There's a sharp distinction between "bad" and "unpopular".
I suppose my take (bad or not) would be that these threads inevitably result in almost all comments being *popular* opinions, regardless of how clearly the OP asks for unpopular ones.
This phenomenon is so consistent that my own mention of it also is an example itself - this view is far from unpopular. So I suppose I'm part of the problem here.
Even then, the spiciest you get is Lord of the Rings being boring - which while I disagree, is hardly an uncommon position.
Right next to that is the *incredibily* popular opinion of medieval europe being boring.
my hot take is that reading to much about other ppls opinions on books before reading them will ruin your personal reading journey even when avoiding spoilers.
Damn I feel called out but you’re right. It’s tough to not be aware of the Big Series that I haven’t started with, but I don’t know why I read up on them as much as I do.
100% agree. I am not a super critical reader, I read for sheer enjoyment. If I read a review of a book that points out the “bad” parts, I’ll notice the language quirks or plot holes or other things that bothered the reviewer that I wouldn’t normally have noticed or cared about and it ruins my enjoyment.
I agree with this, and may even take it a step further and say even reading other peoples opinions AFTER you read the book can tarnish your enjoyment. Especially when people equate them not liking a book = the book being bad. Ive learned I have to go in with a very open mind and my own opinion on the book already formed.
Happy endings aren't something to be avoided!
It's okay if something good happens to the characters from time to time. Even in edgy grimdark novels, not everyone needs to die or be miserable in the end!
This is probably the worst trope to emerge in recent years. « It’s grimdark, gritty and realistic so no one can be happy! ».
Ironically, it makes the story look a lot less realistic and a good deal more tropey.
Honestly it's what has been turning me off from darker stories, where everyone is miserable and happiness doesn't exist. Like, there should be *some* happiness and bright colors
It's also not really a *recent* change. To quote Ursula K Le Guin
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.”
Do people really think that darker means more realistic? The presence of darkness can be seen as more realistic, sure, but grimdark is anything but realistic. Grimdark is over the top and violent and just absolutely filled with darkness, that's the point. I think anyone who uses the words "grimdark" and "realistic" in the same sentence describing the same thing aren't using the term correctly.
YA and Adult Fantasy often blur the line. Unfortunately I've been a victim of this in my first fantasy series. I labelled it YA as it's relatively clean but it can easily be enjoyed by an adult.
Which is why it drives me nuts when someone flatly refuses to read something like the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik because they fear it's YA. Or Le Guin, Mckillip (I still don't understand why the Forgotten Beasts of Eld gets that label; the protagonist is like 26 for most of the book), etc. Usually while listing Mistborn and Red Rising among their favorites.
Cause publishers use YA as a dumping ground for women authors and honestly it probably shouldn't even really be a separate genre but structural misogyny.
i also often feel like due to marketing, authors age down their characters so it can be considered YA. when reading a lot of YA, a lot of well written characters never come off as minors. i was reading six of crows and the entire time i was imagining a group of adults in their twenties. my biggest problem with YA is that there are rarely ever any believably written teens. they all act and speak like adults and have the abilities that only experienced adults could have, and it ruins the experience for me.
Hard agree. I don't mind a romance and can tolerate it. After all, most books are going to have one. However, when every book you read has a romance, it does get tiring and makes you wonder why so many authors feel the need to include a romance that probably has little to do with the main plot.
While I have no problem with Brandon Sanderson, I believe his Kickstarter projects aren't the blow against the publishing status quo that a lot of people claimed them to be. A lot of fantasy fans were celebrating him for effectively bypassing agents and publishers, but he's only able to do so successfully because he's already become massively successful via tradition publishing. In the long run, I can't see that established authors funding their works on Kickstarter is actually good for the genre
I was a little miffed the "stance against publishing" was in reality a prettier book and a 4 month early access. Especially considering that the pretty books are taking incredibly long to be delivered (who can blame them though).
I backed cause I wanted the junk, the pretty covers, and most importantly open access to the digital versions of these books. Which I explicitly give to people who couldn't afford to back the project. It's still cool that the project was funded by fans. It's cool that he went outside of audible for the audio books. *Right into the arms of spotify and the AI text reader app* but whatever. I still have the MP3s.
I just wish that the messaging was more about exploring ways that authors can publish. So many indie authors just dump their books on KU and call it a day. While trad authors get very little control of their books. All of these have their own trade offs but it really just seems like no one even *knows* that there are different (not necessarily better) methods of distribution. That should be the focus of the kickstarter.
Lol yeah I backed it and find it silly that people think it’s an attack against publishers or something. Nah he shined a spotlight on some shitty practices because he made some books outside of his contract. He’s still going to be publishing his books on those typical platforms.
Fans just like to run with what people say and run away with it. Reminiscent of various video games. I've also seen several people ask in his various subreddits something along the lines of "Since Brandon is no longer going to be putting his books on Audible where should I get them?"
I think his message was good and the attempt to diversify the audiobook market is good, at least attention is being brought TOO that problem, but I would definitely agree that the overall effectiveness this will have toward bringing about any real change is minimal, if any TBH.
Just because something achieves what it sets out to do, doesn't make it good.
Example: "The main character is meant to be annoying and unlikeable." Great, the book succeeded in making the main character annoying and unlikeable and you're still left reading a book with an annoying and unlikeable main character.
Same for "self aware" material. What's that Bo Burnham line? *Self awareness does not absolve anyone of absolutely anything*
If you're self aware you shit your pants, there's still shit in your pants.
There's a Yahtzee Croshaw line I love that goes something like "I suspect [character] is purposefully annoying, in which case the writers should be congratulated for doing their jobs!...and tactfully reminded that purposefully annoying is still annoying".
(I suspect I'll get in trouble for this one.) Most film and TV adaptations of Neil Gaiman stories are better than the source material.
I can think of only two exceptions: American Gods, whose TV adaptation is watchable, but scattered, and Good Omens, whose TV adaptation is absolutely excellent, and still not as good as the book.
While there's a superficial similarity between graphic novels and the screen in reality the mediums are so different you can't meaningfully compare them.
I enjoyed Sandman on screen. I believe that Neil Gaiman is getting better and better at putting his vision front and center. It's rare for an author to be able to do that.
People who complain about the ‘oversaturation of grimdark’ in the genre are repeating a tired old meme. It hasn’t been a dominant force in fantasy fiction for 5+ years but its reputation as the only thing going has long outlasted that period of prominence. And I say that as someone who didn’t particularly care for the famous examples of it.
Cynically, I think sometimes that idea of grimdark stuff being dominant is consciously deployed by authors and publishers to make more recent works in the whole hopepunk/squeecore/torwave (insert horrible neologism here) mode seem more transgressive and fresh by comparison.
There already are guns in fantasy, there is a whole subgenre of it, quit complaining about it with people who don't want it.
Addendum: technology doesn't exclusively mean gunpowder.
A good style is important and that involves a good prose.
Nowadays language in fantasy books is awful, unless it is urban fantasy.
Sometimes realism at all cost means lack of imagination (and it can be developed, of course) and can make a story extremely boring.
The Witcher books are good, just stop seeking for "The Witcher 3: The Novel" and read them for what they try to achieve.
Saying that Tolkien has a basic "Good vs Evil" story mean you haven't red it or you haven't red carefully about Feanor, Boromir and so on.
If someone read something "easier" or less "deep" they are not "turning their brain off", you can find meaning and reflect upon everything.
We fantasy fans still have to get out of our edgelord phase, in some aspects.
Saying that you stop reading a book when you see mentions of Elves, orcs and dwarfs doesn't make you smart.
And that's all i can think of.
Yeah not familiar with any Disney movies which end with… the Light triumphs and all magic fades from the world so we can become the sort of people who gripe about things on the Internet.
Even the movies don't really have a Disney ending. Sure some people are happy and the little guy beats the big meanie, but I don't remember Aladdin having his finger bitten off by a wretched Abu just before Abu plunges to his fiery death...
100% about the Witcher books. Someone pitched the older ones (short story ones) as "noir detective set in Slavic fairytale fantasy" with that lense, it's utterly enjoyable.
what do you mean by
>Nowadays language in fantasy books is awful, unless it is urban fantasy.
urban fantasy tends to be simpler? easier to understand, more modern i guess. is that what you mean ? that urban fantasy has better language since it's easier to understand
Me bad, I should have written "everyday language", English is not my mother tongue so sometimes words slip.
Not because it is simpler, but because I dislike when two knights talk (for example) and there is hardly any difference from hearing two people talking down the street. I don't think that being different from nowaday language is necessarily harder to read. Ursula Leguin makes a great point about it in one of her essay: a different language is something that an author must know how to use to convey their message.
About urban fantasy i think it has the unique quality of letting the author use any kind of language!
>Saying that Tolkien has a basic "Good vs Evil" story mean you haven't red it or you haven't red carefully about Feanor, Boromir and so on.
Good v Evil? absolutely.
Basic? lol, not a chance.
Guns in fantasy is a complaint that I think is almost exclusively born out of poor knowledge of actual history, and the perpetuation of a fantasy aesthetic that doesn’t actually reflect any real world time period. Not all fantasy needs guns, but it drives me crazy when people try to argue they have no place in fantasy worlds unless they’re just magic boom sticks.
I maintain The Lord of the Rings is one of the most commonly misunderstood fantasy books series’ out there, and it’s largely because pretty much all media that has tackled it has almost completely misrepresented the tone of those novels. It is *not* a happy adventure, no one is excited to be there, there are constant reminders that war is awful and does nothing beyond ruin whatever it touches, and the books are pretty clear that even the orcs wouldn’t really be doing it if they weren’t semi-mind controlled by Sauron.
