Tweet
Originally posted by Duelist925
View Post
-
True enough. (And a psychological need to pick up stories from the beginning is why I've never gotten much into either Smallville or Doctor Who, though the problems with each of those are different: the one's first season was, from what I saw of it, pretty awful, and the other is just way too long and with too much not readily available. A few years ago I got what I could from Netflix, when it was still just disc-based, but lost interest in the 70's because what's the point of a show about traveling through time and space when the main character is locked to present-day Earth?)"My in-laws are country people and at night you can hear their distinctive howl." -
The way I look at it is this...
Not everyone is going to like the same things. And even if you have two people who like the same thing...odds are that they're going to like them for two totally different reasons.
A lot of people like Tolkien. I can't stand him. Loved the story as translated in the films, but trying to read through the books is like reading stereo instructions. The pacing is laborious in my opinion and I've still no idea the point of Tom Bombadil. He's like a speed bump in the story. But a lot of people like him and his works and have no problems reading it.
Wonderful! Enjoy! No sarcasm intended. I mean it, enjoy!
I on the other hand like Dennis L. McKiernan. His stories have that Tolkien-esq flavor to them (usually favoring the underdog - often halflings) but has (again in my opinion) a better sense of pacing.
Others hate him because he is "too much like Tolkien" or because he tends to tell the story from the current time alternating to the backstory and going back and forth until in the middle of the book the two times merge and the story goes forward.
Some people like that, others don't, and there's people like me who just don't care and can follow the split-time stories. Don't like him? Fine. No problems. I'm not forcing you to like him. Just give me the same courtesy I'm giving you when you read your Tolkien. You sit over there and enjoy your book, I'll be over here enjoying mine.
And as for Lackey? I love her "Bardic Voices" series, love the SERRAted edge, love her compilation books...not too dippy on the rest of her stuff I've read.“There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep and the rivers dream, people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice and somewhere else the tea is getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do.” - Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor.Comment
-
I will say, with Doctor Who, you can easily pick up from the Ninth Doctor (the reboot series). It not only has a completely different tone and pacing from the original series, but it treats the original as being "background" like authors do in stories, reference-able, neat to know, definitely influences choice by the character, but not really necessary to understand the story as it stands.Originally posted by HYHYBT View PostComment
-
Oh, I agree. I respect what Tolkien accomplished but my lord. I can live through the first book. But the Two Towers is excrutiating. Nevermind the weird acid trip that is Tom Bombadil.Originally posted by Mongo Skruddgemire View PostComment
-
I can't even make it through the first book. Do we really need all of the songs outlined? Really?Originally posted by Gravekeeper View PostComment
-
I love her Valdemar series but yeah Last Herald Mage is pretty damn bad. Fortunately its the exception to her writing. Go read the very first one she wrote Queens Arrows. It does have typos but they are over lookable for how good the book is.Comment
-
I have to echo the "pick up from 9 on ward" idea. The newer stuff is vastly easier to find and get into, and treats the older series pretty much the way Khel put it.Originally posted by HYHYBT View PostComment
-
I know, and it's on my list of things to do eventually.Originally posted by Duelist925 View Post"My in-laws are country people and at night you can hear their distinctive howl."Comment
-
As for Bombadil, It seems to me that the point of him is to say that even though the world we see in those books is not only highly detailed, with histories and languages and all worked out, there are still oddities you might run into anywhere that few know of and nobody really understands, or needs to. And his forest is an early reminder that not all malicious danger is from Sauron."My in-laws are country people and at night you can hear their distinctive howl."Comment
-
Actually, Tolkien inserted him just for the lawlz really. He wrote about Tom way before he started working on Lord of the Rings. As a sort of wild nature spirit or something. He's basically a god in LOTR though. The ring doesn't affect him at all and the Hobbits can just summon him whenever.Originally posted by HYHYBT View Post
As I recall, he steals their clothes and tells them to run around naked in the woods for his amusement or something. Also he talks entirely in a sort of insane rhyme / song.
To quote Tolkien: "Tom Bombadil is not an important person to the narrative. I suppose he has some importance as a comment. I mean, I do not really write like that: he is just an invention and he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyse the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function."
In otherwords Tom was an early Big Lipped Alligator Moment.
Amusingly enough, as I recall he DOES appear in the LOTR Online though and is batshit insane.Comment
-
I think the first Dresden book was awesome and is still one of my favorites.Originally posted by Duelist925 View PostComment
-
To me Tom Bombadil is a reminder that there are things not understood in the corners of the world.
for example Bombadil was completely immune to the corruption of the ring, if he kept it there would be no need to destroy the ring, and he is too powerful for the Nazgul to take the ring for him.
However he was careless and absent minded and the council at Rivendell was afraid that he would throw the ring away like so much trash.
I REALLY like Tom bombadilLast edited by SkullKing; 04-29-2013, 12:05 AM.Comment
-
I don't dislike it, but for me, while the first two books are ok, its 3 where the series starts to seriously hit its stride.Originally posted by SkullKing View Post
Read Cold Days yet?Comment
-
The only Benz Sycophant stories I've read have been some of her short stories about Martis and Lyran. I thought they were pretty good.Comment
-
To me the series has a few shifts, in the third one and in ghost story specifically.Originally posted by Duelist925 View Post
To me it is something like this:
Most of the books are about a wizard who happens to be a detective.
The first one is about a detective who happens to be a wizard.
So they are definitely different, but I honestly don´t think the first was any worse than the others but it´s focus was different(the earlier books had a greater focus on potions for example which I really like but got less important as the series evolved ).
Cold days is very good yes.Comment
Comment