Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Books => Topic started by: Eagle Prince on December 28, 2003, 03:29:01 PM
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Anyone read the Elric novels? How would you compare the two new ones (dreamthief's daughter and skrayling tree) to the older ones? I really like dreamthief's daughter but skrayling tree was a little lacking, although I really liked White Crow with his spear version of Stormbringer and his pet mammoth.
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Boy, it's been a while...a LONG while...since I read Elric. I remember liking them, though. Fell, didn't you just read the series? In fact, didn't you borrow some of my Elric books, and are now planning on absconding with them to Logan?
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Lol, and the older Elric books are hard to get since they are out of print. The only reason I got them is White Wolf republished them, but those are now out of print as well. You can still easily get the two new Elric novels though.
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my friend Steve's got all of them as well as most of the eternal warrior series wich Elric is just one part of.
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Awesome, so have you read them? The only other Eternal Champion novels I have are Corum's, although occationally they do pop up in different stories, like Sailor on the Seas of Fate. The reverse is also true, sometimes Elric pops up in stories of the other incarnations of the Eternal Champion. Then of course there's all the different versions of himself he runs into, ie White Crow, Ulric, etc.
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I read one and a half of the Elric books, which is surprisingly little given how long they are. I blame Nanowrimo, which popped up right in the middle of the second one and stole all of my attention. On the plus side, Elric certainly influenced my writing. I really enjoyed the books, and would love to go back and finish them.
And though EUOL and I talked about me borrowing his books, I didn't actually take any of them.
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I seem to recall that I didn't own as many of them as I thought I did.
I blame this on you traveling back in time and stealing them from me when I was in high school.
On the up side, the B. Dalton's in Idaho was going out of business (I don't know if it's local or nation-wide) and was selling its books at 40% off. They also let me use my discount card to get another 10% off. So, you know what that means.
Yeah. I bought some books. A LOT of books.
In other news, I'm going to be teaching Dune in my creative writing class this semester. Anyone up for an Evil Storytime classics? I think discussion of the book here would help me come up with things to talk about in class.
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I saw that you were using Dune for your class. My question is why Dune? It's a good book and all, but it could have been written more clearly. I seem to remember doing a lot of page flipping and referencing when I read it. It just doesn't seem like a good standard for marketable fiction. Course, it does mix science fiction and fantasy well.
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In the Book of Vile Darkness, it defines Elric as evil. It actually calls him an antihero, although I'm not sure he qualifies as an antihero in the strick definition of the term. But basically it says that he does good things, but uses evil methods to achieve them and that's why he is evil. So I was thinking about that, and its actually pretty true of his character. And actually, not all of his goals are good-hearted, maybe about half of them.
One scene from the first book, "Elric of Melnibone" specifically in chapter five "a battle: the king proves his war-skill" is a good example. Elric's couson, Yyrkoon, has uses his sorcery to call in a mist to hide their ships from an invading fleet of the Young Kingdoms. After the battle starts, Elric boards one of the enemy ships and duels the captain. They begin to talk, Elric actually seems interested in what the man has to say, then abruptly he shoves his sword up under the captain's breastplate and kills him. He basically used the conversation as a bluff to sneak attack the man. Its pretty sinister, and typical of the tricks Elric often employs.
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These aren't exactly classics, but have you ever read the Coldfire Trilogy by C.S. Friedman? I think they were first published in 91, 93, and 96. There are two main characters, and the second is evil the same way Elric is. Evil, but occationally does good things. Just cause we're talking about evil characters.
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I'd love to do Dune--that's one of my all-time favorites. The writing is not especially tight, but neither is that of LotR: the authors know their world much better than the readers, and don't always take the time to explain it as they go.
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EP: I read coldfire book one, and I own book two, but never got around to reading it. I remember liking the first one--and they have fantastic Whelan covers--but it wasn't a 'must read the second' book.