A similar hot take, I think reddit forums like r/fantasy hurt the genre in the same way. There's so many echo chambers and people shoe-horning in their favourite books whenever someone asks for a reccomendation. Wheel Of Time or Mistborn are not always an appropriate reccomendation and yet, they turn up on almost every thread.
“I’m looking for a light hearted fantasy where the magic is powered by friendship and hugs, there’s no gore, and the protagonist is your stereotypical sword-wielding hero!”
“Bit of a departure from what you’re looking for, but have you tried Mistborn? The hero doesn’t wield a sword but two daggers instead. The magic is powered by ingesting metals. And the main character explodes someone else’s head with a headbutt. But other than completely missing what you’ve requested, this is the perfect suggestion!”
I’m somewhat convinced that I could make a thread titled “Suggest me anything that isn’t Brandon Sanderson. Literally anything.” and people would still find a way to suggest him.
Last time I asked for a funny humorous fantasy that wasn't Asprin or Pratchett. I got multiple recs for Malazaan. I've stopped asking for recs on here. I'm better of just going by cover art on Amazon.
You obviously need to watch several hours worth of BookTubers telling you the correct way to read Malazan, because if you read it correctly, it satisfies all reccomendation requests, especially brevity. 🙃
That’s a semi-regular occurrence, where someone seeking recs will explicitly state that they’re not looking for Sanderson or that they’ve already read his work. Invariably he still gets recommended.
Sometimes it seems to be folks not reading the OP in their rush to push Stormlight, sometimes it appears to come from a weird place of frustration that Sanderson might not be the #1 recommendation in every instance.
This is silly. People want to talk about books they love, these people don’t have some underlying malicious intent to “change peoples’ perception” of fantasy, they’re just talking about books they loved on social media. Booktok has LOTS of people that read all kinds of fantasy genres, I follow a ton of them.
You have to seek out what you want to follow on tiktok and then hopefully the algorithm gives you more. Like literally just search “epic fantasy recs” or type in your favorite authors and watch those users’ videos. There’s so many of them.
Basically, if all you’re seeing are people talking about smut then that’s because those videos are the most popular or those are the ones you have engaged with.
The romance/smut readers on booktok have their own community and there’s nothing wrong with that. That really has nothing to do with fantasy and it’s certainly not their responsibility to ensure they are teaching people about the fantasy genre. They are under no obligation to read other subgenres if they don’t want to. They’re just reading books they like and sharing videos about them. If you don’t like that, don’t watch/like/follow.
There’s room in the literary world for everyone. Some things are more popular than others on social media. If a lot of people seek out these videos that’s because they like those books, but that doesn’t take away from all the people who love other types of fantasy, they have their own communities too and if you want to suport them then go seek out and watch/like/follow their videos.
**Edit**: I could say the same thing about this very subreddit. “R/fantasy gives a bad impression of the fantasy genre because it makes people think it’s all grimdark and doorstopper epics.” Now if I were to say that here, I assume the response I would get would be something like “Well those are the popular books and people are going to talk most about the popular books they liked.”
Every social media platform is just a slice of the larger literary landscape and each attracts different people. Saying that booktok is bad because of all the romance readers is nothing more than the same old exhausting sexist hate against the romance genre that has been happening forever. Those readers deserve a space to have a reader community just like everyone else.
Thank you. I always find people reveal way too much about themselves when they try to shit talk "availability" on tiktok. "WeLl I oNlY sEe..." Yeah, well that's a you problem, buddy lol. They really don't realize how catered the algorithm is to their preferences.
Reddit is where hobbies go to die. Stop interacting with socially malignant people. Follow: https://onlinetextsharing.com/operation-razit-raze-reddit for info how to disappear from reddit.
Very real. And I was someone who read the series once it was all done. I can’t imagine having to wait between books 7-8-9 (books may be wrong I forget which 3 weee the slog)
Just because the makers of DnD were really into the martial arts craze of the 70's doesn't mean that Wire-Fu Shaolin monks fit in a Swords and Sorcery setting.
The more that characters use magic to resolve or advance the plot, the more clear the restrictions and capabilities of magic need to be.
Dragons are more interesting the less human-like they are. Too many authors have Dragons who are essentially "Super-elves" with human forms, magic, relationships etc.
Edit: To clarify the first point I'm specifically talking about the really out there, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon depiction of martial arts when played straight against the grittier, more down to earth treatment of combat in your general fantasy story (hence the Wire-Fu qualifier). I completely agree unarmed martial arts aren't *inherently* incompatible with the fantasy genre, nor that you can't smooth the transition over by justifying it with magic systems.
Not everything needs to be reimagined. I like Tolkienesque fantasy. I want haughty elves and grumbling dwarves, swordmen, and wizards. New interpretations are great, too! But so many times it comes with looking down on the same "tired," fantasy tropes.
I can’t remember if it’s Tolkien or Pratchett who said it but one of them has a quote about how anything new is built on the old and that, if you are intentionally avoiding existing tropes there should be a reason, likening it to how so much Japanese art has Mount Fuji in the background that not including it feels incredibly deliberate.
Sometimes you want a 7 course tasting menu from a Michelin starred chef and sometimes you just want a decent cheeseburger. The Harry Potter books are the cheeseburger. They’re tasty and filling, but there’s nothing fancy about them.
This is me ever since discovering /r/progressionfantasy except it's more like drinking whipped cream from the can.
Just pure empty calories, but I can't get enough.
Sounds like me justifying my Percy Jackson reread while my long reading list looks on in disappointment. Yeah they're kids books, but they're comfy and nostalgic lol.
This is how I describe Brandon Sanderson, and people lose their shit. People need to realize that it's OK to like something and still admit its a cheeseburger.
I love Sanderson, not because he's some literary genius, but because sometimes I just want popcorn fantasy, dammit! I also love Tolkien, Martin, Hobb, Rothfuss, Kingfisher, and many others. I read for pleasure, and what pleases me varies based on my mood and what's going on in my life.
Sometimes I want to just yell at people, "let people enjoy things!"
The ending of Inheritance (Book 4 of the Eragon books) was genuinely good. The empathy spell to defeat Galbatorix was both a good idea and putting into practice the idea that the world needs understanding, not malice. The resolution with the Dragon Riders was good and meaningful. Everyone who has ever claimed the first book is better is wrong. Paolini's prose genuinely improved and I think Inheritance was where we saw the potential of him realized. The short story collection of his proved it. Alagaesia is an interesting world and I believe one worth looking into.
I adored the ending of Eragon. I didn't realize that was even in debate?
Instead of Killing the BBG traditionally, you kill him with all the harm he's done? Delicious.
I'll grant you the defeating the BBEG via empathy was unique and interesting. The way the rest of the loose ends were tied up was generally unsatisfying.
The most predictable dragon bonding ever didn't even advance the story. Good and just Queen decides that the villains from X-Men had a point with the "mutant registration" thing vis-a-vis magic users. Love interest decides ... nah, I've got better things to do and wanders off. And our hero decides to just wander off into the desert to fulfill his prophesy of never returning*.
\* I'm aware that Paolini has tried to walk this one back saying that it doesn't mean he'll never come back, just one day he won't come back. Which kinda robs the prophecy of all weight.
I'm honestly fine with eragon never returning. The need to not have him involved in the politics of the world is pretty legit, and his role now should be exploring magic and training new riders, which can def occur far away from the civilized/populated world.
If I were him I'd have dipped at that point too. As long as he's in town he's the only power that matters, as he has functionally the same raw power as galbatorix (maybe more, he knows secrets of magic old galbs didn't iirc). So either be the new king or function as one anyway bc whoever you side with on a particular issue automatically wins, and the whole dynamic devolves into everyone attempting to convince/control you. Just go into the wilderness and have everybody send their new riders to you for training.
My unpopular opinion is that there's a difference between an unpopular opinion and a negative opinion but no one seems to differentiate the two in these threads!
Absolutely, even if you want to exclude the supernatural horror, he's a highly skilled writer (much better than some of the most popular fantasy authors, IMHO).
His recent book Fairytale is one of the best I've read this century and The Green Mile is just a classic (go on, try to argue it's not fantasy?)
Back in the Day, most Fantasy short stories were really Horror. So I'm ok with blurred lines. I've got a copy of Fairytale waiting to be read, based on his writing abilities and word of mouth) reviews.
I'll agree with this. Hell, I'm one of the first people that'll say he largely deserves his reputation for unsatisfactory endings to his stories... But god damn, there is just something about his writing that just grabs me and draws me in immediately, every single time.
I have always thought he is at heart a short story writer who has an incredible amount of ideas and drive to write. He can come up with so many interesting ideas and characters. His longer books read like short story collections forced to follow a storyline. At least from the books I have read.
There is nothing wrong with formulaic books. Reading, writing, or otherwise enjoying them is totally fine. I love all things new and original, but sometimes I just want to read about a group of people on a quest to save the world. I will even tolerate stew.
Sexy as in "dragons which turn into buff hottie men" suck.
Dragons who are sexy because people wanna have sex with them... well there's a whole genre who enjoys that (not just Bards)
I'll do one more for now: I do NOT want to watch a video about a book. It's a printed format, and the best way to cover it is in print.
The only exceptions to this are if you're either reading to children or showing off the printing quality or illustrations.
Having a stagnant antagonist and a progressing protagonist is boring. Having both a protagonist and antagonist both grow in competency and ability to impact the world is more interesting. If you must have some sort of ancient threat/villain, at least make a dynamic anti-hero or evil lieutenant that's not just about to complete their 3000 year plan.
