Fantasy series that are both character-driven and with great worldbuilding

[The Marquis de Leech]

7 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

The hobbits are actually closer to upper class if this can be said to exist at all in the Shire.

Merry and Pippin are upper class aristocrats (Pippin is basically the Bertie Wooster of Middle-earth). The Bagginses are overtly bourgeois middle class (the respectability thing is code for that) - Bilbo gets his wealth from his Took mother's side. Sam is working class.

[peterbound]

3 hours ago, Jo498 said:

I wrote "except 80s trash". And I admittedly have not read most of the ones mentioned because by now I try to avoid the more trashy stuff.

you cannot be serious naming Hitchhiker's guide as a positive instance of the farmboy trope.

 

About as serious as you suggesting that trope doesn't exist anymore.  

[peterbound]

On June 5, 2016 at 8:57 PM, Darth Richard II said:

Huh, come to think of it I can't think of any farm girls in fantasy of the top of my head.

The Hunger games?

[peterbound]

33 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

...when did that happen?

By "unknown" I assume you mean "famous" and "infamous" respectively. Kind of the literal exact opposites of unknown.

Oh also,

Not a farm girl. Not fantasy.

Give Rothfus time.  He's not that clever to avoid that trope.  

In the world of muggles potter is unknown. 

Fitz is unknown, and meant to be kept that way throughout the majority of the series. 

Fantasy and Scifi are the same fucking thing in my mind.  She shoots shit with a bow and arrow, good enough for me.  Replace miner with farm girl.  You get the point, at least you should.  It's still a valid trope, and one used in a shit ton of books.  To suggest otherwise is just silly.  People (hell /I/ do) like the hero's journey, so it's used a lot. 

[peterbound]

1 hour ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

I agree the trope is still alive, but you're stretching the definition here and taking some liberties with a lot of these characters.

Katniss, for example, is more of a deconstruction of the unknown hero or chosen one trope than she really is a conforming archetype. People think that she's some kind of rebel leader or hero, but really she's just a propaganda weapon being used by both sides in the war. Everything she does in the first book, before she becomes a political tool, is for relatively self-serving motives, not to overthrow the Capital or as some act of public defiance. When she eventually does go rogue it's only after the war is over and everything is relatively settled.

I could make similar arguments about may of the others you listed. Saying Harry Potter is an "unknown" in the muggle world is completely irrelevant because the story takes place from the perspective of the magical world. Kvothe might act to make the situation better in the third book, but there's no big apocalyptic war going on for him to save the world from, and since he seems to have had a hand in bringing about the current situation in his world, you can hardly say that him solving it (which I'm far from convinced that he will) is the act of some hero coming out of obscurity. Etc.

And see, /I/ think you're reading a bit too much into a silly YA series. 

[Darth Richard II]

Fuck The Hunger Games.

[Richard Writhen]

I enjoyed The Hunger Games quite a bit. Very creative, very grimdark.

[Darth Richard II]

...you think the hunger games are grimdark?

[Darth Richard II]

Awww fine, you win this one, Captain...opposite of caustic!

[Richard Writhen]

41 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

...you think the hunger games are grimdark?

I do. But not Grimdark. Grimdark is a proper name for a new subgenre of fantasy.The lower case descriptor denotes something with an overall ghastly or menacing tone.

[mormont]

[mod] Stick to discussing books, people. Not each other. If you have a low opinion of someone... keep it off the board. [/mod]

[Jo498]

On 6.6.2016 at 11:33 AM, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Merry and Pippin are upper class aristocrats (Pippin is basically the Bertie Wooster of Middle-earth). The Bagginses are overtly bourgeois middle class (the respectability thing is code for that) - Bilbo gets his wealth from his Took mother's side. Sam is working class.

Right, but for today's sensibilities the bourgeousie of the Shire is "leisure class". They usually do not work for a living as most of today's bourgeoisie do as doctors, lawyers, professors etc.

