C.T. Phipps Posted August 2, 2015 Author Share Posted August 2, 2015 Just finished Mark Lawrence's PRINCE OF THORNS. I'm surprised to say, or perhaps not so surprised since all of my friends have been singing its praised, I liked it. A lot. Prince of Thorns review I think what sold me on the character was, oddly enough, an anime called Code Geass. I remember that rather fondly and Jorge's charismatic nastiness reminded me of the lead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.T. Phipps Posted August 18, 2015 Author Share Posted August 18, 2015 Hey folks, My continued appreciation of grimdark (remember it's a lower-case g) continues as I've started preparing myself to pick up multiple new series. I'm going to be finishing up Mark Lawrence's THE BROKEN EMPIRE TRILOGY, starting on Richard Morgan's A LAND FIT FOR HEROES, and I'm also finally settling down to read THE FIRST LAW TRILOGY by Abercrombie. A friend of mine told me the rather amusing, "You can't be a fan of grimdark if you haven't read Joe Abercrombie. That's like being a fan of Sword and Sorcery without reading Elric!" "I've never read Elric." "WHAT?" "No, are you crazy? I love Elric." "Read JA, NOW!" So I did. The Blade Itself review Really, I've got to say they weren't kidding about how vivid and entertaining Abercrombie's works are. The thing is, I'm not really sold on the setting or main story but the characters are so well-developed that they easily compensate for it and then some. They're vividly realized and my favorite subplots are them just living their lives. What's your take on who is the "best" grimdark author? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry of the Lawn Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 I've always felt strongly that Cynthia Voight's The Wings of a Falcon is protogrimdark like Cream's "White Room" is protometal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted August 19, 2015 Share Posted August 19, 2015 White Room is protometal? Did it come out before Sabbath? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gasp of Many Reeds Posted August 20, 2015 Share Posted August 20, 2015 White Room is protometal? Did it come out before Sabbath? According to Wiki, recorded 1967, released 1968. Earth became Black Sabbath and wrote their infamous same-named track in 1969. So yes, before Sabbath, though that doesn't necessarily suggest direct influence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted August 20, 2015 Share Posted August 20, 2015 Hmm. Interesting. Because Sabbath is the first real metal that I know of. Wiki says they formed in 68. But the track may not have come out until 69. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gasp of Many Reeds Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Hmm. Interesting. Because Sabbath is the first real metal that I know of. Wiki says they formed in 68. But the track may not have come out until 69. Well, Blue Cheer and their cover of Summertime Blues is another candidate for earliest heavy metal band/song. That song came out in 1968. Of course, there's no real dividing line between rock and metal, so its all very subjective. Plus I think the Blue Cheer claim gets some popularity from the fact it allows Californians, as opposed to Brummies, to claim they invented heavy metal. By the way, as I understand it, Sabbath formed as Earth in 1968, but their early stuff isn't really quite heavy metal yet. The song 'Black Sabbath' is usually considered the first proper heavy metal song they wrote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.T. Phipps Posted August 21, 2015 Author Share Posted August 21, 2015 One thing I do appreciate about grimdark is there's no end to the fantastic heavy metal music you can listen to while reading it. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anasûrimbor Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Worm is a pretty great grimdark twist on the whole superhero thing. I haven't read a lot of web serials, so I don't have much to judge by, but so far I'm loving it. Those of you who liked Berserk should also check out Gantz if you're into really, really, really weird scifi grimdark. Yes, Worm is great. Hadn't even thought to consider it grimdark, but I suppose it is. Well written, great characters and action, but can get very dark. The Slaughterhouse 9 as a concept are creepy enough, but the sections with them are horrible, and yet extremely compelling. Would love for him to edit the whole thing (making the changes he noted during the process) and put the final draft out as an eBook series. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Sabbath have a song based on Dreams in the Witch House, thus making them cool for life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted September 3, 2015 Share Posted September 3, 2015 Has anyone read any Danielle Vega? I saw her stuff over at Barnes and Noble and it looks pretty interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drekinn Posted September 4, 2015 Share Posted September 4, 2015 I just finished The First Law trilogy by Abercrombie. Such a bittersweet ending. I expect Asoiaf to end almost the same way, with life going on and no apocalyptic battles with dragons, ice zombies and fire gods. Will definitely pick up Best Served Cold and Heroes. The Blade Itself: Definitely the weakest of the three. The whole book was a giant set-up. If it wasn't for it's enjoyable characters I would have quit the trilogy. Before They Are Hanged: My favorite of the three. I loved everything about it. Especially Jezal's development, and Glokta's story in Dagoska. The Northern war was pretty strong too. [spoiler]West killing that piece of shit Ladisla was the highlight of the book. Threetrees's death felt like a gut punch. Also felt bad for Dogman when his girlfriend died. Dude can't catch a break.[/spoiler] Last Argument of Kings: Not as great as the second but overall a strong conclusion. [spoiler]The weakest points for this book are that there's not much if any time spent with the villains of the past two books. Bethod barely shows up only to get killed by Logen, and Khalul doesn't even make an appearance. The Gurkish siege was pretty entertaining, and Bayaz went from grumpy Gandalf to biggest asshole in the universe! It was kinda refreshing to see the old mentor turn out to be a giant bastard. Was satisfied with the fate of mostly everyone. West did not deserve to go out like that. Fuck you and your plague Bayaz.[/spoiler] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.T. Phipps Posted September 4, 2015 Author Share Posted September 4, 2015 A nice discussion with me and James Schmidt on the nature of grimdark (available to read here). I also got my publishers to share a nicely incoherent essay about dark fantasy here. I've gotten myself quite the backlog of books to read on the subject with "A Land Fit for Heroes", "The Broken Empire Trilogy", and "The First Law Trilogy" all waiting on my kindle to read. I'm just torn about which to start reading first. I also have been given a sneak peak at Rob J. Hayes sequel trilogy to the Ties That Bind, which is apparently a pirate series set in his world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.T. Phipps Posted September 5, 2015 Author Share Posted September 5, 2015 Glad to hear to hear it, Ryan. :cool4: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 No? Not surprising. It looks to be very YA, but grimmedarke nonetheless. I was also thinking the other day while perusing Blood Meridian that The Road was straight up grimmedarke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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