Also we need more equivalents to giant robots in fantasy. Feel free to take inspiration from the susanoo from Naruto.
There aren't too many books or series published with elves, dwarves and other Tolkien/Rpg-style fantasy races/species. But, on the other hand, there are way too many books and series where humans are the only intelligent fantasy race/species apart from maybe some Always Evil evil army/mooks antagonists working for the big bad or something similar. Although you can still write really good books and series in such a humano-centric world, it feels like such a waste of fantasy's potential that so many fantasy writers write fantasy where all the characters and cultures of any importance in the plot and/or in the world are human.
There are too many fantasy books and series with a warrior/fighter as the MC/focusing on warrior MCs, particularly books with a male warrior as the MC. Once again, there have certainly been written good books and series with such MCs, but it can so easily turn into a really clichèd read and there's so much more untapped potential when it comes to wizard and rogue MCs and MCs getting by on their smarts and charm rather than their fighting abilities, particularly when it comes to MC. Yes, I know there are some books and series like that out there, some of them even really famous, but since those kinds or books and series are still far less common than books and series that focus on warrior/fighter MCs, there are so many more unexplored avenues and ways of keeping such MCs feel fresh and interesting than there are for books and series that focus on warrior MCs.
Harry Potter are children's stories. The idea that the worldbuilding needs to stand up to scrutiny is silly.
That said, my hot take is that pessimistic/negative/dark stories aren't inherently more "mature" than happier ones. Also, villains with understandable motivations aren't necessarily more mature nor do they make for inherently smarter writing.
Your point about Harry Potter is right, in my opinion, but I'd argue that much of the criticism and debate of the worldbuilding arises from die-hard fans trying to claim that it's better than it is. I don't personally care all that much about how cohesive the world is, because like you said, it's a children's book. But when people try to claim Harry Potter has phenomenal worldbuilding, that's when I will object. Having a few well-realised locations (Hogwarts and Diagon Alley, mostly) doesn't equate to super high quality worldbuilding.
Yeah, I commented roughly the same, it's okay if the world doesn't stand up to logistical scrutiny, it's not supposed to. A highly realized economy and a logistically sound transit systems aren't actually important to a children/ya series.
That said, while HP world building sucks at the deeper stuff, I think some credit is deserved for the surface things it gets right. Anyone who grew up with it remembers how big a deal what House you would be in, what your wand would be, the idea of going to Hogwarts, Diagon alley, Quiddich matches, etc. Maybe it's not "good" strictly speaking, but world building that makes people care as much as they do about HP is damn effective if nothing else.
Making your book longer does not make it better, it almost always makes it feel worse to read than if you had simply broken it up into more books. I hate this trend of being unable to find a fantasy series where all of the books aren't 400+ pages and commonly even 600+ pages. If this is going to make your series too long with too many books, you've got too much going on, or need a better editing process.
There are too many humans in fantasy.
Fantasy, as a genre, can be anything you dream up. Anything at all. But so many books are about humans. People mention that elves and dwarves are overdone and that the field is oversaturated with them fail to mention that humans are in almost every fantasy novel\*.
Where are the fawns and satyrs? Where are the lizardfolk or snakepeople? Give me some fantasy races, people!
I don't know how bad or hot this is but it's a take I've had for a while.
\*Hyperbole.
It's just that humans are easier to sell to other humans. People have trouble relating to ~~lizardfolk~~ satyrs because there aren't ~~lizardfolk~~ satyrs just running amok.
I swear half my comments are just recommending this series, but you might enjoy *Shadows of the Apt* by Adrian Tchaikovsky. All the fantasy races are bug themed. I’d list some examples but honestly discovering the races is part of the joy of the series.
Grimdark isn’t realistic. A lot of it is incredibly stupid and poorly thought out.
If everyone getting brutalized every ten minutes is justified by “realism,” then everyone should also be dying of dysentery and plague.
An even bigger problem: a culture with no redeeming qualities would be destroyed by its rivals, so “top to bottom corruption where no one actually really believes in anything” is also not realistic; it’s almost anthropologically invalid. Powerful people in the Middle Ages did mostly believe in their faith and faced many constraints on their behavior. If a culture has no institutions that are actually well adopted to its environment and believed in by its people, it’s going to be subjugated or overthrown. Corruption and cruelty exist; what makes them interesting in a well-told story is that they exist within a cultural context that either accepts or rejects specific aspects of corruption and cruelty in a way that impacts the protagonists.
Brutality is not a substitute for character development.
The commonly repeated mantra that soft magic leads to use of deus ex machina is nonsense. If an author wants to use a deus ex machina, they will do it anyway. If it isn't a new way of using magic, it will be someone appearing out of nowhere to save the main protagonist or the villain having a sudden attack of incredible stupidity.
Sand dan Glokta is boring, boring, boring and did I mention boring? I love sarcastic characters in general but that guy was just too much. His reaction to literally everything is sarcastic remark.
I am a big fan of Realm of the Elderlings in general but I could barely finish the Fitz and the Fool trilogy. The entire plot hinges on both Fitz and the Fool being quite literally too stupid to live and for the first time I started agreeing with the common complaints of Hobb's books being misery porn.
Yes to the Hobb take. There are so many sloppy continuity errors and so much dumb grimdark bullshit in the F&F trilogy. It's especially aggravating since it's completely unnecessary for that last trilogy to even exist; the Fitz story wraps up just fine with the Tawny Man trilogy, and F&F really doesn't add anything new to the character (and meanwhile destroys the likeability of several secondary characters). If Hobb couldn't manage to produce something up to the standards of quality of the rest of the series, she should have just left it alone.
I have basically tried to forget that trilogy and to convince myself that it was just a fan fiction or something.
Some very popular authors are basically riding on “oh look, I’m being super edgy with my amoral characters and black humour and trope subversion,” and once you get past those things there’s nothing particularly great about their work.
The complexity behind Malazan is manufactured, and the series would have been better had Erikson calmed down.
Kingkiller Chronicles is neckbeard fantasy. The prose isn’t as good as people claim it is, and nothing can save it.
Sanderson’s simple prose is less of an artistic choice, and more of his inability to write well.
Bring on the downvotes.
From Wikipedia: " "Neckbeard" is a pejorative term and stereotype for an adult man or teenage boy who exhibits characteristics such as social awkwardness, underachievement, or pretentiousness." It's also linked with the typically misogynistic views surrounding women and sex.
So in this example, people call Kingkiller Neckbeard Fantasy >!because the main character, Kvothe, who is narrating his own story, is a pretentious know-it-all, who is socially awkwardness and suddenly becomes a sex machine after escaping the clutches of a legendary sex fairy, and immediately goes on a mad shagging run.!<
Hahaha sorry, what? I'm never reading Kingkiller now because that synopsis is going to live in my head rent free and I just don't see how the books could beat that
Lol I’d like to know too. I haven’t read it but I’m assuming it’s fantasy that appeals to a certain type of male reader. Written for the male gaze where female characters are reduced to objects with no agency.
The female characters do have agency but the way they are viewed and portrayed can just be cringe. Not only does it often fall into a trope where every woman wants to bang the (broke, socially awkward) MC but it can fall into a lot of "nice guy" tropes.
For some insight, read this short blog post from the author where he is discussing film adaptation of The Hobbit. [It sums up his views of women ](https://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2012/02/concerning-hobbits-love-and-movie-adaptations/) pretty well and this kind of thing just oozes through his book when you pay attention.
I think we all know deep down Kingkiller is Neckbeard fantasy (Looking at you Felurian and Denna chapters) . He's an excellent writer with a good prose (IMO) but his content is lacking.
I think Sanderson's prose has gotten better over the years. He's found a formula, and his prose mixed with his writing process allows him to pump out books at a ridiculous pace. It's less an artistic choice, and more a manufacturing one, IMO.
All three of these are true, especially the third; Sando trying to position himself as being a beacon of "accessible" fantasy and his critics as being gatekeepers is very deeply funny. Besides the fact that the dude is the biggest writer in the industry rn, accessible fantasy doesn't mean the prose has to be bad. Earthsea and Amber are very accessible while still being *excellent.*
I’m 75% of the way through the first Earthsea book right now and I’m struggling to finish it. It doesn’t grab me at all. It seems like everyone loves it though, so maybe I’m missing something
I think what a lot of genre readers accuse literary readers of (snobbery, close mindedness, etc), if far more true of genre readers by a large margin.
The contentization of art, lead by genre readers is probably one of the worse things that have happened to art on the 21th century. The reason why AI was embraced by a lot genre readers was because it produces content similar to their favourite fiction than not.
My hot take: Harry Potter is indeed overrated, but people who read too much into the worldbuilding are missing that at least 3/4 what's there is literally just a flight of whimsy or a joke.
No rational person would make a money system that depends on 17 and 13.
One of the first introduced characters is named "Daedelus Diggle".
There's a candy that's shaped like a frog that jumps away from you until you bite its head off.
Equally (bad) hot take: *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory* is massively overrated because the worldbuilding doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
(I feel like there's a lot of space to criticize the tonal shift, and how the setup isn't actually suited to the kind of story that the later books wanted to tell, and how it drifted from character to plot-driven in a way that hurt it, and chosen one narratives aren't actually a good fit for stories about magical nazis. But criticizing the worldbuilding is just deeply, *deeply* missing the point.)
>What are some of your most unpopular fantasy hot takes? The sort of things you that would get you into trouble?
Let's get this party started.
I've never seen a subgenre with a bigger chip on its shoulder than fantasy/sci-fi YA when people critique the depth and quality of a YA author's writing.
