Yossarian_42
Title: RUSH > ALL
Posts:
43,073
Registered:
Feb 28, '02
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 40,466
User ID: 651,769
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
It is to the point I can feel myself getting physically ill every time I open a book and it starts with a goddamn farm boy living in ass nowhere. I am so freaking sick of the exact same tropes over and over and over. The travelling merchant / bard, the general store, the tragic event that finally moves the godforsaken story along, etc.
How many lazy hacks can write this exact same goddamn first third of a book without killing themselves for sins against creativity?
Today I started reading 'The Warded Man' after hearing so many good things about it. I deleted the POS in disgust once the slack-jawed characters starting showing us how charmingly provincial they are whilst drooling over a travelling juggler. Really Peter V. Brett? 2008 and we are still writing that opening? Does this idiot think writing the exact same story with a world building twist is unique or interesting?
I spit on everyone who ever suggested that this book had merit.
/rant off
-----signature-----
If I have burnt my bridges I will walk on water.
If you're on the shore, then you're sure not me, oh
My seething wrath and urge for blood is fueled by searing hate.
I'm X X X bitch, triple X rated.
|
|
Link to this post
|
Caoilin
Title: Instigator
Posts:
56,728
Registered:
Nov 20, '01
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 54,027
User ID: 513,313
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
i'm currently w/o a book to read. i finished farseer and it made me depressed as fk.  now i'm like afraid to read a book again or something.
-----signature-----
"Cao is really an asexual cricket from outer space" - Bernion
"I just wish you had man bits" - ShalisR
"i'll be your dirty ignorant redneck if you will be my drugged out cripple bitch" - shaggynuts24
"again, I'm stupid" - Brandun
|
|
Link to this post
|
Yossarian_42
Title: RUSH > ALL
Posts:
43,073
Registered:
Feb 28, '02
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 40,466
User ID: 651,769
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
Richelle Mead just released her sixth and final book in her succubus series.
I really enjoyed the books and place them in my top 10 UF series easily.
I have trouble convincing my friends to read them since they are about a succubus but she is a reluctant succubus and it doesn't have any of the trashy things one might expect.
-----signature-----
If I have burnt my bridges I will walk on water.
If you're on the shore, then you're sure not me, oh
My seething wrath and urge for blood is fueled by searing hate.
I'm X X X bitch, triple X rated.
|
|
Link to this post
|
Ptilk
Title: Creepy old pirate
Posts:
50,658
Registered:
Feb 13, '02
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 48,530
User ID: 645,124
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
The series as a whole is decent enough to read.
I agree with the setting however, it's as pat and overused as the "you are really a secret prince/princess is hiding" and the "young son who rebels and acts like a jerk until his family is murdered then grows up to become a hero" thing.
With 83 million new "fantasy" novels coming out every day now...the vast majority of them being written by authors who formerly made their living writing romance novels.....you gotta figure the opening third of the book isn't worth looking at most of the time however.
-----signature-----
(none)
|
|
Link to this post
|
poenadare
Posts:
3,423
Registered:
Nov 5, '01
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 3,373
User ID: 494,520
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
|
I hear you. Even the farmboy beginning of the Princess Bride set my teeth on edge.
-----signature-----
What kind of god would admit to creating us?
-- Pyrrho the Skeptic
|
|
Link to this post
|
purplehugmonkey
Posts:
12,787
Registered:
May 16, '05
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 12,662
User ID: 1,049,746
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
|
Yeah, I much prefer the "normal person enters fantasy world they didn't realize existed and then rolls with the punches" approach to the "random person already living in fantasy world becomes/secretly already is someone influential" one.
-----signature-----
College women are as unstable as free radicals. Thanks college.
-Anebriated
He was a jedi before he was a father and everyone knows how much jedi love to chop off hands.
-Kigaro
|
|
Link to this post
|
poenadare
Posts:
3,423
Registered:
Nov 5, '01
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 3,373
User ID: 494,520
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
purplehugmonkey posted:
Yeah, I much prefer the "normal person enters fantasy world they didn't realize existed and then rolls with the punches"
Read the Coramonde Duology
The Doomfarers of Coramonde (1977), ISBN 0-345-25708-1
The Starfollowers of Coramonde (1979)MISSION to HELL
Just yesterday, Sergeant Gil MacDonald and his APC crew had been fending off an ambush in a Viet Nam jungle. In the middle of the firefight, some kind of magic spell had transported them to this Fantasy Land complete with flying dragons, wizards, crazy castles, and dispossessed princes.
They would stay trapped here forever unless they could rescue the sorceress Gabrielle. Master magician, Amon, held her captive in his palace; and to reach her, Gil and his men would have to infiltrate Hell itself!
Chock full of "I don't know WTF magic is but we'll see if this tank round will solve the problem." common sense.
Brian Daley is always an easy relaxing read.