42: Actually, I think Dune is a very good standard of marketable fiction. It was the Amazon.com top science-fiction book of the century, and still sells very, very well. I think it is very well written. I chose it for several reasons.
1) It wasn't Ender's Game or LOTR, which I think have both been over-done in classes I've taken recently.
2) As you said, it is an excellent mix of SF and Fantasy.
3) It incorporates everything I want to talk about with my class: Worldbuilding (something Ender's Game doesn't do,) Magic, SF elements (something LOTR doesn't do,) and the hero archetype. It has both action and political plotting, it has a good mix of male and female characters, and it does some interesting things with viewpoint. (It's one of the few books that really pulls of a good Third Person Omniscient.)
Yes, there are books I like more than DUNE. However, for a 'catch all' SF/F book, I think it's one of the best.
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Yeah, I didn't have a problem following Dune.
To further tangetilize this thread, I've always planned an "Epic SFF" class I'd like to teach some day.
I would have the students read:
The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings
Dune (possible a couple of sequels)
I would also have them watch the movie versions of Dune (both the "Sting" one and the mini series? not sure), and LotR, as well as Star Wars
Also, in a controversial mood, and because I'm sadistic, I would probably force them to watch the 5 original Planet of the Apes movies, possibly be really cruel and watch the more recent one. Also, read the Peter Boule book they were all based on (though the book itself isn't epic).
That ammounts to between 5 and 7 novels, and over 35 hours of film for one semester. I'm a harsh taskmaster.
I've also fantasized a comic book class, which would be STRICTLY comic book, and possibly some nonfic on comic books. Required reading would be Scott McCloud ("Understanding Comics" and "Reinventing Comics") and Will Eisner ("Comics and Sequential Art," "Graphic Storytelling...," and "The Last Knight"). "Maus" by Spiegelman, Moore and GIbbons Watchmen, Ross and Wade's "Kingdom Come," and probably Cerebus book 1. Lastly, probably a calvin and HObbes collection, I'm not sure which.
And lately, I've considered a Superhero class, with only sketchy ideas. I know we'd be reading some essential superman stories. we'd look at issues of continuity. We'd watch at least the first two superman movies, as well as some episodes of Smallville. I'd focus so much on Supes just because it's one character, probably THE archetypal superhero, so the different ways he was treated can be examined. I'm also thinking of including some mythology in the mix, something like Beowulf, who I think is the most like Superman in the mythology I know, but I think that Greek mythological references need to be acknowledged too.
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Seven books isn't too much to demand from a class. However, 'epics' are going to be longer than normal. Still, I think you'd be okay.
I've found that if you do a book in shorter than about two weeks in a lit class, you don't give it enough time. With fourteen weeks in a semester, seven books is very doable.
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Fell, I'm surprised that you think the writing in LotR isn't tight. I'm sure prof. Tolkien is turning over in his grave over that. Tolkien is probably the most accomplished English professor ever, next to C.S. Lewis. Also, British editors considered it blasphemous to edit Tolkien. Sure, he doesn't explain everything, but that gives it a exotic feel.
I find that Dune ws hard to follow because I couldn't quite get a fix on everyone's motives and attitudes. I know they are there, but they just don't seem to have a lot of reasoning behind them, especially for a book that spends so much time in the minds of characters.
I guess that I would choose something more contemporary if I were teaching a creative writing class. From my training as an art ed person, I've been brain-washed into believing that students should be involved with creating current art, along with recreating "artifacts" from the past decade or so.
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Tolkien's academic accomplishments aside, EUOL has a point. why do the elves go to the undying lands? ok, yah, we do know that, but do we know it from the info in LotR? no, we don't. There is a LOT of information like that. Information that motivates entire nations of characters, that is not entirely clear in the book itself. You either have to read the appendices or the other books (most of which Tolkien himself never published).
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The Bible is the same way.
As to why the elves leave Middle Earth for the Undying lands. That is something really trivial to the story of LotRs. It doesn't really involve any of the main characters or the main plot line.