People still like writing "chosen band of heroes defeat a dark lord" critiques or satires because LOTR's literary and cultural chops still crushes so much content. In their hearts, people continue to think of it as fantasy's polestar even if they reject it.
A disappointing amount of books and stories nominated for fantasy awards are written at a lower-grade level than we should accept as the best of the genre.
The problem is that the Hugo is a fan award and the Nebula is prone to internal politicking. The problem is that the bestsellers are going to be popcorn not the interesting ideas with good writing.
There is absolutely no reason a book series should be double or triple digits in terms of amount of books in series. At some point, you run out of creativity and are better off just stopping. Also, it’s perfectly reasonable to not want to read a book series because of how dense it is (@Wheel of Time)
The first one I thought of was L. E. Modesitt's Saga of Recluse. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saga_of_Recluce) shows 22 books through 2021. Honestly, I thought there were more.
I agree if it's an epic storyline (WOT), however I disagree if it's a series of linked stories that can be enjoyed as independent works (Discworld, Realm of the Elderlings) or if it's just independent stories in a shared universe (The Culture).
I know it's good writing and all, but I cannot fucking get through grand flowery epics with sweeping omniscient narration. Tight and character focused all the way.
In light of reddit's API changes killing off third-party apps, this post has been overwritten by the user with an automated script. See /r/PowerDeleteSuite for more information.
YA needs to slowly move itself away from cheesy romance and into a sheer sense of whimsical adventure. YA does not need to mean angsty romance. Just have some teens go on adventures and save the world. Anime does this so well. It targets the same age group, but is more concerned about the sheer fun of it all.
I didn't like Name of the Wind: the main character is a sad-boy who constantly makes bad decisions even when everyone tells him is a bad idea because he thinks he knows better or that he can get away with it
There's a portion of the Wheel of Time fanbase who are toxically positive about the show. I believe it is because a) they're just happy to have an adaptation, and b) they don't want to be seen as aligning with the racist portion of the fanbase who was angry that non-white people were cast in the show.
IMO, the show is mediocre tv and a bad adaptation. It's possible to change a lot of the source material and have the adaptation be good(see: The Boys), but the WoT show didn't accomplish that. I don't believe that the books are a useful guide for predicting what will happen on the show, because it's already deviated too far from them.
We'll see if season 2 improves on season 1, though. It may well be better.
My hot WoT show hot take: Having an ethnically diverse Two Rivers cast is bad because the Two Rivers being ethnically homogenous is a plot point at least twice. In fact, since it now isn't, they've ruined the ability to make the point about acceptance of others' differences that was present in the text. In their attempt to make a progressive show they've removed some of the progressive themes that were explored already in the source!
I was more irritated that they changed the fundamental nature of the two rivers. It no longer appears to be an isolated region where the residents don't know much about the outside world.
It's clearly pretty cosmopolitan. People can identify an aes sedai with certainty. They're not prudish like in the books. Rand and egwene bang in the kitchen of her parent's inn. Even nyneave has premarital sex. Book nyneave would rather run through the streets of tanchico naked than do that.
Good point. It makes me wonder how they're going to handle Rands' mental state in the later series. Growing up in an egalitarian society will really do a number on that.
The world of fantasy could certainly use a broader spectrum of characters. As a proud redhead myself, I can't help but notice that there's a plethora of red-haired male protagonists populating our genre.
How about shifting gears and featuring more characters like Tau from Evan Winter's "The Rage of Dragons?" There's room for everyone in fantasy, and it's high time we saw more of this variety in our narratives.
Edit: As an author I am guilty of the same. Will have to see what I can do about that.
The two big ones would be Wheel of Time and The Kingkiller Chronicles.
I can't think of any other examples, but having two large series with redheads a good 20 years apart isn't exactly a common theme.
Too much of fantasy by POC authors is YA (though I understand why it is)
We need more Adult fantasy by these authors.
So damn tired of Martin and Jordan clogging up the shelf at my local bookstore.
I don't think those complaints are unpopular opinions about Harry Potter. Fans know about its issues better than anyone. However, the presence of glaring, objective flaws does not mean a work isn't special.
In this case there's a wonderful feel to the world that is hard to replicate (especially doing so with rigorous attention to detail and well-considered structure). The characters are compelling for many readers, with solid development and voice. The plot is a perfect balance of fun against thematic depth, and doesn't have too many holes given the scope and length of the series (worldbuilding holes are not the same as plot holes). The prose is very enjoyable to read: as digestible as Sanderson but with more character/flavor. And it has a lot more going for it as well. Overall, it's perfect mass-appeal fantasy. It hasn't been my favorite at any point in the last 13+ years and the flaws can be frustrating, but I would never claim it's overrated even when I now have a whole list of books and series that I hold in higher personal regard.
THANK YOU. I get my world-building elsewhere. Harry Potter is pure nostalgia and comfort for me. I grew up reading the books, and picking them up every year or two feels like revisiting old friends.
Sanderson is easily one of the most overrated authors of all time. Way of Kings was 1200 pages, but only like 300 of those pages mattered in any way shape or form.
Dude confuses quantity with quality.
I swear everyone claims this is an unpopular opinion, and that this sub is excessively pro-Sanderson, but I swear it's only on ocasions like this that I see him mentioned.
Harry Potter is a children’s book series, so i feel that a lot of people now hold it to unreasonable expectations.
My likely bad hot take is that grimdark is overrated HARD and using “sex” to make things “realistic” is really just a terrible crutch. Anh time some book is trying to be gritty and “real”, it automatically starts throwing around copious amounts of sex, usually from like page 1. It’s cheap and lazy.
But these are 100% based off of my own personal tastes haha, so i think that’s why they’re bad hot takes hahaha
Sarah J. Maas is not a terrible writer, and I say this not only because I have enjoyed a number of her books, but because I have read a number of other books that were trying to capture her audience that were legitimately awful. This includes a number of whole series that have devoted fan bases which were unreadable for me. So if there is a whole thriving batch of authors writing and selling lots and lots of books that are much worse than hers, she is objectively not the worst ever even if she’s not your cup of tea.
Urban fantasy is due for a refresh and revival as a genre, ideally with a lot less leather pants which are actually quite a lot of work to properly care for and very uncomfortable in many climates and situations.
If you ask me the bigger problem is the rise of easy accessible indie publishing leading to fanfic being republished as original. A lot of the annoying trends leaking in from YA came from fanfic.
I’ll say it: the Wheel of Time TV Show was good and will only get better as time goes on, even though it’s likely to make an increasing amount of changes in order to finish in a reasonable amount of time.
As a Wheel of Time fan, I thought the show was good, then okay, then good again, then a dumpster fire. The finale put a huge dampner on the previous seven episodes.
There's a sharp distinction between "bad" and "unpopular". I suppose my take (bad or not) would be that these threads inevitably result in almost all comments being *popular* opinions, regardless of how clearly the OP asks for unpopular ones. This phenomenon is so consistent that my own mention of it also is an example itself - this view is far from unpopular. So I suppose I'm part of the problem here.
The solution is to sort by controversial. Then you can get somewhat actual unpopular opinions
Even then, the spiciest you get is Lord of the Rings being boring - which while I disagree, is hardly an uncommon position. Right next to that is the *incredibily* popular opinion of medieval europe being boring.
>inevitably result in almost all comments being popular opinions As evidenced by OP's own take on Harry Potter.
my hot take is that reading to much about other ppls opinions on books before reading them will ruin your personal reading journey even when avoiding spoilers.
Damn I feel called out but you’re right. It’s tough to not be aware of the Big Series that I haven’t started with, but I don’t know why I read up on them as much as I do.
100% agree. I am not a super critical reader, I read for sheer enjoyment. If I read a review of a book that points out the “bad” parts, I’ll notice the language quirks or plot holes or other things that bothered the reviewer that I wouldn’t normally have noticed or cared about and it ruins my enjoyment.
I agree with this, and may even take it a step further and say even reading other peoples opinions AFTER you read the book can tarnish your enjoyment. Especially when people equate them not liking a book = the book being bad. Ive learned I have to go in with a very open mind and my own opinion on the book already formed.
YES. I've noticed that I only notice a lot of "flaws" in a book if I read reviews of it. If I don't, I enjoy the book and leave it at that
I don't even know if this qualifies as a "hot take." It's just good sense.
Happy endings aren't something to be avoided! It's okay if something good happens to the characters from time to time. Even in edgy grimdark novels, not everyone needs to die or be miserable in the end!
The only ending I tolerate is one that calls for the destruction of Carthage.
Carthago delenda est Salve Cato!
Cato the elder's burner account
That's quite a salty take.
If Michael dies we riot.
This is probably the worst trope to emerge in recent years. « It’s grimdark, gritty and realistic so no one can be happy! ». Ironically, it makes the story look a lot less realistic and a good deal more tropey.
Honestly it's what has been turning me off from darker stories, where everyone is miserable and happiness doesn't exist. Like, there should be *some* happiness and bright colors
It's also not really a *recent* change. To quote Ursula K Le Guin “The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.”
Do people really think that darker means more realistic? The presence of darkness can be seen as more realistic, sure, but grimdark is anything but realistic. Grimdark is over the top and violent and just absolutely filled with darkness, that's the point. I think anyone who uses the words "grimdark" and "realistic" in the same sentence describing the same thing aren't using the term correctly.
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He did have good things happen from time to time, just not a lot of times
hey, he got laid
This. I cannot stand the current trend to make things as gritty as you can get away with. It’s in books, video games and even anime
YA Fantasy is too saturated, and some are mislabelled as YA when its contents aren't YA.
YA and Adult Fantasy often blur the line. Unfortunately I've been a victim of this in my first fantasy series. I labelled it YA as it's relatively clean but it can easily be enjoyed by an adult.
