goldendawn said:
I am certainly more of a Tolkien (Feist seems to rip off Tolkien too often for my liking!), although Tolkien would probably get peeved at my use of symbolism, he hated allegory. In that sense, I am more of a Le Guin. lol. Every writer is different I suppose. How good a writer is, for me, should (if any one would bother assesing them) be based on their own level of creative accomplishment. How well have they brought their own ideas to fruition? How well have they developed their own form within a greater form (like genre)? Eddings, I have never gotten into. But I certainly think of King with the highest respect. King writes from his own desire to write, his own creative urges. The kind of mass production I mean, is when a publishing house hires someone to write something wholly mechanised and geared towards an audience, to boost revenue. Its when the form and meaning of the work do not come from the heart, but purely from the mind. Just as clarity and artistry must walk hand in hand, so must the mind and the heart, to amount to something really significant. (stop me if this is getting too sentimental!).
This is also the most interesting conversation I have ever had on this site!
I read LeGuin's
Earthsea Quartet when I was younger, but didn't enjoy it. I was probably too young at the time, and that book is on my post HSC to read list, as I do own it.
I've only read about a chapter of
Magician by Feist, and that is also on my to read list. It seemed pretty Tolkien-ish, rather detailed and a bit long winded, though from what I've read and heard about it, it's pretty good in the fact that it (apparently) becomes quite sci-fi-ish.
On the topic of fantasy, have you read anything by David Gemmell? His
Rigante books are brilliant, particularly if you like the dark hero. However I have heard that, like Eddings, some of his characters in other books seem to follow a set recipe.
King is an awesome writer, though as I said, his new books seem to be slipping. Perhaps it's just one or two dodgy ones in his mass of brilliant ones, and I wouldn't be surprised. You can't write brilliance all the time. But as I said, his early stuff is scary as hell (not piss myself scary, but make you think scary), while his new stuff isn't so effective in the fright factor (I refer, mainly, to
Dreamcatcher, which was very good, but nowhere near as good as
The Shining or
Pet Sematary). He engaging in both fiction and non fiction (I refer to his book about horror,
Danse Macabre), and is extremely funny when he wants to be. He, for the most part, can put together novels that are perfect for his chosen genre.
On your newly clarified mass production, I hate that too. I feel that there are so many crap books on the shelves, while many great writers probably don't even get looked at by publishers. That craps me, especially as one of my goals is to one day publish a novel (based on the ideas in my Major work). They could always try making money on something that's good (while not going crazy with toys and food, like they're doing with
Harry Potter, a series I love but still resent because of all the external hype and overkill).
I agree that writing should be something the author is truly passionate about (although if someone who is just money hungry writes something brilliantly engaging, it won't stop me from loving it), and that doing it for money just defeats the purpose. It should be something that the author is willing to pour him/herself into and be ready to stand up and say "This is the best I can do, and I am damn proud of it."