The aging Bilbo could be said to be a private scholar of all kinds of stuff (Elves, History, etc.) and the young Bilbo might have been a dedicated gardener and cook for his own pleasure but as far as we can tell Bilbo, Frodo, Merry and Pippin never worked for a living.

But for me the main point is that's annoying about the "farmboy" trope is that a rural nobody becomes a great hero and warrior almost overnight or at least in an implausibly short period with insufficient training. This is not at all the case with the hobbits.

 

[Jo498]

On 6.6.2016 at 0:11 AM, Writhen said:

I enjoyed The Hunger Games quite a bit. Very creative, very grimdark.

As I was not aware of that Japanese book (and apparently neither was the author) with a similar theme I find the main idea original and well done (the writing is not great but at least in the first book not bad enough to annoy me). But for me it's not carrying 3 books, especially as the second is almost a replay of the first one. I find the world-building overall also not very convincing. Everything is built around the main "Hunger games" idea and the overall world is not very plausible neither economically nor politically. And those computer gamey elements might make sense in the arena setting of the first book but are ridiculous in the last one.

[Howdyphillip]

Leigh Barduga used a variation of the farm girl in her Grisha Trilogy. Her main character was an orphan that comes into magical powers. They are YA books, but I found them incredibly enjoyable and sharply written. 

Peterbound hit the nail on the head. There is only so many ways to tell a Hero's journey, and I love that story.

[Jo498]

As far as I recall the Hunger games author claimed that the got the idea when she was zapping between tv channels, some with violent stuff like the war in Afghanistan and some with reality TV shows. If not true I think it is a nice story and explains the relevance and appeal of the books (although I find the 2nd and 3rd not very good).

[peterbound]

1 hour ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

It's always a pet peeve of mine when people claim that Hunger Games ripped off Battle Royale. The plot similarities are superficial at most, and really Stephen King's The Running Man and its later film adaptation addressed the same material first.

It's always a pet peeve of mine when people read too much into poorly written YA novels.  I guess we'll just have to call it a draw on pet peeve contest for the day. 

[polishgenius]

31 minutes ago, peterbound said:

It's always a pet peeve of mine when people read too much into poorly written YA novels.  I guess we'll just have to call it a draw on pet peeve contest for the day. 

 

 

Regardless of what you think of the quality of the writing, I don't think Rcollins is wrong about the themes of The Hunger Games, to be fair. As the series goes on it very much becomes a deconstruction of the hero's journey and stereotypical Mary-Sue tropes.

[Taphien]

One of my current favourite fantasy series is The Memoires of Lady Trent by Marie Brennan. It is very much character driven and has some nice world building. Of course it's based quite heavily on 19th century real world, but the introduction of a whole new phylum of real dragons and wyrm-like creatures as well as a mysterious old culture connected to them makes it an interesting read.

As somebody who loves to read memoires of explorers and natural scientists this is a great series for me  and the book cover are great, too

[peterbound]

On June 8, 2016 at 7:16 PM, Let's Get Kraken said:

He's just trying to stir up drama again. Half the stuff he said in that first post was basically made up (Harry Potter being an unknown, Kvothe saving the world, etc.). It's not worth arguing and getting more posts closed down.

Not really.  If you can't see how both Katniss and Harry's story fall into the monomyth, you're not looking hard enough. 

 

TBH, I can't even remember what the argument was about before I got banned, something about those tropes not being used anymore?  I still contend that they are in use, and used well to create popular stories. I for one have no issue with that, and I like a trope or two in my story soup.  This mad rush to see who can subvert the most tropes, or bend genre conventions seems silly to me, and forced.  

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Daniel Abraham might be your cup of tea OP.. I recently finished reading The Spiders War. Great conclusion to a great series... And leaves room for a sequel series.  I'm talking about The Dagger and the Coin series. His other fantasy series  Long Price Quartet is even better.. . With an Asian fantasy vibe to it..