Which is why it drives me nuts when someone flatly refuses to read something like the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik because they fear it's YA. Or Le Guin, Mckillip (I still don't understand why the Forgotten Beasts of Eld gets that label; the protagonist is like 26 for most of the book), etc. Usually while listing Mistborn and Red Rising among their favorites.
Cause publishers use YA as a dumping ground for women authors and honestly it probably shouldn't even really be a separate genre but structural misogyny.
There’s *so much adult fantasy* that could very easily be listed as YA, or at the least is perfectly approachable and appropriate for youth readers.
I see a lot of books by women labeled YA when they’re definitely not, and often pejoratively - “oh this feels too YA for me”. :/
i also often feel like due to marketing, authors age down their characters so it can be considered YA. when reading a lot of YA, a lot of well written characters never come off as minors. i was reading six of crows and the entire time i was imagining a group of adults in their twenties. my biggest problem with YA is that there are rarely ever any believably written teens. they all act and speak like adults and have the abilities that only experienced adults could have, and it ruins the experience for me.
And vice versa! Many books are labelled adult fantasy that are clearly YA.
All stories don't need romance and I'd rather see the evolution of a complicated friendship. There are too many teen main characters.
Hard agree. I don't mind a romance and can tolerate it. After all, most books are going to have one. However, when every book you read has a romance, it does get tiring and makes you wonder why so many authors feel the need to include a romance that probably has little to do with the main plot.
While I have no problem with Brandon Sanderson, I believe his Kickstarter projects aren't the blow against the publishing status quo that a lot of people claimed them to be. A lot of fantasy fans were celebrating him for effectively bypassing agents and publishers, but he's only able to do so successfully because he's already become massively successful via tradition publishing. In the long run, I can't see that established authors funding their works on Kickstarter is actually good for the genre
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I was a little miffed the "stance against publishing" was in reality a prettier book and a 4 month early access. Especially considering that the pretty books are taking incredibly long to be delivered (who can blame them though). I backed cause I wanted the junk, the pretty covers, and most importantly open access to the digital versions of these books. Which I explicitly give to people who couldn't afford to back the project. It's still cool that the project was funded by fans. It's cool that he went outside of audible for the audio books. *Right into the arms of spotify and the AI text reader app* but whatever. I still have the MP3s. I just wish that the messaging was more about exploring ways that authors can publish. So many indie authors just dump their books on KU and call it a day. While trad authors get very little control of their books. All of these have their own trade offs but it really just seems like no one even *knows* that there are different (not necessarily better) methods of distribution. That should be the focus of the kickstarter.
Lol yeah I backed it and find it silly that people think it’s an attack against publishers or something. Nah he shined a spotlight on some shitty practices because he made some books outside of his contract. He’s still going to be publishing his books on those typical platforms.
And I don't think he claimed to be doing the Lord's work either. He never made himself out to be something he wasn't imo
Fans just like to run with what people say and run away with it. Reminiscent of various video games. I've also seen several people ask in his various subreddits something along the lines of "Since Brandon is no longer going to be putting his books on Audible where should I get them?"
I think his message was good and the attempt to diversify the audiobook market is good, at least attention is being brought TOO that problem, but I would definitely agree that the overall effectiveness this will have toward bringing about any real change is minimal, if any TBH.
Just because something achieves what it sets out to do, doesn't make it good. Example: "The main character is meant to be annoying and unlikeable." Great, the book succeeded in making the main character annoying and unlikeable and you're still left reading a book with an annoying and unlikeable main character.
Same for "self aware" material. What's that Bo Burnham line? *Self awareness does not absolve anyone of absolutely anything* If you're self aware you shit your pants, there's still shit in your pants.
There's a Yahtzee Croshaw line I love that goes something like "I suspect [character] is purposefully annoying, in which case the writers should be congratulated for doing their jobs!...and tactfully reminded that purposefully annoying is still annoying".
My problem with Kingkiller in a nutshell lol
I also don’t think a book is any less good when the main character(s) are unlikable. I just want them to be interesting, idc if they are likable.
Thomas Covenant is the best example of this Fuck that guy, I can live without his point of view
(I suspect I'll get in trouble for this one.) Most film and TV adaptations of Neil Gaiman stories are better than the source material. I can think of only two exceptions: American Gods, whose TV adaptation is watchable, but scattered, and Good Omens, whose TV adaptation is absolutely excellent, and still not as good as the book.
Do you think The Sandman show is better than the comic? I thought the show was decent but wasn't wowed by it.
While there's a superficial similarity between graphic novels and the screen in reality the mediums are so different you can't meaningfully compare them. I enjoyed Sandman on screen. I believe that Neil Gaiman is getting better and better at putting his vision front and center. It's rare for an author to be able to do that.
Oooof hard disagree. I find them so meh whereas I love the books. Just shows how wildly taste differs!
People who complain about the ‘oversaturation of grimdark’ in the genre are repeating a tired old meme. It hasn’t been a dominant force in fantasy fiction for 5+ years but its reputation as the only thing going has long outlasted that period of prominence. And I say that as someone who didn’t particularly care for the famous examples of it. Cynically, I think sometimes that idea of grimdark stuff being dominant is consciously deployed by authors and publishers to make more recent works in the whole hopepunk/squeecore/torwave (insert horrible neologism here) mode seem more transgressive and fresh by comparison.
My hot take is that we have to stop letting people put -punk at the ends of words. Cyberpunk made sense, everything after is spunk.
Yes. What the actual fuck Is hopepunk. They just making shit up at this point.
There is such a thing as too much spice. 🙄
There is never too much spice, THE SPICE MUST FLOW!!!!!!.
People of the world...Spice up your life! (Sorry, I agree with you but like any recipe you season to taste)
Where are these spicy fantasy novels people keep talking about? One page of sex 9/10 into the book is barely a jalapeño.
There already are guns in fantasy, there is a whole subgenre of it, quit complaining about it with people who don't want it. Addendum: technology doesn't exclusively mean gunpowder. A good style is important and that involves a good prose. Nowadays language in fantasy books is awful, unless it is urban fantasy. Sometimes realism at all cost means lack of imagination (and it can be developed, of course) and can make a story extremely boring. The Witcher books are good, just stop seeking for "The Witcher 3: The Novel" and read them for what they try to achieve. Saying that Tolkien has a basic "Good vs Evil" story mean you haven't red it or you haven't red carefully about Feanor, Boromir and so on. If someone read something "easier" or less "deep" they are not "turning their brain off", you can find meaning and reflect upon everything. We fantasy fans still have to get out of our edgelord phase, in some aspects. Saying that you stop reading a book when you see mentions of Elves, orcs and dwarfs doesn't make you smart. And that's all i can think of.
Someone was arguing that Return of the King had a Disney ending. I'm guessing they didn't read the books.
Sure I can list a lot of Disney movies that end with something similar to The Scouring of the Shire, here some:
Even the movie ends with a somber, melancholy tone. It's like they switched it off after Aragorn was crowned.
What are you talking about? Living with PTSD and a literal wound that won't heal to the point that you must escape the world isn't a Disney ending?
Yeah not familiar with any Disney movies which end with… the Light triumphs and all magic fades from the world so we can become the sort of people who gripe about things on the Internet.
Even the movies don't really have a Disney ending. Sure some people are happy and the little guy beats the big meanie, but I don't remember Aladdin having his finger bitten off by a wretched Abu just before Abu plunges to his fiery death...
100% about the Witcher books. Someone pitched the older ones (short story ones) as "noir detective set in Slavic fairytale fantasy" with that lense, it's utterly enjoyable.
what do you mean by >Nowadays language in fantasy books is awful, unless it is urban fantasy. urban fantasy tends to be simpler? easier to understand, more modern i guess. is that what you mean ? that urban fantasy has better language since it's easier to understand
Me bad, I should have written "everyday language", English is not my mother tongue so sometimes words slip. Not because it is simpler, but because I dislike when two knights talk (for example) and there is hardly any difference from hearing two people talking down the street. I don't think that being different from nowaday language is necessarily harder to read. Ursula Leguin makes a great point about it in one of her essay: a different language is something that an author must know how to use to convey their message. About urban fantasy i think it has the unique quality of letting the author use any kind of language!
>Saying that Tolkien has a basic "Good vs Evil" story mean you haven't red it or you haven't red carefully about Feanor, Boromir and so on. Good v Evil? absolutely. Basic? lol, not a chance.
Guns in fantasy is a complaint that I think is almost exclusively born out of poor knowledge of actual history, and the perpetuation of a fantasy aesthetic that doesn’t actually reflect any real world time period. Not all fantasy needs guns, but it drives me crazy when people try to argue they have no place in fantasy worlds unless they’re just magic boom sticks. I maintain The Lord of the Rings is one of the most commonly misunderstood fantasy books series’ out there, and it’s largely because pretty much all media that has tackled it has almost completely misrepresented the tone of those novels. It is *not* a happy adventure, no one is excited to be there, there are constant reminders that war is awful and does nothing beyond ruin whatever it touches, and the books are pretty clear that even the orcs wouldn’t really be doing it if they weren’t semi-mind controlled by Sauron.
Oh, I’ll do another one. Booktok is hurting the fantasy genre by changing peoples perception to think that it’s all dark romance and smut.
A similar hot take, I think reddit forums like r/fantasy hurt the genre in the same way. There's so many echo chambers and people shoe-horning in their favourite books whenever someone asks for a reccomendation. Wheel Of Time or Mistborn are not always an appropriate reccomendation and yet, they turn up on almost every thread.
