Bakker LIII - Sranc and File

[jurble]

I don't think Bakker is at fault (sorry Aurang) for declining discussion participation due to his AMA - insofar as if there were more people reading the books, then there'd be more people showing up in this thread whose theories we could shoot down.  His primary fault is his inability to shill and self-promote and find better business connections.

I mean, compare Bakker to pre-super-fame GRRM - GRRM put in a ton of effort for fan engagement and self-promotion for ASoIaF.  He still does, despite not having to... to some people's chagrin.

[Darth Richard II]

I dunno, when you tell the fans that  have been speculating about your books for years that all their speculation was pointless and they were looking at stuff that wasn't there, that tends to kill discussion.

[Dora Vee]

The Second Apocalypse forum is still very active. As for everywhere else, there's really only so much people can talk about until some new readers come in or there is more speculation about TNG. 

[Darth Richard II]

Well, I am caustic.

[Callan S.]

On 2/28/2018 at 8:25 AM, Hello World said:

Bakker already has a PhD and a life to work on, he may decide to cut his losses at some point. Maybe publish the next 2-3 TSA books and move on.

I wouldn't say so. Some people just barely fit writing in between living their life. I think he just barely manages to fit life in between writing.

[Spring Bass]

Wert has said before that his sales in the UK were pretty solid, so he's at least got that going. 

Bakker needs to just write some outright horror fiction already. It would mitigate his weaknesses and magnify his ability to write convoluted, truly horrifying sequences. I remember thinking it was odd that he tried twice to write thrillers, because good thrillers are so different from his typical writing style. 

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I wouldn't say so. Some people just barely fit writing in between living their life. I think he just barely manages to fit life in between writing.

Don't he and his wife have a farm house or something like that? IIRC he lives in a rural area, so he probably has a lot of time to write if he doesn't have a day job. 

[Darth Richard II]

21 minutes ago, Fall Bass said:

Wert has said before that his sales in the UK were pretty solid, so he's at least got that going. 

Bakker needs to just write some outright horror fiction already. It would mitigate his weaknesses and magnify his ability to write convoluted, truly horrifying sequences. I remember thinking it was odd that he tried twice to write thrillers, because good thrillers are so different from his typical writing style. 

Don't he and his wife have a farm house or something like that? IIRC he lives in a rural area, so he probably has a lot of time to write if he doesn't have a day job. 

I thought he teaches full time and has at least one daughter.

[Larry of the Lawn]

He drives an ice cream truck covered in human skulls!

[Hello World]

12 hours ago, Fall Bass said:

Wert has said before that his sales in the UK were pretty solid, so he's at least got that going. 

That was just a guess I'm sure, there are no actual numbers on his UK sales. TGO, the Overlook copy, said that his books sold 165K copies worldwide if I remember correctly.

[Kalbear]

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• #16224 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy

THERE ARE DOZENS OF US

[Caligula_K3]

I don't know if Bakker will be completely forgotten in ten years, but I do imagine he'll be a pretty minor footnote in retrospectives on fantasy of the early 21st century. Everyone I know in real life who had read and enjoyed Bakker's books either gave up on them a long time ago or finished The Aspect Emperor and are now ready to give up on them. That's anecdotal, but sales are down, his publishers don't want him, he doesn't have an editor, etc.. Sales aren't everything, of course, but I have a hard time imagining that Bakker is going to have the status of a Gene Wolfe. His ideas just aren't that interesting (and he's a one trick pony with them, as Hello World pointed out) and his writing just isn't that good.

[jurble]

24 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I don't know if Bakker will be completely forgotten in ten years, but I do imagine he'll be a pretty minor footnote in retrospectives on fantasy of the early 21st century.

Nah, when I'm a famous author I'll make sure to mention Bakker as one of my major influences.

 

[Maithanet]

4 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I don't know if Bakker will be completely forgotten in ten years, but I do imagine he'll be a pretty minor footnote in retrospectives on fantasy of the early 21st century. Everyone I know in real life who had read and enjoyed Bakker's books either gave up on them a long time ago or finished The Aspect Emperor and are now ready to give up on them. That's anecdotal of course, but sales are down, his publishers don't want him, he doesn't have an editor, etc.. Sales aren't everything, of course but I have a hard time imagining that Bakker is going to have the status of a Gene Wolfe. His ideas just aren't that interesting (and he's a one trick pony with them, as Hello World pointed out) and his writing just isn't that good.

