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What's currently in? fantasy only


Lady Winter Rose

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I know books popularity come and go, and that popularity of said books only shows number of people talking or buying it. Please no judge me, but I'm horribly out of loop with world fantasy book popularity, so few direction can help. I'm not American, and asking about American/British/EU books.

I was wondering, what's in now?

By in I mean, what books are talk about, who's on the throne as most talked fantasy author or who sold big... in the world of fantasy fiction?

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12 minutes ago, Seli said:

I really don't have a clue. Perhaps we are in between hypes?

that's a thing? What a bummer.

I have to admit, I wanted to read something of quality, and discuss it... but we're in between hypes, because that's obviously it...

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It does feel like there's not as many big fantasy series that everyone's reading at the same time as there used to be.

Joe Abercrombie's started a new trilogy recently though and there's been a decent amount of discussion of that.

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11 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

It does feel like there's not as many big fantasy series that everyone's reading at the same time as there used to be.

Joe Abercrombie's started a new trilogy recently though and there's been a decent amount of discussion of that.

Author I'm familiar with... but last thing I read from him was so manly it sucked for me... and at the same time, I don't wish to read young adult. Welp.

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Joe Abercrombie is not YA, except his Shattered Sea trilogy, which is marketed YA but doesn't really feel it.

Also he only writes "manly" if you are going by the rather binary division of Men like X and Women like y. Abercrombie writes cynical and pretty violent novels. That does not make them "manly" though.

Perhaps if you could explain what you mean by manly though.

 

ETA: N.K Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy got a lot of discussion here, although that concluded, um...some time ago. A year or two, can't recall specifically.

The Book of Dust, the prequel/sequel trilogy to His Dark Materials also gathers a bit of discussion here with each new instalment but it's not really a major discussion topic here.

There are a great many quality fantasy series out there though, both older and more current. They just don't gather as much discussion here anymore - the literature subforum in general is much quieter than it once was

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The Witcher books, maybe?

Certainly the games and last year’s TV series have kept them in the limelight.

Tchaikovsky isn’t quite well known enough.

Can’t think of much else... 

I’m happy for people to hype my fantasy books - I’ll take one for the team :P

 

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1 minute ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Joe Abercrombie is not YA, except his Shattered Sea trilogy, which is marketed YA but doesn't really feel it.

Also he only writes "manly" if you are going by the rather binary division of Men like X and Women like y. Abercrombie writes cynical and pretty violent novels. That does not make them "manly" though.

Perhaps if you could explain what you mean by manly though

first pages of the book I deemed manly: man in his prime is fighting for its life, and it succeed to live to to sheer effort and skill, but not before readers are informed with every move he took, then author shifted focus to elderly rich and corrupted banker man

from best served cold (I'm not sure on this, but it's definitely first book in the series)

 

Quote

Also he only writes "manly" if you are going by the rather binary division of Men like X and Women like y.

Errr, I'm not denying women like manly stuff, but book I read is obviously served to men.

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1 minute ago, Lady Winter Rose said:

first pages of the book I deemed manly: man in his prime is fighting for its life, and it succeed to live to to sheer effort and skill, but not before readers are informed with every move he took, then author shifted focus to elderly rich and corrupted banker man

from best served cold (I'm not sure on this, but it's definitely first book in the series)

 

Errr, I'm not denying women like manly stuff, but book I read is obviously served to men.

That is The Blade Itself. Best Served Cold is a standalone.

 

Again, could you clarify why it is obviously served to men? A male character does not equate to specifically male audience

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1 minute ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Again, could you clarify why it is obviously served to men? A male character does not equate to specifically male audience

Because my impression (we're talking about my impressions and that's it) is that when showing the combat in that book, Abercombie actually showed what some men dream about: power, being physically in shape that you could defeat enemies and triumph, defeating people who attacked you with murder intent, and the way it showed that, moves and all that, I simply hold very strong and very much cemented opinion that's man other men admire to.

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7 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Again, could you clarify why it is obviously served to men? A male character does not equate to specifically male audience

I see you reacted confused to my post. If you have nothing else to say, I don't wish to leave this discussion unresolved. Can you tell me what's so confusing in my post?

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3 hours ago, Lady Winter Rose said:

I know books popularity come and go, and that popularity of said books only shows number of people talking or buying it. Please no judge me, but I'm horribly out of loop with world fantasy book popularity, so few direction can help. I'm not American, and asking about American/British/EU books.

I was wondering, what's in now?

By in I mean, what books are talk about, who's on the throne as most talked fantasy author or who sold big... in the world of fantasy fiction?

In terms of general profile, sales and output, the biggest author in fantasy is currently Brandon Sanderson.

Patrick Rothfuss and GRRM still get lots of discussion and profile despite it being 9 years since they put out a book. GRRM's stock seems to have risen after the TV show ended, possibly people who hated the ending hoping he'll provide something better.

NK Jemisin is probably, critically speaking, the most revered current fantasy author after winning 3 Hugo Awards on the trot.

There is a new wave of authors who've attracted a lot of discussion, of them the most significant in the last year is probably Tamsyn Muir for Gideon the Ninth, which feels like the most debated debut fantasy novel in the last 12-18 months or so. 

The Malazan series seems to have gotten a second wind in popularity thanks to Reddit and both authors are producing new books, so there's a reasonable amount of movement in that series.

Tad Williams is producing (first two books out, third book next year) a sequel trilogy to one of the most important epic fantasy series of all time, Memory, Sorrow & Thorn, but it's been a bit low-key in its reception. Same for Joe Abercrombie.

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I'm quite sure that Abercrombie does not write specifically "for men", but I do think his readership skews male.

The "top fans" on the Abercrombie FB page seems to be 35 people long, 5 of which are female. A recent post with 244 comments seems to have about 13 identifiable female commenters vs. at least 70 or 80 unique male names  (I quite counting the male names at a certain point.) A survey of my own friends who like the page shows a bit more balance -- about 66% male/33% female.  These are small samples, of course.

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4 minutes ago, Ran said:

I'm quite sure that Abercrombie does not write specifically "for men", but I do think his readership skews male.

The "top fans" on the Abercrombie FB page seems to be 35 people long, 5 of which are female. A recent post with 244 comments seems to have about 13 identifiable female commenters vs. at least 70 or 80 unique male names  (I quite counting the male names at a certain point.) A survey of my own friends who like the page shows a bit more balance -- about 66% male/33% female.  These are small samples, of course.

I didn't want to sound so aggressive in my previous comments... but yes, basically this.

I'm not denying it can't be enjoyed by women, but !action.

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There is also likely a whole bunch of fantasy we are less likely to see here, getting more into Urban fantasy.

I've read most of Michelle Sagara's Chronicles of Elantra novels in the last years. I've not seen them discussed much, so they don't seem to be the last hot thing. But they make great relaxed reading.

Werthead: I'd classify Gideon the Ninth as Science fiction, but I can see how it would work as fantasy.

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Over here in Kangaroostan, Tamsyn Muir's mentioned a fair bit, as is Andrzej Sapkowski, Ben Aaronovitch, James S.A. Corey, Jay Kristoff, Darynda Jones, and Jim Butcher. 

Those names, at least anecdotally, come up a lot in conversation when talking books with my fellow book-lovers. For whatever that's worth. 

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14 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Tchaikovsky isn’t quite well known enough.

Tchaikovsky is quite well known. He's one of the major Russian classical composers and is very well known throughout the world.

You're talking about Sapkowsky. ;) 

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