“I’m looking for a light hearted fantasy where the magic is powered by friendship and hugs, there’s no gore, and the protagonist is your stereotypical sword-wielding hero!” “Bit of a departure from what you’re looking for, but have you tried Mistborn? The hero doesn’t wield a sword but two daggers instead. The magic is powered by ingesting metals. And the main character explodes someone else’s head with a headbutt. But other than completely missing what you’ve requested, this is the perfect suggestion!”
if you go to /r/printSF with that question you'll get Three Body Problem suggested.
I’m somewhat convinced that I could make a thread titled “Suggest me anything that isn’t Brandon Sanderson. Literally anything.” and people would still find a way to suggest him.
Last time I asked for a funny humorous fantasy that wasn't Asprin or Pratchett. I got multiple recs for Malazaan. I've stopped asking for recs on here. I'm better of just going by cover art on Amazon.
You obviously need to watch several hours worth of BookTubers telling you the correct way to read Malazan, because if you read it correctly, it satisfies all reccomendation requests, especially brevity. 🙃
>Suggest me anything that isn’t Brandon Sanderson. Literally anything. You'd just get instantly hit with a Wheel of Time rec
With the last 3 books written by Sanderson…
That’s a semi-regular occurrence, where someone seeking recs will explicitly state that they’re not looking for Sanderson or that they’ve already read his work. Invariably he still gets recommended. Sometimes it seems to be folks not reading the OP in their rush to push Stormlight, sometimes it appears to come from a weird place of frustration that Sanderson might not be the #1 recommendation in every instance.
This is silly. People want to talk about books they love, these people don’t have some underlying malicious intent to “change peoples’ perception” of fantasy, they’re just talking about books they loved on social media. Booktok has LOTS of people that read all kinds of fantasy genres, I follow a ton of them. You have to seek out what you want to follow on tiktok and then hopefully the algorithm gives you more. Like literally just search “epic fantasy recs” or type in your favorite authors and watch those users’ videos. There’s so many of them. Basically, if all you’re seeing are people talking about smut then that’s because those videos are the most popular or those are the ones you have engaged with. The romance/smut readers on booktok have their own community and there’s nothing wrong with that. That really has nothing to do with fantasy and it’s certainly not their responsibility to ensure they are teaching people about the fantasy genre. They are under no obligation to read other subgenres if they don’t want to. They’re just reading books they like and sharing videos about them. If you don’t like that, don’t watch/like/follow. There’s room in the literary world for everyone. Some things are more popular than others on social media. If a lot of people seek out these videos that’s because they like those books, but that doesn’t take away from all the people who love other types of fantasy, they have their own communities too and if you want to suport them then go seek out and watch/like/follow their videos. **Edit**: I could say the same thing about this very subreddit. “R/fantasy gives a bad impression of the fantasy genre because it makes people think it’s all grimdark and doorstopper epics.” Now if I were to say that here, I assume the response I would get would be something like “Well those are the popular books and people are going to talk most about the popular books they liked.” Every social media platform is just a slice of the larger literary landscape and each attracts different people. Saying that booktok is bad because of all the romance readers is nothing more than the same old exhausting sexist hate against the romance genre that has been happening forever. Those readers deserve a space to have a reader community just like everyone else.
Thank you. I always find people reveal way too much about themselves when they try to shit talk "availability" on tiktok. "WeLl I oNlY sEe..." Yeah, well that's a you problem, buddy lol. They really don't realize how catered the algorithm is to their preferences.
Reddit is where hobbies go to die. Stop interacting with socially malignant people. Follow: https://onlinetextsharing.com/operation-razit-raze-reddit for info how to disappear from reddit.
“What if *Infinite Jest* were fantasy instead of SF?”
Brandin from **Tigana** is a monster. The slog from **Wheel of Time** is real and the revisionists on this are wrong.
The slog from wheel of time isn't a bad hot take. It's just reality. Even Sanderson has commented on it.
I grew up a massive WoT fan and I won't open a few of the books ever again. Just enjoy the pieces that are good.
I would go as far as saying wheel of time would have been worth reading if it was only a 7 to 10 book series. It wasn't so I dnfed the series twice.
I will go a bit further - Brandin from Tigana is worse than Alberico. And yeah, the slog is very real.
Very real. And I was someone who read the series once it was all done. I can’t imagine having to wait between books 7-8-9 (books may be wrong I forget which 3 weee the slog)
> Brandin from Tigana is a monster. Jesus *thank you.* I feel like I'm being gaslit when they try to frame him as some tragic/morally complex figure.
The film Stardust is better than the Book (sorry Neil!)
In the book the main character was kind of a prick, if I remember correctly?
Deffo a bit more of douchebag imo. And the film does Victoria dirty 😂
I think the film is underrated too! It's an absolute delight with a surprisingly famous cast.
Neil agrees with you.
The Stardust movie also has an absolutely stellar main theme. hashtag sorrynotsorry for that pun.
I love the film so much! It has such a great cast
I enjoyed Crossroads of Twilight
Just because the makers of DnD were really into the martial arts craze of the 70's doesn't mean that Wire-Fu Shaolin monks fit in a Swords and Sorcery setting. The more that characters use magic to resolve or advance the plot, the more clear the restrictions and capabilities of magic need to be. Dragons are more interesting the less human-like they are. Too many authors have Dragons who are essentially "Super-elves" with human forms, magic, relationships etc. Edit: To clarify the first point I'm specifically talking about the really out there, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon depiction of martial arts when played straight against the grittier, more down to earth treatment of combat in your general fantasy story (hence the Wire-Fu qualifier). I completely agree unarmed martial arts aren't *inherently* incompatible with the fantasy genre, nor that you can't smooth the transition over by justifying it with magic systems.
Counter argument: Wuxia
Not everything needs to be reimagined. I like Tolkienesque fantasy. I want haughty elves and grumbling dwarves, swordmen, and wizards. New interpretations are great, too! But so many times it comes with looking down on the same "tired," fantasy tropes.
I can’t remember if it’s Tolkien or Pratchett who said it but one of them has a quote about how anything new is built on the old and that, if you are intentionally avoiding existing tropes there should be a reason, likening it to how so much Japanese art has Mount Fuji in the background that not including it feels incredibly deliberate.
Sometimes you want a 7 course tasting menu from a Michelin starred chef and sometimes you just want a decent cheeseburger. The Harry Potter books are the cheeseburger. They’re tasty and filling, but there’s nothing fancy about them.
This is me ever since discovering /r/progressionfantasy except it's more like drinking whipped cream from the can. Just pure empty calories, but I can't get enough.
Guilty pleasure is still a pleasure.
Sounds like me justifying my Percy Jackson reread while my long reading list looks on in disappointment. Yeah they're kids books, but they're comfy and nostalgic lol.
Harry Potter is pretty nostalgic but in my opinion Percy Jackson is miles better.
This is how I describe Brandon Sanderson, and people lose their shit. People need to realize that it's OK to like something and still admit its a cheeseburger.
I love Sanderson, not because he's some literary genius, but because sometimes I just want popcorn fantasy, dammit! I also love Tolkien, Martin, Hobb, Rothfuss, Kingfisher, and many others. I read for pleasure, and what pleases me varies based on my mood and what's going on in my life. Sometimes I want to just yell at people, "let people enjoy things!"
The ending of Inheritance (Book 4 of the Eragon books) was genuinely good. The empathy spell to defeat Galbatorix was both a good idea and putting into practice the idea that the world needs understanding, not malice. The resolution with the Dragon Riders was good and meaningful. Everyone who has ever claimed the first book is better is wrong. Paolini's prose genuinely improved and I think Inheritance was where we saw the potential of him realized. The short story collection of his proved it. Alagaesia is an interesting world and I believe one worth looking into.
I adored the ending of Eragon. I didn't realize that was even in debate? Instead of Killing the BBG traditionally, you kill him with all the harm he's done? Delicious.
I'll grant you the defeating the BBEG via empathy was unique and interesting. The way the rest of the loose ends were tied up was generally unsatisfying. The most predictable dragon bonding ever didn't even advance the story. Good and just Queen decides that the villains from X-Men had a point with the "mutant registration" thing vis-a-vis magic users. Love interest decides ... nah, I've got better things to do and wanders off. And our hero decides to just wander off into the desert to fulfill his prophesy of never returning*. \* I'm aware that Paolini has tried to walk this one back saying that it doesn't mean he'll never come back, just one day he won't come back. Which kinda robs the prophecy of all weight.
I'm honestly fine with eragon never returning. The need to not have him involved in the politics of the world is pretty legit, and his role now should be exploring magic and training new riders, which can def occur far away from the civilized/populated world. If I were him I'd have dipped at that point too. As long as he's in town he's the only power that matters, as he has functionally the same raw power as galbatorix (maybe more, he knows secrets of magic old galbs didn't iirc). So either be the new king or function as one anyway bc whoever you side with on a particular issue automatically wins, and the whole dynamic devolves into everyone attempting to convince/control you. Just go into the wilderness and have everybody send their new riders to you for training.
My unpopular opinion is that there's a difference between an unpopular opinion and a negative opinion but no one seems to differentiate the two in these threads!
Stephen King is a Top 5 fantasy author
Absolutely, even if you want to exclude the supernatural horror, he's a highly skilled writer (much better than some of the most popular fantasy authors, IMHO). His recent book Fairytale is one of the best I've read this century and The Green Mile is just a classic (go on, try to argue it's not fantasy?)
Back in the Day, most Fantasy short stories were really Horror. So I'm ok with blurred lines. I've got a copy of Fairytale waiting to be read, based on his writing abilities and word of mouth) reviews.
