Xaxaxe wrote:Comes out tomorrow in stores everywhere!Amazon just mailed me mine; due here Wednesday. And the new season debuts June 11. Life can be good.
Lewisexi wrote:No mention of Terry Pratchett? I know you wouldn't run a DnD adventure from one of his plots (well not a serious one one anyway!) but I still he's a wonderful writer. Perhaps you folks consider him a comedy author rather than fantasy? Fair enough if you do I see your point I've got 500+ fantasy novels and I enjoy most of the authors folks have mentioned here but would I would like to see more of is more fantasy based away from Western history, folklore and morality. All too often, for example, you'll read a novel and new race xxxx is introduced and you're left thinking "Here come the Vikings/Knights of King Arthur/etc" which is a shame when there's so many other cultures to borrow from that most readers would be hard placed to spot the references to. Perhaps fantasy as a genre needs these references in order to function as a story-telling medium or maybe what is considered a fantasy work are too established to permit too much deviation from a set of, if you'll forgive the pun, un-written rules. If you guys have some good suggestions of books I'm missing out on that aren't based on a psuedo-medieval Europe I'm all ears!
MShipley88 wrote:No, Badmike, I have not even heard of Misericorde. If it is outside of the five paperbacks I have not seen it. Darkness Weaves was the first fantasy book I bought after reading Tolkien. It was a jarring read...the gore shocked me...the ruthless and hideous evil...I tried hiding the book from my mom, it was so lurid to my 14 year-old eyes. But you gotta love "heroic" fantasy when the sidekick is named "Arlebas the Assassin" and he is horrifed by the book Kane is reading. I believe the Karl Edward Wagner Conan story was Road of Kings.(Just a ragged memory of a special edition paperback). Like a lot of the Conan pastiche material, it was not very good. One thing that interests me about those pastiche stories is how many of them fail to get Conan. The Cimmerian does not save the world. He does not travel to other worlds. He does not slip between dimensions or stumble about in search of magical solutions...unless he absolutely has to. There are no floating castles of ice or faery realms. IF you read the REH Conan stories you find that in most of them Conan has a logical, material world to rove about...and he is usually after money. Another thing they can't seem to get right is Conan's age. Robert Jordan has 18 year-old Conan acting like 40 year-old Conan. Anyway, Kane is a creation to rival Conan. Too bad there wasnt' more. Wagner makes us cheer for the badguy and he usually manages to jerk us by the emotional strings while he's doing it. Kane is also quite evil, but he always seems to be just a little bit less evil than his adversaries...especially the "good" ones. I think Undertow is the only Kane story where he is entirely unsympathetic...and the irony in that story is wrenching. Everyone go out and find Kane. He's totally worth your time:Darkness Weaves, Dark Crusade, Bloodstone, Death Angel's Shadow and Night Winds. If you can only afford one book, get Night Winds. One other thought...the Kane artwork, by Frazetta, was some of that artist's best.Mark
Badmike wrote:If they would have either accepted more Conan stories from Howard (they actually rejected quite a few) ...
Badmike wrote:or paid him on time (they got up to half a year behind on payments Howard desperately needed)
Badmike wrote:he might have been encouraged to pen more tales of our favorite barbarian.
Badmike wrote:Just received the hardback collection "Midnight Sun" today, which collects all of KEW's Kane fiction under one cover.
Xaxaxe wrote:Badmike wrote:Just received the hardback collection "Midnight Sun" today, which collects all of KEW's Kane fiction under one cover.Mike (or someone else), help me to see where I went wrong with Kane.I've read one short story, and I could hardly stand it. I remember thinking, "This guy is invincible; he cannot lose," and wondering why I was even bothering. It had no suspense factor whatsoever.OTOH, I respect Wagner a great deal as an editor (The Echoes of Valor series, for one, gave me back REH's "The Black Stranger" in its non-deCamp form) and I enjoyed his Conan pastiche — it is, in fact, the only remotely decent Conan pastiche ever written. And that's high praise from an REH purist.So I feel like I must have missed something with Kane, or been in a foul mood, or had just been audited, or something. Where did I go wrong? And, if I were to make another attempt, what would be a good introduction to the character?
Badmike wrote:Well, I think the suspense factor is overrated. Is Conan going to die in any of the 100 stories written about him by REH and others?
Xaxaxe wrote:Badmike wrote:Well, I think the suspense factor is overrated. Is Conan going to die in any of the 100 stories written about him by REH and others? Actually, "suspense" was a poor choice of words; you're right, I don't expect authors to kill off their own creations. What I was getting at — and I can't think of a term for it right now — was the sense that Kane was just so much better than everyone around him: he's stronger, smarter, faster, more well-spoken, mose insightful, more clever, and on and on. I found myself wondering if a big "S" would appear on his chest once he removed his breastplate. In D&D terms, it's like he rolled all 18s ... and I just couldn't get behind it.However, as I mentioned in my original post, I think there's a chance that outside influences (maybe a bad week at work or something) might have also clouded my thinking. So, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and give it another shot. I just ordered Bloodstone ...... wait for it ...... from Badmike's Books and Games.