J.K Rowling is writing a new book.

[Danjanon]

[Cainad (dec.)]

I find myself in a position where I pretty much can't assess J.K. Rowling as an author, due to nostalgia lenses having become fused to my corneas.

I'm part of that age bracket that was almost exactly the same age as the main characters for most of the series, so when I started reading it around age 12, my standards for literature weren't exactly what you'd call cultivated.

I'll admit I was hooked; I re-read most of the early books more times than I can remember (and that's not me feigning forgetfulness to save face: I actually lost count of how many times I read the first few books). Towards the end of it though, when book seven was finally on the horizon, I was excited, but at that point it was mostly to see how JKR intended to wrap up all of this insanity she'd built up for so long.

Then it ended, and so did my fanboyism. I can admit that, yeah, it probably isn't all that great, or even very good at all depending on your criteria. But simply admitting that doesn't remove the fact that, when I was reading them, I enjoyed the shit out of them.

It's probably telling, though, that now that I'm done with it all, I really don't have a desire to go back to them again. My childhood and teenage years are where it belongs, and where it will probably stay.

[Danjanon]

Really, my experience is quite similar. Where we differ, my fan boyism waned at movie 5, but came back with all the hype for 7 and 7.2. I'm excited for Pottermore and want to visit the theme park one day,  and I'm soon going to start on the Stephen Fry audio books. I may be hooked for life after Sir Stephen's read to me :S

[Kai]

I disagree with ECH that young adult fiction has gone down the tubes, in the same way that I would disagree with anyone who said fiction in general has gone down the tubes. For whatever reason, YA authors are writing the best damn dystopian novels of today. Feed alone is horrifying and the reason I will never EVER let anyone stick an internet connection in my head.

What has been and continues to be true, is that most of the heavily reported fiction, the high rollers, the NYT bestsellers, are mediocre. But there are exceptions, Pat Rothfuss's Kingkiller Trillogy being an excellent fantasy example.

There will always be a mixture of crap, mediocrity, and goodness, with the most praised tending towards the middle variety, especially in this country.

[Vaud]

Call me crazy, and I'm not a huge Rowling fan by any means, but I think a lot of Tolkien's characters had even less depth than Rowlings.  I personally have a hard time finding anything in the fantasy genre worth reading anymore.  George R.R. Martin is fucking top notch, but it's hard to think of anything else I give two shits about.  Tolkien was pretty fun, when he wasn't droning on for 3 pages about what was on the dinner table, but I think many can say the same for Rowlings work.. fun, sure.  What I really look for is character depth though, and very few works in that genre have adequately satisfied that appetite.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I disagree with ECH that young adult fiction has gone down the tubes, in the same way that I would disagree with anyone who said fiction in general has gone down the tubes. For whatever reason, YA authors are writing the best damn dystopian novels of today. Feed alone is horrifying and the reason I will never EVER let anyone stick an internet connection in my head.

What has been and continues to be true, is that most of the heavily reported fiction, the high rollers, the NYT bestsellers, are mediocre. But there are exceptions, Pat Rothfuss's Kingkiller Trillogy being an excellent fantasy example.

There will always be a mixture of crap, mediocrity, and goodness, with the most praised tending towards the middle variety, especially in this country.

I've really got to read that.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Call me crazy, and I'm not a huge Rowling fan by any means, but I think a lot of Tolkien's characters had even less depth than Rowlings.  I personally have a hard time finding anything in the fantasy genre worth reading anymore.  George R.R. Martin is fucking top notch, but it's hard to think of anything else I give two shits about.  Tolkien was pretty fun, when he wasn't droning on for 3 pages about what was on the dinner table, but I think many can say the same for Rowlings work.. fun, sure.  What I really look for is character depth though, and very few works in that genre have adequately satisfied that appetite.

Alas, Sturgeon's Law must raise its ugly head when considering fantasy fiction: Ninety percent of everything is crap.


Some of us were discussing fantasy books in another thread. For fantasy with good character depth, I'd recommend:

Malazan, Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson (I haven't read it myself, but there's significant overlap between fans of this series and fans of GRR Martin, so I'm planning to give it a look).

The Prince of Nothing trilogy by R. Scott Bakker (nearly half of these books are about what's going on inside the character's heads, and that's a good thing)

The Taltos series by Steven Brust (much lighter-hearted than Martin or the above two recommendations, but still very character-focused)


I'm probably forgetting a bunch, but I'm finding it harder than I thought to distill "focus on character depth" from "focus on plot." I'm a sucker for either if they're well-written, but I can see how one would have a preference for one or the other.

[Cain]

Tolkein gets pass points, because a) he did it first and b) all the world-building.

Rowling gets pass points because her story was designed for children.  It did admittedly warp into some kind of strange YA thing by about book five, and not entirely successfully, but nevertheless.

[Vaud]

Call me crazy, and I'm not a huge Rowling fan by any means, but I think a lot of Tolkien's characters had even less depth than Rowlings.  I personally have a hard time finding anything in the fantasy genre worth reading anymore.  George R.R. Martin is fucking top notch, but it's hard to think of anything else I give two shits about.  Tolkien was pretty fun, when he wasn't droning on for 3 pages about what was on the dinner table, but I think many can say the same for Rowlings work.. fun, sure.  What I really look for is character depth though, and very few works in that genre have adequately satisfied that appetite.

Alas, Sturgeon's Law must raise its ugly head when considering fantasy fiction: Ninety percent of everything is crap.


Some of us were discussing fantasy books in another thread. For fantasy with good character depth, I'd recommend:

Malazan, Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson (I haven't read it myself, but there's significant overlap between fans of this series and fans of GRR Martin, so I'm planning to give it a look).

The Prince of Nothing trilogy by R. Scott Bakker (nearly half of these books are about what's going on inside the character's heads, and that's a good thing)

The Taltos series by Steven Brust (much lighter-hearted than Martin or the above two recommendations, but still very character-focused)


I'm probably forgetting a bunch, but I'm finding it harder than I thought to distill "focus on character depth" from "focus on plot." I'm a sucker for either if they're well-written, but I can see how one would have a preference for one or the other.

Thanks!  Without really saying it, I was hoping for some good recommendations.  I will definitely check these out, and get back to you when I do.

[Cain]

I'll say this, the Malazan Books of the Fallen are not great for characterization.  What they are good at is being atypical of the genre.  You won't get depth of character along the lines of George RR Martin, except possibly with a few characters (Karsa Orlong comes to mind, and to an extent Ganoes Paran), but the vast majority of characters are cynical soldiers with a warped sense of humour.  But you won't mind this because a) you'll be spending most of your time trying to figure out what is going on* and b) you'll be going oh shit whenever a major convergence happens**.

In fact, in some ways, the book goes out of its way to draw attention to the fact it's not characterising certain people at all, such as Adjunct Tavore.  Even by the end of the series, she's still something of a mystery to all involved.

* Fun exercise for the reader: figure out whose side Ammanas is on.  Even more fun exercise: whose side is Lassen on?

** Convergence is the in-built tendency in the world for power to attract power.  What this usually results in is several dozen extremely dangerous people/things/gods being in the same area when something serious is going down.