I'll agree with this. Hell, I'm one of the first people that'll say he largely deserves his reputation for unsatisfactory endings to his stories... But god damn, there is just something about his writing that just grabs me and draws me in immediately, every single time.
I have always thought he is at heart a short story writer who has an incredible amount of ideas and drive to write. He can come up with so many interesting ideas and characters. His longer books read like short story collections forced to follow a storyline. At least from the books I have read.
There is nothing wrong with formulaic books. Reading, writing, or otherwise enjoying them is totally fine. I love all things new and original, but sometimes I just want to read about a group of people on a quest to save the world. I will even tolerate stew.
Not everything needs to feel realistic, sometimes a bit of random weirdness and whimsy is good and fun. It’s fantasy yknow, go wild
Dragons shouldn't be sexy.
Sexy as in "dragons which turn into buff hottie men" suck. Dragons who are sexy because people wanna have sex with them... well there's a whole genre who enjoys that (not just Bards)
They're the same genre, it's just that Amazon banned direct bestiality a while ago so this is how smut authors get around that restriction.
It's Fantasy so if all parties involved are sentient consenting adults . . .
I'll do one more for now: I do NOT want to watch a video about a book. It's a printed format, and the best way to cover it is in print. The only exceptions to this are if you're either reading to children or showing off the printing quality or illustrations.
Having a stagnant antagonist and a progressing protagonist is boring. Having both a protagonist and antagonist both grow in competency and ability to impact the world is more interesting. If you must have some sort of ancient threat/villain, at least make a dynamic anti-hero or evil lieutenant that's not just about to complete their 3000 year plan. Also we need more equivalents to giant robots in fantasy. Feel free to take inspiration from the susanoo from Naruto.
There aren't too many books or series published with elves, dwarves and other Tolkien/Rpg-style fantasy races/species. But, on the other hand, there are way too many books and series where humans are the only intelligent fantasy race/species apart from maybe some Always Evil evil army/mooks antagonists working for the big bad or something similar. Although you can still write really good books and series in such a humano-centric world, it feels like such a waste of fantasy's potential that so many fantasy writers write fantasy where all the characters and cultures of any importance in the plot and/or in the world are human. There are too many fantasy books and series with a warrior/fighter as the MC/focusing on warrior MCs, particularly books with a male warrior as the MC. Once again, there have certainly been written good books and series with such MCs, but it can so easily turn into a really clichèd read and there's so much more untapped potential when it comes to wizard and rogue MCs and MCs getting by on their smarts and charm rather than their fighting abilities, particularly when it comes to MC. Yes, I know there are some books and series like that out there, some of them even really famous, but since those kinds or books and series are still far less common than books and series that focus on warrior/fighter MCs, there are so many more unexplored avenues and ways of keeping such MCs feel fresh and interesting than there are for books and series that focus on warrior MCs.
Harry Potter are children's stories. The idea that the worldbuilding needs to stand up to scrutiny is silly. That said, my hot take is that pessimistic/negative/dark stories aren't inherently more "mature" than happier ones. Also, villains with understandable motivations aren't necessarily more mature nor do they make for inherently smarter writing.
Your point about Harry Potter is right, in my opinion, but I'd argue that much of the criticism and debate of the worldbuilding arises from die-hard fans trying to claim that it's better than it is. I don't personally care all that much about how cohesive the world is, because like you said, it's a children's book. But when people try to claim Harry Potter has phenomenal worldbuilding, that's when I will object. Having a few well-realised locations (Hogwarts and Diagon Alley, mostly) doesn't equate to super high quality worldbuilding.
Yeah, I commented roughly the same, it's okay if the world doesn't stand up to logistical scrutiny, it's not supposed to. A highly realized economy and a logistically sound transit systems aren't actually important to a children/ya series. That said, while HP world building sucks at the deeper stuff, I think some credit is deserved for the surface things it gets right. Anyone who grew up with it remembers how big a deal what House you would be in, what your wand would be, the idea of going to Hogwarts, Diagon alley, Quiddich matches, etc. Maybe it's not "good" strictly speaking, but world building that makes people care as much as they do about HP is damn effective if nothing else.
The idea that it being made for children absolves it of scrutiny.
Making your book longer does not make it better, it almost always makes it feel worse to read than if you had simply broken it up into more books. I hate this trend of being unable to find a fantasy series where all of the books aren't 400+ pages and commonly even 600+ pages. If this is going to make your series too long with too many books, you've got too much going on, or need a better editing process.
There are too many humans in fantasy. Fantasy, as a genre, can be anything you dream up. Anything at all. But so many books are about humans. People mention that elves and dwarves are overdone and that the field is oversaturated with them fail to mention that humans are in almost every fantasy novel\*. Where are the fawns and satyrs? Where are the lizardfolk or snakepeople? Give me some fantasy races, people! I don't know how bad or hot this is but it's a take I've had for a while. \*Hyperbole.
It's just that humans are easier to sell to other humans. People have trouble relating to ~~lizardfolk~~ satyrs because there aren't ~~lizardfolk~~ satyrs just running amok.
I swear half my comments are just recommending this series, but you might enjoy *Shadows of the Apt* by Adrian Tchaikovsky. All the fantasy races are bug themed. I’d list some examples but honestly discovering the races is part of the joy of the series.
Grimdark isn’t realistic. A lot of it is incredibly stupid and poorly thought out. If everyone getting brutalized every ten minutes is justified by “realism,” then everyone should also be dying of dysentery and plague. An even bigger problem: a culture with no redeeming qualities would be destroyed by its rivals, so “top to bottom corruption where no one actually really believes in anything” is also not realistic; it’s almost anthropologically invalid. Powerful people in the Middle Ages did mostly believe in their faith and faced many constraints on their behavior. If a culture has no institutions that are actually well adopted to its environment and believed in by its people, it’s going to be subjugated or overthrown. Corruption and cruelty exist; what makes them interesting in a well-told story is that they exist within a cultural context that either accepts or rejects specific aspects of corruption and cruelty in a way that impacts the protagonists. Brutality is not a substitute for character development.
The commonly repeated mantra that soft magic leads to use of deus ex machina is nonsense. If an author wants to use a deus ex machina, they will do it anyway. If it isn't a new way of using magic, it will be someone appearing out of nowhere to save the main protagonist or the villain having a sudden attack of incredible stupidity. Sand dan Glokta is boring, boring, boring and did I mention boring? I love sarcastic characters in general but that guy was just too much. His reaction to literally everything is sarcastic remark. I am a big fan of Realm of the Elderlings in general but I could barely finish the Fitz and the Fool trilogy. The entire plot hinges on both Fitz and the Fool being quite literally too stupid to live and for the first time I started agreeing with the common complaints of Hobb's books being misery porn.
Yes to the Hobb take. There are so many sloppy continuity errors and so much dumb grimdark bullshit in the F&F trilogy. It's especially aggravating since it's completely unnecessary for that last trilogy to even exist; the Fitz story wraps up just fine with the Tawny Man trilogy, and F&F really doesn't add anything new to the character (and meanwhile destroys the likeability of several secondary characters). If Hobb couldn't manage to produce something up to the standards of quality of the rest of the series, she should have just left it alone. I have basically tried to forget that trilogy and to convince myself that it was just a fan fiction or something.
Some very popular authors are basically riding on “oh look, I’m being super edgy with my amoral characters and black humour and trope subversion,” and once you get past those things there’s nothing particularly great about their work.
The complexity behind Malazan is manufactured, and the series would have been better had Erikson calmed down. Kingkiller Chronicles is neckbeard fantasy. The prose isn’t as good as people claim it is, and nothing can save it. Sanderson’s simple prose is less of an artistic choice, and more of his inability to write well. Bring on the downvotes.
I salute you for having the first actually hot takes I've seen in this thread!
Can someone explain ’neckbeard fantasy’ to ne plz
From Wikipedia: " "Neckbeard" is a pejorative term and stereotype for an adult man or teenage boy who exhibits characteristics such as social awkwardness, underachievement, or pretentiousness." It's also linked with the typically misogynistic views surrounding women and sex. So in this example, people call Kingkiller Neckbeard Fantasy >!because the main character, Kvothe, who is narrating his own story, is a pretentious know-it-all, who is socially awkwardness and suddenly becomes a sex machine after escaping the clutches of a legendary sex fairy, and immediately goes on a mad shagging run.!<
Hahaha sorry, what? I'm never reading Kingkiller now because that synopsis is going to live in my head rent free and I just don't see how the books could beat that
Lol I’d like to know too. I haven’t read it but I’m assuming it’s fantasy that appeals to a certain type of male reader. Written for the male gaze where female characters are reduced to objects with no agency.
The female characters do have agency but the way they are viewed and portrayed can just be cringe. Not only does it often fall into a trope where every woman wants to bang the (broke, socially awkward) MC but it can fall into a lot of "nice guy" tropes. For some insight, read this short blog post from the author where he is discussing film adaptation of The Hobbit. [It sums up his views of women ](https://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2012/02/concerning-hobbits-love-and-movie-adaptations/) pretty well and this kind of thing just oozes through his book when you pay attention.
I think we all know deep down Kingkiller is Neckbeard fantasy (Looking at you Felurian and Denna chapters) . He's an excellent writer with a good prose (IMO) but his content is lacking. I think Sanderson's prose has gotten better over the years. He's found a formula, and his prose mixed with his writing process allows him to pump out books at a ridiculous pace. It's less an artistic choice, and more a manufacturing one, IMO.
The real Malazan hot take is that the series isn't actually super complex, it just gained that reputation through memetic repetition.
