Examples of quality writing?

[Valka D'Ur]

The only Dune sequal worth reading;
View attachment 329434

One correction: National Lampoon's Doon is not a sequel. It's a parody of the original Dune itself. And it's a brilliant one. Even the epigrams at the start of every chapter are wonderfully done.

What's more: this parody was written many years before KJA/BH ever thought of working together, never mind actually producing any of their drivel. The parody is spot-on as per the structure of the original novel, the characterizations are well-written, and the spoof theme of pretzels/sugars vs sandworms/spice is done in a way that is consistent with Frank Herbert's original concept.

In short, it's a funny, well-written, respectful parody. I've read and re-read it many times over the years. Sometimes, when I'm annoyed by some impatient person, I think to myself, "Lotto, get out of the kitchen! It'll be ready when it's ready!""

Alas, I've got a long way to go before I achieve any kind of competence in being a Revved-Up Mother...

 

[sophie]

One correction: National Lampoon's Doon is not a sequel. It's a parody of the original Dune itself.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Somebody just said something, but I can't see it. Thank goodness (and please, don't anyone else bother putting it in quote tags).

 

[sophie]

Somebody just said something, but I can't see it. Thank goodness (and please, don't anyone else bother putting it in quote tags).

No, it's ok. This just makes it better.

 

[Serutan]

Alas, I've got a long way to go before I achieve any kind of competence in being a Revved-Up Mother...

I see your Revved-Up Mother and raise you a Nozdrul.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

A what?

 

[Glassfan]

I see your Revved-Up Mother and raise you a Nozdrul.

A what?

Nozdrul!
Frito and Spam fled from the Nozdrul.

...and Serutan (chuckle)

 

[Serutan]

Frito and Spam fled from the Nozdrul.
View attachment 329466
...and Serutan (chuckle)

heh, heh

@Valka - sorry, just assumed you'd read it.

 

[JohannaK]

Books? Anything from Gabriel García Márquez. And then, I remember a book that was the first to suck my life around it: Momo, by Michael Ende.

Movies? The Godfather and Citizen Kane, I say.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

heh, heh

@Valka - sorry, just assumed you'd read it.

No problem. I just never could get into Tolkien. My favorite kind of adventure fantasy is Dragonlance (which was undoubtedly based on Tolkien, of course).

 

[Plotinus]

All post-Tolkien fantasy inevitably owes something to Tolkien, especially where elves and dwarves are involved, but I would have to say that the link from Dragonlance back to Tolkien is indirect at best. They never struck me as really very similar. Dragonlance obviously grew out of D&D, which according to Gary Gygax included Tolkienesque creatures only to cash in on their popularity and otherwise had very little influence from Tolkien.

At any rate, much as I love them both, neither Tolkien nor Dragonlance would appear on my list of great writing.

 

[Serutan]

At any rate, much as I love them both, neither Tolkien nor Dragonlance would appear on my list of great writing.

And therein lies the story of this thread - about all you can say objectively about
writing is how good the grammar/spelling is, and word count. All else is opinion.

With that disclaimer, I will throw out Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light. A very 60s
book with the way it does the 'fight against injustice' theme, and a very immersive
story.

 

[innonimatu]

Ah, the Dragonlance series... Dragons of Autumn Twilight was the first book in english I read, and the first fantasy book too. Came with a ZX Spectrum D&D game! Damn, I'm feeling old!

I really liked it all those years ago. I probably wouldn't today, and they're certainly not great writing, but for me they're as classical as fantasy can get. The first books always make an impression, I think that was why Tolkien got such a standing with a whole generation in the 70s and still gets recommended by those people today.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Ah, the Dragonlance series... Dragons of Autumn Twilight was the first book in english I read, and the first fantasy book too. Came with a ZX Spectrum D&D game! Damn, I'm feeling old!

A friend loaned me Dragons of Autumn Twilight in 1985. It was the first fantasy book I'd ever read that wasn't either Disney or Grimm's/Andersen's Fairy Tales. Prior to that the people I used to babysit for had tried to get me to read The Hobbit ("you like science fiction, you'll love this!")... but I couldn't get beyond the first page - I found it so damn BORING. And then I went back to reading their Britannica set.

