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Commented on In Defense of Fantasy: #2 The Imagination's Sandbox
I had to give up Feist in "Magician". Maybe his later books are better, but it felt like a poor Tolkien with entire ideas copied. When the main characters had to go through a dwarfen mine under a mountain to...
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Commented on No. Words.
I hope he has a good single malt with him on the way out....
Comment Threads
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M Harold Page commented on
In Defense of Fantasy: #2 The Imagination's Sandbox
Ah yes. It's been a decade and two kids since I read it....
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notsam commented on
In Defense of Fantasy: #2 The Imagination's Sandbox
Have you looked at Bakker's blog? He quite explicitly makes a link with strong AI (as in what happens to the people when you have intelligence that can predict your actions and out think you) he's also heavy on the philosophy (which makes sense for someone who was doing a PhD). There's lot of trope inverting but still I'm not sure - there's magic, there's an evil that wants to kill almost everyone, there's empires and kingdoms. Anyway I quite liked the first trilogy, the second.. I haven't been buying consistently but I may pick them up when they're finished....
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Iain Roberts commented on
In Defense of Fantasy: #2 The Imagination's Sandbox
Look at it this way: Abercrombie relates to, say, Raymond E Feist roughly as Shaun of the Dead relates to Resident Evil. In the former, the characters appreciate the absurdity of what is going on, and they think and act like regular people instead of Big Damn Heroes (while still having moments of courage and heroism). For added recursion, the world of the First Law itself contains mediocre fantasy epics, and characters who complain about the mediocrity of same. IIRC in "The Last Argument of Kings", Ardee West has a drunken rant about the multi-volume book she's reading which has...
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notsam commented on
In Defense of Fantasy: #2 The Imagination's Sandbox
I'm really not a fan of Feist, there's a vague memory of a particular fight so thoroughly shattering my suspension of disbelief I've never touched him again....
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J Thomas commented on
In Defense of Fantasy: #2 The Imagination's Sandbox
I think I met Feist at a science fiction convention. Maybe it wasn't him but somebody with a similar name. He seemed like a nice guy. I liked him. I don't think I've read any of his books, but somehow I don't like it when people criticise them, because I like him. It's damn peculiar being a human being....
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