Erikson is like Martin? That's rridiculous! - Edit 1
Before modification by fionwe1987 at 09/12/2009 01:43:42 AM
Robert Jordan:
The three major medievalist writers of the 1990s are Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, and George R.R. Martin. Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time sequence began in 1990 with the publication of The Eye of the World. Jordan was still writing the twelfth book in the series - none of them less than eight hundred pages - when he died in 2007. The Wheel of Time sequence is an eternal champion tale set in a classic Fantasyland™: in order to defeat Shai'tan (Satan) the wheel of time periodically spins out a champion called the Dragon. The sequence itself concerns one such champion. The Eye of the World proceeds in archetypal quest fantasy fashion, in that we first meet the young man who is going to save the world (at least temporarily) at home in his small village. The story then proceeds by gathering companions, with various attributes and fates, who then travel across the world accepting much of what they are told as gospel, until something else they are told supersedes it, when that becomes gospel. The characterization is thin, with most characters having one trait, continually referred to in order to tell them apart (our red-haired priestess, for example, continually pulls her braid). Even some of the die-hard fans of the series (and there are millions) had begun to tire of the endless travels back and forth across the world and the continually delayed climax.
One wonders if they read the actual books? RJ deserves better criticism than that. Sure, the pacing is off, and the characters aren't conflicted enough, but nor are they wafer thin.
And their comment that RJ's fantasy world is just another rehash of a classic fantasy-scape is mystifying. If this is all they have to say about one of the biggest epic fantasies of the last half century, then they might as well call their book, "A summary of reviews from Amazon.com for quick viewing" and be done with it.
Terry Goodkind
Terry Goodkind has his medieval world too, in the series called The Sword of Truth (Wizard's First Rule, 1994), and his Dark Lord and a characterless hero suitably called Richard Cypher (suggesting that he is not unaware of what he is doing). For the first few hundred pages (of 836) we follow the story of a young male and his love for a teenage girl and we might be persuaded that we are in a young adult fantasy as written by David Eddings. However, in chapter 40 Richard encounters a Mord'Sith, one of the Dark Lord's torture maidens. Naturally she is dressed in red leather, the better to hide the blood stains and she proceeds to torture him over a period of several months in order to render him her submissive sex slave. In 2007, the eleventh in the series was published, Confessor (which went ot number two on the New York Times bestseller list), by which time Richard has discovered that his real father is the Dark Lord, has been elevated to head of the empire, and opens up a new, non-magical world, for people who so desire to emigrate to. The intervening plots are extremely tangled and involve things characteristic of these kinds of fantasy, a great deal of travelling and a certain amount of ritualizing of the unpleasant: torture is rarely about securing information, and almost always about satisfying the lusts of a Dark Lord. One of the interesting idiosyncrasies about these is the presence of North American fauna (chipmunks) in an otherwise staple European fantasy world: as Richard gives them to the torture maidens in an attempt to humanize them, this may be an oblique statement about the New World's civilizing role in relation to the Old. Or maybe not.
Again, while it sounds funny and all, where's the actual criticism? The atrocious handling of the story and characters, the ham-fisted approach to ideology, and the chicken that was not a chicken?
George R.R. Martin
George R.R. Martin has the highest critical reputation of the three authors considered here, deservedly so, and has won both juried and popular voted awards. Martin was already established as a science-fiction writer when in 1996 he published the first novel in the The Song of Ice and Fire sequence (A Game of Thrones); the fifth, A Dance with Dragons is due in 2009. What distinguished Martin from Jordan and Goodkind (and many other medievalist writers) is that he depicts a plausible and internally coherent medieval world largely free from the clichés that Jones satirized in her Tough Guide. The fifteenth-century War of the Roses are probably what inspired Martin, and there is certainly much more detailed politics and warfare in these books than there is of magic and sorcery. George R.R. Martin's more realistic and hardcoare mode has influenced a number of new writers including the Canadians Steven Erikson and Scott Bakker. (pp. 145-146)
I'll agree with their take on Martin, but I wonder why his penchant for cliffhanger endings, which gets really tiring, is not mentioned at all?
And then we come to the most ridiculous statement of all. Placing Erikson on the same list as Bakker and Martin?
Erikson started out with an interesting (if incoherent) world where interesting stuff happened, and then degenerated into a world where the answer is always the next cool bit of Magic No One Knew of Before. There's nothing remotely realistic about this series anymore, and it has derailed into a much bigger rut than even the Wheel of Time did, which is some achievement. I cannot think of a greater insult to Martin that to say Erikson's work is due to his influence.
I'm sure there is quite a bit to quibble about; probably as much to snort in laughter at some of the descriptions of at least one of the authors. Enjoy? 
If this is all they have to say about these series, I'd say they've done a pitiful job. Whatever their critical merits, I think they've had too major an influence on the genre and the way people view the genre to be dismissed with a few wisecracks that sometimes deviate widely from the truth.