention also lead to high book sales.

Personally, I like the Belgariad and Mallorean.

The only things that irk me are when you can tell someone copied from another book, and the occasional slip. In "On a Pale Horse" a few lines were omitted in the begining, but the reaction wasn't. The main character was left thinking, more or less, "Lachesis mentioned a car. What car awaits me?". Lachesis said nothing about a car beforehand.

Then there are the author's selection books where the book has passed a certain time frame or reached so many sales that they put in everything they cut from the original printing. The author's edition of "Magician: Apprentice" made it so I couldn't read the original without twitching.

Very true.

As to your point about The Silmarillion, which is roughly the size of a Jordan or Martin book, that book supplied back history and information about the world Tolkien had created. These other authors' books aren't long, however, because they supply too much back history or information about the world; they're long because they keep creating new story arcs that never resolve (or do not appear to be moving to resolution), new minor characters that get just as much attention as main characters, and long stretches of events that perhaps establish flavor or give you some insight into the thought life of a character, but whether or not we actually needed it is a different story.

In other words, their stories seem to spend just as much time or more moving laterally as they do forward (or backward). To a point, I like that. To a point. To a very small point. But that's just me. As you noted, lots and lots of readers don't seem to mind.

In Jordan's books, I must say the lateral information about Perrin, really ads a lot, that probably could have been explained in a separate book about the wolfs, the foxes and snakes. Although, I do agree that the story needlessly moves too slowly, I don't agree that the information is useless. But I think a background story would have given the intelligent reader enough information to figure out what the minutiae details gives us instead.

Basically, there are two ways to give the reader information about the culture. They can either show the details and have the reader figure out the greater details (Like Tolkien did in the Hobbit and the first few boring chapters of Lord of the Rings, that the movie cut out entirely) Or they can give the general back story which the reader can use to translate particular actions. (Like the Silmarillion and Elves)

What about identical series?

The Belgariad/Mallorean and Elenium/Tamuli are essentially the exact same story!

Edit: My major pet peeve:
An epilogue that makes the whole four-book series completely and utterly pointless. IE, the ending of Edding's most recent series. You could just read that epilogue, and then you don't even have to read the actual books.

I'm just going to be a fanboy and bring up R. A. Salvatore.

Kthxbi.

Since we seem to be bashing Jordan, lets not forget to add Prologues that are so long the measure up to 3 chapters. Prologues are meant to be short introductions.

Hey. I bashed Eddings' most recent series, not Jordan!

Actually, I find the beginning of the Lord of the Rings one of the must interesting parts, though admittedly not for the right reasons. When Tolkien started to write the Lord of the Rings, he was intending to write another Hobbit - it was to be another children's book. As he carried on, it changed in scope. The fat hobbit he had initially called 'Trotter', became a man called 'Strider'. The relatively harmless, jovial exploits of the hobbits expanded hugely in scope. The Ringwraiths are, initially, scary but not enormously dangerous. Fast forward a few hundred pages, and suddenly they're far far more powerful. I find this transformation fascinating: and it's not just the change in plot but that there's a marked change in the narration style. At the beginning (though Tolkien edited several of them out, and later wrote that he wished he had removed more) there are addresses to the audience/reader, very much in the style of the Hobbit: he creates a kindly narrative persona, who elucidates difficulties and chats to the reader - this is, of course, entirely out of keeping with the rest of the book - similarly, you can catch him writing a constant quasi-archaic prose later on, which has no business mixing with the kindly old man who is the narrator... and I could carry on writing on this topic for some time, but I should be doing other things so I won't. I've also basically forgotten why I was writing this post in the first place.. when it comes back to me, I'll edit it in.

After reading the first post, I recommend Elizabeth Moon's deed of Paksenarrion trilogy. Very gritty, very believable, and very well thought out. With lots of people with the same first names.

Yeah, I quoted you because you refered to Epilouges, which reminded me of Prologues, and thus my post. My refrence to bashing Jordan was referring to what others were saying.

Jordan did the same thing with Rand Al'thor and it becomes a pet peve. I find it interesting in both books personally. I'm just trying to point out that there are two ways about giving backstory and helping you understand the culture of the world. One is long and not very plot driven, the other is short but has to be written in another book.

I agree completely about Eddings, in fact I had a rant about this in a thread at xmas. I did enjoy those first four series and the novels, Belgarath, Polgara and Althalus. However, the last series was really disappointing. I have given up on him (or them) for now.

I guess I have so many Dragonlance books because the different styles of the authors overcome to some degree the problem of an Author re-using ideas/words/plots. I get the same feeling of being immersed in a complete world, but don't get bored by one writing style while getting to that point.

I'm actually on a break from fantasy for a while for many of the reasons given in this thread. I am currently reading Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. Great book