In Dune there are things like the Bene Geserat that are only explained in the appendices. Not once does Herbert actually mention clearly the purpose of the Bene Geserets in the story itself and they are a major plot element. If the reader doesn't check the appendices then he or she is only left to infer what they might be up to. And Lady Jessica is just confusing without reading the appendices.
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The Bible is the same way.
...and....
As to why the elves leave Middle Earth for the Undying lands. That is something really trivial to the story of LotRs.
I don't even know WHERE to start refuting that. Why were the elves reluctant to participate in the wars? Why were they there in the first place? etc etc. There's a LOT that this impacted. This singular fact explains the motivations and personality of several important characters and thousands of unnamed characters. It is an intimate and important part of hte setting. "trivial" it is not.
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The 'problem' with Tolkien (and it's not really a problem, but it *is* the thing we're discussing here) is that he didn't write LOTR to be a story. Or, at least, the story wasn't his primary motivation (or so I've been led to understand.) To him, the world--and especially the language--was the focus of the book. With that in mind, it probably didn't really matter to him whether LOTR was self-contained, or if people understood why the elves went to the Undying lands, or any of that sort of thing. These are plotting elements which had no specific relevance--he was writing a history of a world that never existed, not a story specifically meant to entertain.
Every 'problem' I have with Tolkien comes from this idea. I don't like that so many of the characters feel flat (everyone but the hobbit ring trio.) By 'flat,' I mean that they lacked internal, personal conflicts. In Tolkien's mind, however, these things not only weren't important--they had already been resolved. There was no need for Aragorn to brood over whether he should become king or not. I think Jackson correctly added some of these character conflicts when he made the movies. But, it wasn’t really a problem in the original--the thing is, you just can’t do everything. There isn’t enough space in a book format. One couldn’t have all of the Tolkien setting *and* all of the character drama, otherwise the book would be far too slow and the plot would suffer. Tolkien did what he did very well--better than anyone else ever has--but what he did is not currently what I want to teach my students.
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And on the other hand we have Elric, he's all about internal conflict.
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I can agree with EUOL for the most part. Robert Jordan has tried to include everything in his Wheel of Time books and they have dragged on for far too long.
I feel that Tolkien does a great job of selectively choosing what to show his audience and what to leave out. Personally, I don't find the elves to be that important in the LotR, though they are extremely important in the Sirimilion and the appendencies.
My issue with using Dune in your class isn't that it's not a good book. It is more that it's not a current book. It was published in 1965. Before you were born and in all likelyhood before any of your students were born. It reflects a lot of ideas that are prevelant in the 1960's, but some of them are just not as credible today.
Since you are trying to teach your students to be publishable they really need to take a hard look at what has been published in the last decade or so. Not that they should ignore older works, they just need to come up to speed with their contemporaries. Herbert, Asimov and Tolkien aren't competing in the market anymore. They died and every year their books will sell about as well as they did the year before. Who new writers are competing with are the likes of Terry Pratchet, J. K. Rawlings, Robert Jorden, and George R. R. Martin. The new writers are also changing the market and influencing what ideas the publishers are looking to buy.
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But I'd rather never get published then be forced to write like Robert Jordan.
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Ah, and I guess this is where we disagree. I think DUNE is where the market is going right now. Not where SF is going, true, buy exactly where Fantasy is going. DUNE is very similar to GAME OF THRONES in plotting and style. I think Herbert anticipated the fantasy market.
In addition, as I noted before, my purpose in reading from a lit book in my creative writing class is so that I can give the students examples of good writing. DUNE does this, in my opinion. We'll look at current market trends, of course, but for that they'll be reading off of Scifiction.
Though, you do have a point in the fact that Herbert is no longer around. He anticipated the market, but he isn't strictly of the market right now. However, I'm at a loss to decide who I would do instead. Martin and Goodkind have too much explicit material for a BYU class. Farland and Card were done in the SF lit class last semester. Hobb and Moorcock are too outside the mainstream. Brooks is just plain untalented. Everyone else falls into the same 'out-dated market' idea.