But Dragons of Autumn Twilight was so incredibly different - even though I know he's rotten to the core in many ways, I've had a crush on Raistlin Majere (yes, I know he's a figment of three authors' - Weis/Hickman plus Raistlin's playtester - imaginations, plus whatever interpretation my own imagination contributes) for over 25 years. And I'm a sentimental person when it comes to animal stories - I cried when Lynn Johnston killed Farley off in the "For Better Or For Worse" comic strip. I even cried when the mean animals died in Call of the Wild and Irish Red. But crying for characters in adult fantasy books? Well, yeah, I bawled and sniffled through certain scenes in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Stormqueen! and Sharra's Exile, but I always classified the Darkover series as SF, not F. However, once I hit certain scenes in Dragons of Winter Night and Dragons of Spring Dawning, I bawled and sniffled through them, too. And I didn't even particularly like those characters! However, I did like the characters I cried over in Dragons of Summer Flame - damn you, authors - couldn't you have let them live?

Wonderful books.

 

[cardgame]

And therein lies the story of this thread - about all you can say objectively about
writing is how good the grammar/spelling is, and word count. All else is opinion.

With that disclaimer, I will throw out Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light. A very 60s
book with the way it does the 'fight against injustice' theme, and a very immersive
story.

Wait, so there is a separate book about R'hllor?

 

[innonimatu]

Wait, so there is a separate book about R'hllor?

Hardly! Lord of Light is indeed very 60s. Spacecrafts and hindu-inspired gods. Give it a go.

 

[Glassfan]

Is anyone familiar with the writings of Seamus Heaney?


Crikey!

Spoiler :

Seamus Heaney (born 13 April 1939) is an Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer and recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born at Mossbawn farmhouse between Castledawson and Toomebridge, he now resides in Dublin.

As well as the Nobel Prize in Literature, Heaney has received the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (1968), the E. M. Forster Award (1975), the PEN Translation Prize (1985), the Golden Wreath of Poetry (2001), T. S. Eliot Prize (2006) and two Whitbread Prizes (1996 and 1999). He has been a member of Aosdána since its foundation and has been Saoi since 1997. He was both the Harvard and the Oxford Professor of Poetry and was made a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 1996. Heaney's personal papers are held by the National Library of Ireland. On June 6, 2012, he was awarded the Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry.

Robert Lowell called him "the most important Irish poet since Yeats" and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have echoed the sentiment that he is "the greatest poet of our age".

The Saoi of Aosdana - that's gotta count for something!

I've only read his splendid Beowulf translation (2000) - incredibly readable and exciting - in stark contrast to the indecipherable gibberish version forced upon us in High School "English Lit" class. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Beowulf but bored-to-tears by older translations.

Interestingly, even Heaney's 21-page Introduction has been praised.

 

[Dachs]

I vaguely remember comments by a professor of mine that there are academic/linguistic quibbles with the Heaney text, but I didn't exactly save notes from that class so I can't be more specific.

 

[Cutlass]

These couple of discussions and some time on my hands with no new reading material lead me to reread an old book that I've quite enjoyed. And I do think it's quality writing. Barbara Hambly's Dog Wizard. Characterization is very good, and even the bit characters have depth and backstory. There's a lot of depth and detail to the story. Much more than is common in fiction. A couple of miscellaneous paragraphs that stand out to me:

...
She recalled Antryg's application for his bartending job at Enyart's. He'd seen no incongruity in listing "wizard" as a former occupation. "Not that I was ever paid for it, you understand," he had hastened to explain to Jim, the manager, who nodded and gave him the job. Jim had lived in L.A. a long time.

...

...

"The openings were done the same way last as first," Bentick added irritably, "and there were no ill effects - none whatever. We scried very carefully along the energy lines to make sure of that. It's all here in my notes." And he shoved the think leather-bound notebook he'd been cradling under one arm across the
table with the air of a man refuting all possible contradiction. Of course, reflected Antryg, Bentick did everything, from lecturing on subnuminary physics to tying his shoes, like a man refuting all possible contradiction.

...

...

In the four months Antryg had been living in Los Angeles he had been able to keep up sword practice at a dojo in Burbank operated by a black kendo sandan and an old Japanese gentleman who taught iaido to those who understood and preferred that more esoteric art. Sensai Jones had looked a trifle askance at him when he'd explained that he was trained in a slightly different style owning to the circumstance of being a wizard in exiled from another dimension-many people did-but severl weeks ago Antryg had heard Sensai Jones remark to Sensai Shigeta, "You know, I'm starting to believe the sucker?"

...

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Anybody read the Flashman books?