Yeah, I mostly agree with that.  For a while, Bakker had a chance of being a cult hit of fantasy.  The threads on this forum and elsewhere on the internet were passionate and interesting.  But that more or less ended with TUC.  After reading PoN, I was very curious about TSA.  I wanted to learn more about the dire metaphysics in Earwa.  I wanted to see the No-God walk, see Kellhus get his comeuppance and see the loathsome consult destroyed. 

Now?  Whatever. 

[Dora Vee]

31 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

But that more or less ended with TUC.

He really dropped the ball with the TUC. Just sad...:( And it's honestly not due to bias either. 

[kuenjato]

4 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I don't know if Bakker will be completely forgotten in ten years, but I do imagine he'll be a pretty minor footnote in retrospectives on fantasy of the early 21st century. Everyone I know in real life who had read and enjoyed Bakker's books either gave up on them a long time ago or finished The Aspect Emperor and are now ready to give up on them. That's anecdotal, but sales are down, his publishers don't want him, he doesn't have an editor, etc.. Sales aren't everything, of course, but I have a hard time imagining that Bakker is going to have the status of a Gene Wolfe. His ideas just aren't that interesting (and he's a one trick pony with them, as Hello World pointed out) and his writing just isn't that good.

This may be, which would be ironic, because IMO (and despite my disappointment with TAE), he's much, much, much better than any of the so-called superstars of the fantasy epic these days, who (let's face it) are all one trick ponies. Sanderson with his video game tutorials and puzzles and bloat, Williams with his bloat, Abercrombie with his pulp/blue collar confections, Erikson with his contempt for editing or coherency, Rothfuss the wacky hack, Martin (haha! WoW haha!) Goodkind (shudder), and so forth. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 hours ago, kuenjato said:

 he's much, much, much better than any of the so-called superstars of the fantasy epic these days, who (let's face it) are all one trick ponies. 

That's really the crux of my disappointment with TAE.  The writing quality in the first 5 books and parts of the last two was so much higher than anything else I've read in fantasy, that I really expected him to stick the landing.

  Instead he mooned the judges table.  

I think there's something to Kal's point about his first editor not being involved later on.

[Darth Richard II]

Thats funny cause I consider all of those authors except Goodkind and Sanderson to be much, much better than Bakker.

 

Edit: Wait, no, Rothfuss kind of sucks too.

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

I think there's something to Kal's point about his first editor not being involved later on.

That wasn't my point, btw, though I totally agree with it; the first three books are lightyears ahead in editing and clarity, with some exceptionally embarrassing failures in the second series (and especially with TGO/TUC). 

I think there are a lot of good fantasy authors out there. Kay, Roberson, Morgan, Abercrombie, Abraham are all good, and in many ways better than Bakker. I'm looking forward to Cook's latest work, and I'd still say Donaldson did everything Bakker wanted to do better. 

 

[jurble]

Abercrombie's YA doesn't really work as YA.  It's basically the same as his other books minus explicit language.

[kuenjato]

1 hour ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Bullshit. Martin has written across multiple genres, doing novels, short stories, fake histories, long expansive series, he's written for television, he edits Wild Cards, etc. Abercrombie has done YA, and stand alones spanning multiple genres in addition to his flagship trilogy. Mark Lawrence, who you didn't mention, has done Grimdark, YA, black comedy. Haven't read Sanderson and Goodkind, nor enough Erikson to comment on those. Rothfuss might be a one trick pony, and he might not. He really hasn't published enough to tell.

Point taken, though he hasn't done much in the last 20 years beyond ASOIAF. I actually liked his horror/contemporary fiction better than his fantasy, though A. Rag bombed so I guess that was it for that. As for the others, I don't think being a "one trick pony" is bad, mind you, if the trick is pretty good (like Abercrombie). Many authors stay in that comfort zone because veering from it can alienate audiences and thus sales; RSB has admitted to being a one-trick... unfortunately, that trick seems to have overwhelmed his work as time went on, and I doubt it'll get better with the proposed third series.