That only leaves Jordan-- in my place, would you do EYE OF THE WORLD instead of DUNE?
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For what you're talking about, Eye of the World beats out Dune easily. Sorry, but even I have to admit that.
Btw, so nobody has read either of the two new Elric novels? :'(
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Dune... is a pretty good book. I think. TBH, all i can remember is the sting film, which i love.
And goodkinds explicit material is annoying me.
And i have never, to my knowledge, even set eyes on an elric book.
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I think that if you could get your students to write a book similar to Dune, they would be published remarkably quickly--not similar in story or world, but similar in style and quality of writing. It's an excellent book, no matter how old it is, and I think it's a great bok to teach your class.
As for my dissing of Tolkien, I ask you to please not canonize the man. Just because his book is arguably the best book of the century (and I believe that it is) doesn't mean that it couldn't have been improved by some judicious cuts and additions. His female characters are underdeveloped. Every major battle is resolved by a deus ex machina (the only one that isn't is the Ents at Isengard, which is mentioned in flashback rather than recounted directly). His introductory section is incredibly huge while much of the middle stuff is too short. That's not "tight" writing, and I don't think many editors today would let him get away with it.
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I'm not argueing that Robert Jordan is by any means better than Frank Herbert. He frankly is not. However, Jordan is still alive and Herbert is dead.
And Fell, LotR was tightly written, when it was written. Remember that it came out well before the feminist movement, so it has amazingly developed women compared to what was being written at the time. So your only argument is that it is outdated and that can be said about every book ever written just about as soon as it leaves the printers.
I wouldn't say that Frank Herbert anticipated the market either. He was trendy once and now he's trendy again. Successful books do that.
I don't disagree with you using Dune as an example, you just need a healthy amount of contemporary fiction mixed in or your students will simply start doing what has been done before.
Not mixing in contemporaries is why BYU has so darn many abstract expressionist and minimalist shows. Both of which have been dead for over twenty years and show no signs of returning in the younger generation.
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Eye of the World, had to FORCE myself to read 100 pages. Nearly burned the book in a campfire as a result.
Dune: read over the course of about 12 hours. It pleased me.
I just can't agree with you, 42. just because the most recent political manifestation of the feminist movement hadn't expressed itself when Tolkien was writing doesn't justify weak female characters. There were plenty of strong female characters before that -- even in the myths that he grounded his stories in, and Tolkien almost certainly considered women human enough. Plus that argument doesn't even come close to the other complaints. Face it, there are problems with the books. We all love it, but that doesn't make it perfect.
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And you people think I'm the cynical one!
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And you people think I'm the cynical one!
yes. Yes we do. But that's why we keep you around
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I have been so mislabeled.
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/me pats 42's shoulder consolingly
"sure you have. We all have."
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I don't disagree with you using Dune as an example, you just need a healthy amount of contemporary fiction mixed in or your students will simply start doing what has been done before.
You probably have a point there. For a time, I was considering using stories from the scifiction 'classics' section, but I think I'll go for more contemporary works.
Not mixing in contemporaries is why BYU has so darn many abstract expressionist and minimalist shows. Both of which have been dead for over twenty years and show no signs of returning in the younger generation.
To be honest, however, BYU is a conservative school. In addition, literature study is generally a conservative field. My picking a 60's book to study would actually be thought of as doing something very recent in the lit field.
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Okay, on this same note, I just discovered that the Extended Two Towers DVD includes a pretty detailed discussion of some of Tolkien's narrative foibles. There's far more than just the women thing, and the DVD treats the subject pretty well. I think some of their complaints are answerable by other explanations, but for the most part they've got it down pretty well. I especially liked their analysis of Faramir.
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yeah, that's the part i keep trying to get my wife to watch. I think it'd do her a lot of good
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Hum. I guess I'll have to watch it.