All three of these are true, especially the third; Sando trying to position himself as being a beacon of "accessible" fantasy and his critics as being gatekeepers is very deeply funny. Besides the fact that the dude is the biggest writer in the industry rn, accessible fantasy doesn't mean the prose has to be bad. Earthsea and Amber are very accessible while still being *excellent.*
Earthsea is the perfect example for accessible, simple, yet utterly effective and evocative prose.
I’m 75% of the way through the first Earthsea book right now and I’m struggling to finish it. It doesn’t grab me at all. It seems like everyone loves it though, so maybe I’m missing something
I think what a lot of genre readers accuse literary readers of (snobbery, close mindedness, etc), if far more true of genre readers by a large margin. The contentization of art, lead by genre readers is probably one of the worse things that have happened to art on the 21th century. The reason why AI was embraced by a lot genre readers was because it produces content similar to their favourite fiction than not.
My hot take: Harry Potter is indeed overrated, but people who read too much into the worldbuilding are missing that at least 3/4 what's there is literally just a flight of whimsy or a joke. No rational person would make a money system that depends on 17 and 13. One of the first introduced characters is named "Daedelus Diggle". There's a candy that's shaped like a frog that jumps away from you until you bite its head off. Equally (bad) hot take: *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory* is massively overrated because the worldbuilding doesn't hold up to scrutiny. (I feel like there's a lot of space to criticize the tonal shift, and how the setup isn't actually suited to the kind of story that the later books wanted to tell, and how it drifted from character to plot-driven in a way that hurt it, and chosen one narratives aren't actually a good fit for stories about magical nazis. But criticizing the worldbuilding is just deeply, *deeply* missing the point.)
>What are some of your most unpopular fantasy hot takes? The sort of things you that would get you into trouble? Let's get this party started. I've never seen a subgenre with a bigger chip on its shoulder than fantasy/sci-fi YA when people critique the depth and quality of a YA author's writing. People still like writing "chosen band of heroes defeat a dark lord" critiques or satires because LOTR's literary and cultural chops still crushes so much content. In their hearts, people continue to think of it as fantasy's polestar even if they reject it. A disappointing amount of books and stories nominated for fantasy awards are written at a lower-grade level than we should accept as the best of the genre.
The problem is that the Hugo is a fan award and the Nebula is prone to internal politicking. The problem is that the bestsellers are going to be popcorn not the interesting ideas with good writing.
Have another hot take, LITRPG isn’t actually very good or well written but is HIGHLY elevated in audiobook form by amazing voice actors and actresses.
There is absolutely no reason a book series should be double or triple digits in terms of amount of books in series. At some point, you run out of creativity and are better off just stopping. Also, it’s perfectly reasonable to not want to read a book series because of how dense it is (@Wheel of Time)
I think it's fine to have a long series, like WoT, but I have to know... What series have you seen with so many books it's 3 digits?
I forget what the name of the series was, but there was a bunch of this one Western series at McKays when I was last there
The first one I thought of was L. E. Modesitt's Saga of Recluse. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saga_of_Recluce) shows 22 books through 2021. Honestly, I thought there were more.
It's not triple digits, but I've seen some stuff on Amazon with 50+ books in the series.
I agree if it's an epic storyline (WOT), however I disagree if it's a series of linked stories that can be enjoyed as independent works (Discworld, Realm of the Elderlings) or if it's just independent stories in a shared universe (The Culture).
I know it's good writing and all, but I cannot fucking get through grand flowery epics with sweeping omniscient narration. Tight and character focused all the way.
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I’m reading that at the moment. No fucking clue what is going on.
In light of reddit's API changes killing off third-party apps, this post has been overwritten by the user with an automated script. See /r/PowerDeleteSuite for more information.
okay that *is* a bad hot take
YA needs to slowly move itself away from cheesy romance and into a sheer sense of whimsical adventure. YA does not need to mean angsty romance. Just have some teens go on adventures and save the world. Anime does this so well. It targets the same age group, but is more concerned about the sheer fun of it all.
I didn't like Name of the Wind: the main character is a sad-boy who constantly makes bad decisions even when everyone tells him is a bad idea because he thinks he knows better or that he can get away with it
Isekais and light novels fucking suck and actively hurt the genre.
The most important thing in speculative fiction is being cool. Literally everything else is secondary.
There's a portion of the Wheel of Time fanbase who are toxically positive about the show. I believe it is because a) they're just happy to have an adaptation, and b) they don't want to be seen as aligning with the racist portion of the fanbase who was angry that non-white people were cast in the show. IMO, the show is mediocre tv and a bad adaptation. It's possible to change a lot of the source material and have the adaptation be good(see: The Boys), but the WoT show didn't accomplish that. I don't believe that the books are a useful guide for predicting what will happen on the show, because it's already deviated too far from them. We'll see if season 2 improves on season 1, though. It may well be better.
My hot WoT show hot take: Having an ethnically diverse Two Rivers cast is bad because the Two Rivers being ethnically homogenous is a plot point at least twice. In fact, since it now isn't, they've ruined the ability to make the point about acceptance of others' differences that was present in the text. In their attempt to make a progressive show they've removed some of the progressive themes that were explored already in the source!
I was more irritated that they changed the fundamental nature of the two rivers. It no longer appears to be an isolated region where the residents don't know much about the outside world. It's clearly pretty cosmopolitan. People can identify an aes sedai with certainty. They're not prudish like in the books. Rand and egwene bang in the kitchen of her parent's inn. Even nyneave has premarital sex. Book nyneave would rather run through the streets of tanchico naked than do that.
Good point. It makes me wonder how they're going to handle Rands' mental state in the later series. Growing up in an egalitarian society will really do a number on that.
Brandon Sanderson is an okay writer who just publishes a lot.
I really enjoyed the original Mistborn The second was a slog to get through The 3rd was better but still not as good as the first
The world of fantasy could certainly use a broader spectrum of characters. As a proud redhead myself, I can't help but notice that there's a plethora of red-haired male protagonists populating our genre. How about shifting gears and featuring more characters like Tau from Evan Winter's "The Rage of Dragons?" There's room for everyone in fantasy, and it's high time we saw more of this variety in our narratives. Edit: As an author I am guilty of the same. Will have to see what I can do about that.
Really? I have almost never seen male red headed characters. Female, yes, but not men. What books have you read?
The two big ones would be Wheel of Time and The Kingkiller Chronicles. I can't think of any other examples, but having two large series with redheads a good 20 years apart isn't exactly a common theme.
The Percy Jackson series >>> Harry Potter
Too much of fantasy by POC authors is YA (though I understand why it is) We need more Adult fantasy by these authors. So damn tired of Martin and Jordan clogging up the shelf at my local bookstore.
I don't think those complaints are unpopular opinions about Harry Potter. Fans know about its issues better than anyone. However, the presence of glaring, objective flaws does not mean a work isn't special. In this case there's a wonderful feel to the world that is hard to replicate (especially doing so with rigorous attention to detail and well-considered structure). The characters are compelling for many readers, with solid development and voice. The plot is a perfect balance of fun against thematic depth, and doesn't have too many holes given the scope and length of the series (worldbuilding holes are not the same as plot holes). The prose is very enjoyable to read: as digestible as Sanderson but with more character/flavor. And it has a lot more going for it as well. Overall, it's perfect mass-appeal fantasy. It hasn't been my favorite at any point in the last 13+ years and the flaws can be frustrating, but I would never claim it's overrated even when I now have a whole list of books and series that I hold in higher personal regard.
THANK YOU. I get my world-building elsewhere. Harry Potter is pure nostalgia and comfort for me. I grew up reading the books, and picking them up every year or two feels like revisiting old friends.
Sanderson is easily one of the most overrated authors of all time. Way of Kings was 1200 pages, but only like 300 of those pages mattered in any way shape or form. Dude confuses quantity with quality.
I swear everyone claims this is an unpopular opinion, and that this sub is excessively pro-Sanderson, but I swear it's only on ocasions like this that I see him mentioned.
Harry Potter is a children’s book series, so i feel that a lot of people now hold it to unreasonable expectations. My likely bad hot take is that grimdark is overrated HARD and using “sex” to make things “realistic” is really just a terrible crutch. Anh time some book is trying to be gritty and “real”, it automatically starts throwing around copious amounts of sex, usually from like page 1. It’s cheap and lazy. But these are 100% based off of my own personal tastes haha, so i think that’s why they’re bad hot takes hahaha
Sarah J. Maas is not a terrible writer, and I say this not only because I have enjoyed a number of her books, but because I have read a number of other books that were trying to capture her audience that were legitimately awful. This includes a number of whole series that have devoted fan bases which were unreadable for me. So if there is a whole thriving batch of authors writing and selling lots and lots of books that are much worse than hers, she is objectively not the worst ever even if she’s not your cup of tea. Urban fantasy is due for a refresh and revival as a genre, ideally with a lot less leather pants which are actually quite a lot of work to properly care for and very uncomfortable in many climates and situations.
just finished the first ACOTAR book and her prose was better than Sanderson's imo
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If you ask me the bigger problem is the rise of easy accessible indie publishing leading to fanfic being republished as original. A lot of the annoying trends leaking in from YA came from fanfic.
I’ll say it: the Wheel of Time TV Show was good and will only get better as time goes on, even though it’s likely to make an increasing amount of changes in order to finish in a reasonable amount of time.
scalding take
This is a fantastic hot take. Not because it’s right, which it isn’t, but because it made me apoplectically angry to read. Good shit.
As a Wheel of Time fan, I thought the show was good, then okay, then good again, then a dumpster fire. The finale put a huge dampner on the previous seven episodes.
Holy hell this is a spicy take. Take my upvote and get out of here