-----signature-----
What kind of god would admit to creating us?
-- Pyrrho the Skeptic
|
|
Link to this post
|
purplehugmonkey
Posts:
12,787
Registered:
May 16, '05
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 12,662
User ID: 1,049,746
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
|
That sounds like my cup of tea minus the military angle, but I may give it a shot anyway. It's always hard to predict whether that perspective is going to end up weighing down the book with boring details or just helping with character development.
-----signature-----
College women are as unstable as free radicals. Thanks college.
-Anebriated
He was a jedi before he was a father and everyone knows how much jedi love to chop off hands.
-Kigaro
|
|
Link to this post
|
Blisteringballs
Posts:
2,247
Registered:
Aug 12, '09
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 2,247
User ID: 1,366,612
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
|
If you're looking to avoid tired tropes, reading mass market fantasy is probably a bad idea.
-----signature-----
|
|
Link to this post
|
vn_jurojin
Title: Insolent Insomniac
Posts:
9,633
Registered:
Dec 20, '01
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 9,526
User ID: 559,342
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
I've agreed about that trope since the early to mid 90's, but there always exceptions to the rule. Wheel of Time for example. The first four of that series are some of the best books to hit fantasy in the past 3 decades and it fully utilizes the "farm boy" trope for its THREE main male characters.
And, I hate to say this, but the farm boy trope will never go away. It is practically required by "The Heroes Journey".
-----signature-----
(none)
|
|
Link to this post
|
Yossarian_42
Title: RUSH > ALL
Posts:
43,073
Registered:
Feb 28, '02
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 40,466
User ID: 651,769
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
We sort of get the farmboy opening for five of the main characters in Wheel of Time. The fact that we get all five of them together makes it a little less onerous.
I ended up finishing The Warded Man when people insisted to me that it was good. I got to book two and was glad things were finally moving along and the goddamn thing started with an entirely new child character. I visibly seethed.
-----signature-----
If I have burnt my bridges I will walk on water.
If you're on the shore, then you're sure not me, oh
My seething wrath and urge for blood is fueled by searing hate.
I'm X X X bitch, triple X rated.
|
|
Link to this post
|
Kordirn
Title: Pirate Prince
Posts:
23,453
Registered:
Apr 19, '04
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 23,192
User ID: 915,876
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
|
While it worked well in Wheel Of Time... A couple years ago I tried to read the first book of the Sword Of Truth. The farm boy opening was quite horrid in that book, but that is only one of the myriad of problems in that god forsaken series. I got maybe halfway through that book before I threw it down in disgust.
-----signature-----
ooOooo oOoOO OOo
|
|
Link to this post
|
Lyndrek
Title: Moderator
Lynx Mod
Posts:
36,955
Registered:
Nov 22, '99
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 34,000
User ID: 5,632
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
How do you suggest people start a fantasy novel?
-----signature-----
Moderator
I am not a Dev!
|
|
Link to this post
|
Yossarian_42
Title: RUSH > ALL
Posts:
43,073
Registered:
Feb 28, '02
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 40,466
User ID: 651,769
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
How about by not using the same tired tropes everyone hates?
Hell, you can have a farm boy opening if you leave out some of the onerous crap. Don't have a goddamn travelling entertainer that the whole town flocks to. Don't spend an entire chapter on how the inn is the biggest building in town. Don't bore us to death with the provincial farm girl the main character has a crush on but isn't destined to be with.
Instead of coming up with one unique idea and then writing the same crap everyone before you wrote how about coming up with a series of new ideas?
-----signature-----
If I have burnt my bridges I will walk on water.
If you're on the shore, then you're sure not me, oh
My seething wrath and urge for blood is fueled by searing hate.
I'm X X X bitch, triple X rated.
|
|
Link to this post
|
vn_jurojin
Title: Insolent Insomniac
Posts:
9,633
Registered:
Dec 20, '01
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 9,526
User ID: 559,342
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
My personal favorite fantasy beginning: A 60 year old veteran tells death to go bugger himself after getting a warning then walking all the way to a fort/castle to kick some ass. (Legend, Gemmell)
*edits* apparently my spelling and grammar suck before noon.
-----signature-----
(none)
|
|
Link to this post
|
vn_jurojin
Title: Insolent Insomniac
Posts:
9,633
Registered:
Dec 20, '01
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 9,526
User ID: 559,342
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
|
One example of doing the farm boy trope right: Skip it entirely. One good one has a boy/young man arriving at his destination and then gradually fills in the (somewhat tragic) details of how he got to his destination as the story unfolds. (Talion: Revenant, Michael Stackpole)
-----signature-----
(none)
|
|
Link to this post
|
poenadare
Posts:
3,423
Registered:
Nov 5, '01
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 3,373
User ID: 494,520
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
Anyone notice that when it comes to movies the farmboy trope is replaced by the suburban slacker trope? (Bill & Ted, etc.)
