Posted by Bubba supporter of RIF on October 10, 2000 at 21:01:31:
In Reply to: Re: Fantasy Authors posted by Jackass on October 10, 2000 at 16:33:39:
> current: douglas adams (is he dead yet?) check long dark tea time of the soul, dirk gently's holistic detective agency. probably not fantasy the way you're saying, but it's not sci-fi... most other present fantasy is shit pulp, though I've enjoyed the odd Terry Brooks book for light reading. Jordan is a pile of unreadable crap, I've slogged through four of his insults. piers anthony I read for an entire year, everything he wrote, until I realized his utter, unforgivable clumsiness and lack of prose or art. I will murder that man for my wasted time if ever I meet him. however, his seven incarnation of immortality books have some merit and, while hardly original, show more talent than most of his ink pissings. > past: homer, though he it's debated whether he was one person or a collection of works. virgil, obviously, since he collected and recorded the bare bones of mythology that every future author mined. tolkein made fantasy worthy to read again, as modern art/literature. he imbued old fables and folklore with a soul, with life and reality. cs lewis made his mark, though with a younger audience, on fantasy literature (as opposed to fantasy pulp). most of the others would fall either into the folklore/anonymous category or shit pulp or both, though there've been incredible exceptions; lewis carrol comes to mind, as well as france, or even twain... heinlein's a Comedy of Justice is pure fantasy, and quite exceptional. authors who tend to write *only* fantasy nearly always produce aqueous excrement such as might dribble from the mind after speedreading Tolkein. Tolkein was the only one who ever lived thoroughly enough in his make-believe world to make it believable. > oh god I'm drunk.. I'm a drunk, arrogant, prick.. but mark my words, this is the truth. salvatore, piers anthony, brooks, all displayed good imagination but were unworthy to hold a pen or even yet bash their heads onto a keyboard when compared to the true artists...