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Who are the masters of Scifi/Fantasy prose?


Kyle Loechner

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Le Guin, Kay, Vance, Valente, Bradbury -- all writers who are consistently beautiful with their prose. GRRM isn't so much of a stylist, but it's absolutely true that he has some really beautiful and evocative passages (Tower of Joy sequence, opening of the Captain of Guards, The Dragontamer, meeting the Three-Eyed Crow).

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My first thought was Valente, but that's clearly a snap judgment about taste and probably more prosody than prose.

I kinda wanna come to Martin's defense. I mean, I know where we are. We gotta assume a cool disaffected stance and all.

But his writing does the job. The senses are engaged. The pov is strong. The reader is only confused when that's what he wants.

What might seem at first to be inconsistency later reveals itself as clever insinuation of personality and state of mind. Each pov has its own color palette. Each actually sees or hears or feels the world in a different way. Heck, even drunk Tyrion is distinct from effective Tyrion.

I don't wanna imply perfection, but his evocative skill had more to do with why I kept reading ASoIaF than a desire to keep track of dozens or hundreds of characters.

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In all seriousness, I liked what Joe A did with the more modern sensibilities in the trilogy, which contrasted with the references to a more ancient time. Tower of the Maker stands as a really well described place in my mind, and I think part of that was because it was a deviation from the more real world expectation laid out in the setting prior to its inclusion.

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In all seriousness, I liked what Joe A did with the more modern sensibilities in the trilogy, which contrasted with the references to a more ancient time. Tower of the Maker stands as a really well described place in my mind, and I think part of that was because it was a deviation from the more real world expectation laid out in the setting prior to its inclusion.

I also like how Joe A. differentiated the voice of each character in TFL. He gets a lot of flak for the quality of the first book's prose (probably rightfully so - it is cringeworthy at times), but I think the voice mechanism and sharp wit more than offsets any problems. I remember the first time I read TBI, the minor quibbles I had with speaking-verbs were quickly forgotten as I laughed at Jezal's opening chapters.

As for other authors, I just finished Under Heaven and rather liked Guy's prose, if it was a bit purple. Loved the dialogue, too. Currently working on The Black Company, and Cook's minimalist style resonates quite well, though it wouldn't have hurt for him to put in just a bit more description.

Not yet a fan of the writing in Iain M. Banks' Consider Phlebas. Again, I like the wit and the story, but the way he uses words is not enough to offset prose problems. He is not a J.A.

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  • 3 weeks later...

It's always a bit subjective when determining who the best is at prose. A few that at I think are really good (there are others of course, but this is a good start):

Gene Wolfe

Patricia McKillip

Charles de Lint

Michael Moorcock

Michael Swanwick

Jeff VanderMeer

Margo Lanagan

John M. Ford

Jonathan Carroll

Felix Gilman

Another big issue is consistency. There are some authors who at times have wonderful prose, but they aren't consistent enough with it to be mentioned with the best (Steven Erikson comes to mind first). Elizabeth Bear also comes to mind, though with her new series it might just be best to go ahead and add her to the list above.

Definitely a great list. :)

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Ah now see Vance doesn't vary his voice AT ALL and yet it is so ridiculously eloquent that I just don't care.

Really? I think Lyonesse is way different in voice and style than his other stuff I have read. BTW I like the other stuff much more too.

EDIT: I am not much of a prose guy but for my money Bakker and Vance are the top of the list.

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