You've got to give ERB credit. John Carter just willed himself to Mars, basicly. It was like 5 pages of background and then zap he's fighting nasty dudes and wenching!
-----signature-----
What kind of god would admit to creating us?
-- Pyrrho the Skeptic
|
|
Link to this post
|
Yossarian_42
Title: RUSH > ALL
Posts:
43,073
Registered:
Feb 28, '02
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 40,466
User ID: 651,769
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
Every genre has its annoying over-used tropes mostly because that is the most convenient thing for an uninspired and uncreative writer to come up with.
Every time I start a movie and the main character is a writer or an ad exec I know I'm in for formulaic garbage. The only reason they even use ad exec is because it is the corporate version of writer.
I'm also extremely skeptical every time I open a book to a private investigator; heaven forbid they take the training wheels off.
-----signature-----
If I have burnt my bridges I will walk on water.
If you're on the shore, then you're sure not me, oh
My seething wrath and urge for blood is fueled by searing hate.
I'm X X X bitch, triple X rated.
|
|
Link to this post
|
vn_jurojin
Title: Insolent Insomniac
Posts:
9,633
Registered:
Dec 20, '01
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 9,526
User ID: 559,342
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
Yossarian_42 posted:
How about by not using the same tired tropes everyone hates?
I'm guessing you are wrong here. I'd venture to say that the average fantasy reader doesn't care one way or the other as long as it's a good story. Some might even say that more people like the farm boy trope than dislike it, especially since it is so used and so many popular fantasy books use it.
-----signature-----
(none)
|
|
Link to this post
|
Yossarian_42
Title: RUSH > ALL
Posts:
43,073
Registered:
Feb 28, '02
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 40,466
User ID: 651,769
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
|
Everyone who matters.
-----signature-----
If I have burnt my bridges I will walk on water.
If you're on the shore, then you're sure not me, oh
My seething wrath and urge for blood is fueled by searing hate.
I'm X X X bitch, triple X rated.
|
|
Link to this post
|
vn_jurojin
Title: Insolent Insomniac
Posts:
9,633
Registered:
Dec 20, '01
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 9,526
User ID: 559,342
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
|
Granted.
-----signature-----
(none)
|
|
Link to this post
|
vn_jurojin
Title: Insolent Insomniac
Posts:
9,633
Registered:
Dec 20, '01
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 9,526
User ID: 559,342
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
Kordirn posted:
While it worked well in Wheel Of Time... A couple years ago I tried to read the first book of the Sword Of Truth. The farm boy opening was quite horrid in that book, but that is only one of the myriad of problems in that god forsaken series. I got maybe halfway through that book before I threw it down in disgust.
I never thought I'd defend the Sword of Truth for anything, but I guess there's a first time for everything. The Sword of Truth didn't use a farm boy trope. Richard Cypher was mid-twenties when the story started, lived independently, and was already a bad ass in his own way. Just because he lived in the woods does not make it a farm boy trope.
-----signature-----
(none)
|
|
Link to this post
|
Ptilk
Title: Creepy old pirate
Posts:
50,658
Registered:
Feb 13, '02
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 48,530
User ID: 645,124
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
I get really tired of the easy, pat back story for most books myself.
Of course when a book goes outside the norm....it's chances of getting published drop like a rock. Don't blame the authors, blame the business.
A few people who have already broken through (or were lucky enough to publish first outside of the US) don't stick to the norms and their books can be outstanding....though also a bit disturbing. Like having the "hero" be a washed up former renowned fighter who also happens to be a gay rapist who likes to kill random people for looking at him. Good, but very disturbing, read.
-----signature-----
(none)
|
|
Link to this post
|
Blisteringballs
Posts:
2,247
Registered:
Aug 12, '09
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 2,247
User ID: 1,366,612
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
|
Good Omens had a great opening, and it was fantasy set in modern times.
-----signature-----
|
|
Link to this post
|
Caoilin
Title: Instigator
Posts:
56,728
Registered:
Nov 20, '01
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 54,027
User ID: 513,313
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
|
good omens was written by the gods of our time.
-----signature-----
"Cao is really an asexual cricket from outer space" - Bernion
"I just wish you had man bits" - ShalisR
"i'll be your dirty ignorant redneck if you will be my drugged out cripple bitch" - shaggynuts24
"again, I'm stupid" - Brandun
|
|
Link to this post
|
el_antonina
Posts:
????
Registered:
????
Extended Info (if available)
Real Post Cnt: 0
User ID: 0
|
Subject:
I refuse to ever suffer through another farmboy fantasy opening.
|
Then you should read the synopsis first of the book, before reading it.
Or you could broaden your horizons and read books you thought were beneath you. It could make you laugh or cry.
-----signature-----
|
|
Link to this post
|
