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Book of the Ancestor trilogy by Mark Lawrence {spoiler thread}


AncalagonTheBlack

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Yeah, this YA thing is baffling. In Naomi Novik's Uprooted the protagonist is 17 years old, but I don't remember anyone calling the book young adult (it was not marketed as YA). I have read the novel, and I don't think it is YA at all. But in Goodreads it has been labelled as young adult...

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22544764-uprooted

When I was a teenager, The Belgariad was adult literature.

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5 hours ago, Jussi said:

Yeah, this YA thing is baffling. In Naomi Novik's Uprooted the protagonist is 17 years old, but I don't remember anyone calling the book young adult (it was not marketed as YA). I have read the novel, and I don't think it is YA at all. But in Goodreads it has been labelled as young adult...

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22544764-uprooted

When I was a teenager, The Belgariad was adult literature.

Ha, yeah. Same here. I also don't get the Uprooted thing.  I honestly thing  a lot of people label things for kids if it isn;t super R rated and filled with violence and rape.

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On 5/6/2017 at 6:56 PM, Darth Richard II said:

I really, really don't get the YA accusation, but then I still have no idea what the hell makes something YA and what doesn't.

Some people seem to think if the Protagonists are Young, then it MUST be YA.

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This is certainly farther towards the YA spectrum than anything else Mark has written, in any case -- considering both content and style.

 

Apropos of nothing, I'm surprised that nobody has been commenting on the Baby Wolverine-ness that had me rolling my eyes repeatedly. Just sayin'.

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On 5/10/2017 at 4:56 PM, Let's Get Kraken said:

I haven't see anybody say anything like that in this thread. It's not just the age of the protagonist. Like I said, Jorg was young in Prince of Thorns and nobody called that YA. It's more about the narrative, tone, tropes, etc.

Well, if the moderators hadn't pissed Mark off, he would be around to answer this himself.

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I'm going to chime in and think Young Adult is a perfectly valid categorization for fiction but I should note I don't think of it as a genre but as a rating system. Basically, for me, Young Adult is another word for PG-13 and a kind of marketing gimmick. People want to know about the content of work and who it is aimed at. While some people may resent retroactively labeling things like the Belgariad and Dragonlance as Young Adult fiction--I think it helps breathe new life and new direction to older fantasy works.

As for Red Sister being Young Adult--eh, actually, I'm going to say that it actually feels like it could be in the category. Yes, it's about a post-apocalypse world, murderous intrigue, and dark fantasy but it doesn't actually feel THAT different from the Hunger Games. Then again, I don't think dark fiction is necessarily something which teens avoid and Joe Abercombie has written plenty of self-described YA stuff.

It's a big beautiful market.

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33 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

The problem I have with using YA as a rating system the way movies do is that, judging by this metric, a lot of fantasy and SF that we currently consider to be "adult" fiction could also be called YA. I think having certain content toned down is definitely part of it, but I don't think it should be the sole consideration.

It also find it ridiculous that publishers and film studios think there is any age group that can handle genocide, torture, bigotry, and child murder, but would be scarred for life by sex or profanity. Sigh...

Hunger Games is what I consider the standard for what YA should be. It takes some highly relevant topics, like weaponized propaganda, fascism, social engineering, human trafficking, PTSD, etc. and brings them down to a level that younger readers will be able to engage with.

"If you kiss a breast, you're R-rated. If you stab it, you're PG-13."
-Jack Nicholson on American values

Mind you, things would be a lot easier if we only included things WRITTEN to be part of the category in it. However, I don't think that's necessarily a big qualifier either. When I was in high school, I read something like 200+ novels produced by TSR before it became Wizards of the Coast. I read every Dragonlance novel until Dragons of a Summer Flame and lots of the Forgotten Realms series plus most of the Ravenloft as well as Dark Sun ones. All of these were written for the 14+ Teen Market with Ed Greenwood in particular frustrated by the restrictions placed on him writing for his own setting--particularly regarding sex, the presence of homosexuals in the Realm (oh the children!), and villains winning. Back when they couldn't be demons but Tanar'ri.

In short, all of that was meant to be Young Adult even if it wasn't called that.

Edit:

I should also note the category is completely Bantha Shavit (pardon my Star Wars). The Secrets of Supervillainy (only the Secrets of Supervillainy) was mislabeled as a Teen book and got to no 1# best seller (for Audible) briefly in it. It's still listed there despite profanity and being about a thirty year old. I'm not going to complain, though, because every category is a wider market.

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I'm still early on in the book but damn do I hate fantasy school settings in any form. Which is really weird as I'm fine with it in a shonen manga style but maybe that's because the training tends to focus (or be constantly interupted by fighting).

The world building is already quite sturdy although so far it does seem to be "ice world" rather than his other books' "water world" in the far flung future. I guess it could arguably be "water world" much further down the line if this is indeed earth.

The audiobook does the annoying thing of distinguishing the characters voices by using regional accents. Can't blame Lawrence for that though.

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I'm either getting soft in my old age or this book is bordering on torture porn in some places.

that poor donkey being graphically beaten to death and then the description of the hand over the candle has put me off bacon for the short term

. So credit to Lawrence for being able to make things so visceral and i wonder if the training school trope is being used to shock us out of a "this isn't a YA" book? For instance while Bakker's books have similar torture training it doesn't shock as much because everything in the second apocalypse books is harsh.

Another plus I should give Lawrence is how (and I'm sure he's sick of hearing this) he felt like he was tapping into the approach of Abercrombie in terms of style. I think it's something in the Bristol/Bath air rather than deliberate. I wouldn't say this book feels anything like Abercrombie's work - not even the YA aspects. If I was to make any comparison I'd say it was with Hobb's assassin series but that's largely because of the "ninja" training school and humans with supernatural skills. Anyway, I like that Lawrence can mix things up even if I'm not in love with the book yet.

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I think the scene was there to establish the world as one of casual cruelty and horror.

However, I actually was most impressed with the fact.

The entire set up with the trial was there to show the Archons COULDN'T be bought and money wasn't an absolute form of power in the region. It reminded me a bit of the show's version of Jamie's hand being cut off as his constant appeal to gold offended the Bolton bannerman's dignity.

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I felt it was sensationalist too. I'm maybe just more sensitive about animal cruelty but I didn't really need that level of detail. Although having just finished

the archon Shield trial chapters

I get the feeling there's a little bit too much detail in everything at the moment. That section felt overly long for me.

Good point about that scene showing not everyone can be bought though

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've finished and i think it reaffirms my hatred of the magic school sub genre. It reminded me a lot of Kingkiller chronicles in that it hints at really cool stuff to come but instead makes me wade through the drudgery of school (but school with corporal punishment). Maybe by book 3 or 4 this will be a series I can get behind.

I can't really fault the writing beyond the clash between an all ages read and gratuitous torture and given the success of Harry Potter and Rothfuss I can understand why he took a crack at the genre. The good news is I'm in a minority for not liking magical school fiction.

I did like the world building and the quantum X-men take on powers though.

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