Gainsdalf the Whey Posted December 31, 2015 Report Share Posted December 31, 2015 Kingkiller Chronicles is next on my list, I'm reading The Mistborn series now. It's absolutely fantastic. I don't know if I've really been so connected to so many characters in a single book/series before. If it's true that WoT inspired Sanderson to play with magic having strict rules, and those rules and way magic is used really being the driving factor that society is structured around, it's definitely a point for WoT as far as inspiring something new. Quote Massrandir, Barkûn, Swolórin, The Whey Pilgrim 500 / 330 / 625 Challenges: 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 31 32 34 35 36 39 41 42 45 46 47 48 49 Current Challenge "No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. What a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable. " ~ Socrates "Friends don't let friends squat high." ~ Chad Wesley Smith "It's a dangerous business, Brodo, squatting to the floor. You step into the rack, and if you don't keep your form, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~ Gainsdalf Link to comment
Girl-Meet-World Posted January 2, 2016 Report Share Posted January 2, 2016 I need to read WoT next, actually. The series just seemed very long, and there were other things that I wanted to read. However, knowing that Sanderson actually finished the WoT series, well, its practically a necessity. But Sanderson's exploration of magic really hooked me, and he wrote a stand-alone (?) of magic coming from colour, which was fascinating, and fabulously written. Quote Panda Hobbit | Drifter | Level 3 STR 6 | DEX 5 | STA 2 | CON 5 | WIS 7 | CHA 2 "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself" -- Tolstoy Training | Challenge 1 2 3 4 | Epic Quest Link to comment
Xenophon Posted April 12, 2016 Report Share Posted April 12, 2016 Seriously though, GoT is just the flavor of the month, Nah, it's been widely popular for very nearly two decades now. I was there for the first books and I was there when the long wait began; the series has been pretty unusual in terms of its impact on the genre. But yes, I would support the choice of going with LOTR first. For one thing, it's foundational to the genre in a way that basically no other works are; for another, it's complete. Also the whole thing is about the same length as a single volume in some of the newer fantasy series. The style may be a bit unusual for modern-day readers; Tolkien did not really (nor did he really try to) write a "novel" as such, he was looking more back at sagas and legends, which was his stock in trade; his main thing was playing with his made-up languages, and making up a world for them to belong to. In fact I'd optimally recommend reading LOTR while one is still fairly young and without too many preconceived notions of what a "fantasy novel" is supposed to be like; but if one has passed that stage without having read it, the second-best thing is to play catch-up. On a final note, I do find it sort of amusing that someone would criticize George RR Martin for being slow to write and spending time on rewrites while recommending Tolkien instead, given that he was basically the High King of endless rewrites... took him 12 years to write LOTR, and what he himself considered to be his life's work was never finished in his lifetime, and only completed from some of his left-behind notes and first/second/third/nth drafts after his death; he left behind enough such notes for his son to make a whole career out of. Quote Link to comment
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