Scott Lynch/Republic of Thieves

[Gabriele]

EDIT: Bollocks, it was the new Christopher Paolini. That's fricking disappointing :(

Paoloni and Meyer should cowrite a novel about vampire dragons, that might at least be unintentionally funny. :)

[pat5150]

And it would sell millions of copy... :worried:

Patrick

[Gabriele]

At which point Stanek would photoshop his name on the cover. :P

[Migey]

And it would sell millions of copy... :worried:

The sad thing is that, no joke, it would. There are so many mindless Meyer and Paolini fanboys and fangirls, that no matter what content the book has, they would still lap it up. Although that isn't really an issue - if they could stomach Twilight, then they would happily chew through a Stanek novel as long as theres a few vampires.

And within weeks of its release, Vampire Dragon sex toys, clothing, and other franchise will make its way onto the market.

God save us all. :worried:

[pat5150]

That's just the way it goes, you know...

When you consider that a single Twilight book by Meyer has outsold GRRM's ASOIAF series as a whole, in every single language it was translated into, it's a bit scary... :shocked:

Patrick

[red snow]

That's just the way it goes, you know...

When you consider that a single Twilight book by Meyer has outsold GRRM's ASOIAF series as a whole, in every single language it was translated into, it's a bit scary... :shocked:

Patrick

By all that it is holy, i can only hope that stat was pre TV-show sales boost for ASOIAF. If that's true as of now then it is a sad, sad world we live in and I'm afraid i'm going to have to be elitist about the general public's reading taste...

[BigFatCoward]

come on, to be fair it is very hard to read GRRM, there are fuck loads of characters and a plot and shit.

can you blame anyone or reading paolini or meyer? especially on the commute.

[Migey]

can you blame anyone or reading paolini or meyer?

Yes.

And at least the TV adaptation of aGoT is doing well, wheras anybody who isn't a blind, diehard fan of Twilight (ie, anyone who isn't actually a fan of Twilight in the first place) admits that the Twilight films suck.

[The WaterDancer Knight]

That's just the way it goes, you know...

When you consider that a single Twilight book by Meyer has outsold GRRM's ASOIAF series as a whole, in every single language it was translated into, it's a bit scary... :shocked:

Patrick

Well, it is just one more proof that sales should never be considered to judge the quality of a book. Books like Twillight sells well because they don't need any effort from the reader to read and understand them. The same why Hollywood's blockbusters make millions of entries, they don't need an effort by the viewer. Both tell more about the average people's intellectual lazyness than about any artistic qualities those purely commercial products could have... since they don't have any.

[Grack21]

I dunno, when I tried to read Twilight i had to concentrate pretty hard other her goddamn prose makes no sense. It's like english is her second language but she's been speaking it for a long while. But things are still off.

[Migey]

It's more like English is her third language that she doesn't really speak that well, and has to struggle to remember not to say 'no?' at the end of every question. She tries to hide this by inserting words over a certain length, picked at random from a dictionary in her books completely out of context.

So i found her incredibly challenging to read.

And to be fair, while in most cases the public do seem pretty shallow in what they will accept as entertainment, there have been some incredibly complex films that have been very popular - Memeto, for example.

And if you judge a book by its sales, then GRRM is thoroughly mediocre, and Dan Brown, Stephenie Meyer, and JK Rowling are paragons of literary genius. Not to mention Goodkind.

[Gabriele]

Lol Miguey. I read some excerpt somewhere and gave up after I came across the phrase, "the sun shined". :eek:

Personally, I could care less that Meyer sells more books than Martin. But when good writers can't finish their trilogies because they don't sell well enough, I get angry. Better marketing, and giving them time to develop a fanbase, could well build them up as bestsellers, but instead it's all about instant money these days. Even Martin didn't start out as bestseller writer, but he did start out in a time when writers were still allowed to grow.

(The examples that come to mind are Paul Kearney and Daniel Abraham. Luckily, both found other publishers and can continue with their career, but it did look pretty dire for Kearney for some time.)

[BigFatCoward]

Yes.

And at least the TV adaptation of aGoT is doing well, wheras anybody who isn't a blind, diehard fan of Twilight (ie, anyone who isn't actually a fan of Twilight in the first place) admits that the Twilight films suck.

sorry i should have included a smiley or something, i thought it obvious i was being facetious.

[Grack21]

Lol Miguey. I read some excerpt somewhere and gave up after I came across the phrase, "the sun shined". :eek:

Personally, I could care less that Meyer sells more books than Martin. But when good writers can't finish their trilogies because they don't sell well enough, I get angry. Better marketing, and giving them time to develop a fanbase, could well build them up as bestsellers, but instead it's all about instant money these days. Even Martin didn't start out as bestseller writer, but he did start out in a time when writers were still allowed to grow.

(The examples that come to mind are Paul Kearney and Daniel Abraham. Luckily, both found other publishers and can continue with their career, but it did look pretty dire for Kearney for some time.)

Yeah,I fucking hate when authors get dropped mid series. At least Abraham got to finish his. I always wonder if that's what happened to Paula Volsky.God I miss her.

Is it me, or does Bantum seem to drop authors a lot?

[Migey]

sorry i should have included a smiley or something, i thought it obvious i was being facetious.

Don't worry, it waas obvious :P

[Datepalm]

Nah, the appeal of Meyer and Rowling* I get, they're easy, they're fun, they're readable, they're not adult books (and aren't pretending to be) and they manage to hit certain, obviously highly appealing, notes for their readership very well. But why the best regarded, most popular big, proper, all bells and whistles fantasies of the past few years are the amazingly mediocre and profoundly tedious Name of the Wind and Way of Kings...that is utterly beyond my comprehension.

*I quite like HP, actually.

[Migey]

Books like the Name of the Wind are very readable to some, and very tedious to others - i personally like them.

And if you like Harry Potter (even though i can't work out why), make sure you check out this thread, if you havn't already.

Seriously - a must read for both Harry Potter fans and haters alike.

Although i actually would disagree in that Rowling's books do pretend to be adult books after a certain point (after the point she realised everyone loved her).

[Little Valkyrie]

Yeah,I fucking hate when authors get dropped mid series. At least Abraham got to finish his. I always wonder if that's what happened to Paula Volsky.God I miss her.

Is it me, or does Bantum seem to drop authors a lot?

I remember reading somewhere that Paula Volsky had some health problems that kept her down for a while, but I would really love to read another book from her, too. You are not alone!

[Grack21]

I remember reading somewhere that Paula Volsky had some health problems that kept her down for a while, but I would really love to read another book from her, too. You are not alone!

Really? I've never been able to find any info on her ANYWHERE. Other then her still being alive. HEr last novel was in 2000.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

I read some excerpt somewhere and gave up after I came across the phrase, "the sun shined". :eek:

She's a US-English-speaking author who used the more common US-English past tense. :shrug: There are far better things to give up that series over. Honestly, I get more concerned when George uses (and his editors leave in) "could of" and "would of".

ETA: Regarding Paula Volksy: http://litsoup.blogspot.com/2010/03/paula-volsky.html and http://askville.amazon.com/happened-fantasy-author-Paula-Volsky/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=996612 The latter indicates that she had a story in GRRM's anthology with Gardner Dozois, Songs of the Dying Earth, and the new trilogy is about to be announced.