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Elric is not out of print, in fact it is perhaps collected in the greatest coherent collection it has ever known. White Wolf games bought the rights to publish the moorcock novels and has released them as huge bound novels in the Eternal champion series. They weave the storyies between Elric Erkhoe, Vonbeck, Hawkmoon and many other characters of Moorcocks imagination..Its very neat.
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That was the exact collection I was trying to get. They came out durring like 97-99 I believe, but they are already out of print. I bought Elric: Song of the Black Sword off of amazon, and at the time it was already out of print but there was still a few copies they had apparently. I was dumb and didn't get the second volume Elric: The Stealer of Souls thinking I should read the first one and see if I actually liked them. At the time I'd never read an Elric novel, I knew who he was and the whole story from spoilers, but hadn't actually read them mostly because it had been out of print so long that it was impossible to get a copy. I also got the Corum series, but I tried to get the whole Eternal Champion series and couldn't. I so hate out of print books.
The last time I really went on a hunt to get Eternal Champion books was this summer, but if this is White Wolf re-releasing them again please point out where I can find out more so I don't make a fool of myself again. While we are on the subject though, if anyone knows were to find the old Robert E Howard Conan stories or Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer series (written by James Silke) I beg to point that out as well. I've even tried to buy them used. I went so far as to bid on Ebay for a lot of them, but they always go for like 50$ which is more than I can afford (duh). If it comes down to it, I'd probably spend it for a good condition copy of Stealer of Souls, but thats something like 6 Elric novels in one volume so I would feel a lot less ripped off.
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Well, you could click this (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/565041879/arthurianonli-20) link, then the "new and used" link, but since it's approaching $80, and you said $50 was too much, I think you're screwed.
There's also alibris.com, but their cheapest isn't any better.
There's also this (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=arthurianonli-20&path=tg/listmania/list-browse/-/ZUU5Z1Y97T5Z/qid%3D1072886931/sr%3D5-2) link which points to all his others, but it doesn't imply any better savings.
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Hmmm... I'm actually supposed to get my paycheck tomarrow. Probably end up getting it late though cause of the new year. I think I'll just set aside some money and then keep bidding on all the Steal of Souls that pop up. You'd think eventually you'll end up getting one that only goes for 30$ or so. You see, if I was going to spend 80$ on a book, I'd rather get a leatherbound copy of Lord of the Rings or the complete works of so-and-so like Dickens.
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I wasn't aware that there were two new Elric novels.
I have a question: are his other series (Hawkmoon, Vonbeck, etc.) as dark and doomed in tone as the Elric stuff?
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Yes and no, depends on the character. One of Elric's main, ah, sidekick I suppose, he is very un-Elric. As in he is really upbeat and positive, and more of a jokester. You should also know (if you don't already) that all the characters from the other novels are in fact Elric. Being the Eternal Champion means he is reborn over and over. Like Corum for example, he's exactly like Elric except that Elric was raised in an evil culture so he's more devious because of it.
The two new books are about Ulric Von Bek. Elric had two children, one was the Dreamthief's Daughter Oona, the other I can't remember but he somehow or another traveled to our world (earth) and through all of his scions you eventually reach Ulric, who is a german noble during WWII. He hates the Nazis and goes on a quest to destroy them. Elric is in the dream of a thousand years (he does this twice in his novels), which is a sleep that goes by really quickly, but in the dream itself Elric lives for 1000 years. That is why his capital city was called the Dreaming City, as all of the people entered and lived in these dreams to gain experience and such without actually having the time pass.
The downside for Elric is he is much weaker, most notably his magic. If you want something more measurable, in D&D he is stated as wizard 20/fighter 8. Plus he has an artifact that makes him an even more powerful wizard. Elric himself mostly uses summoning type spells, and generally they are anything from god-like elemental lords to actual gods themselves. He can't do this very often while in the thousand year dream (btw, there are lesser versions of this, 25-year dream, 100-year dream, etc.. but however long you choose, you have to live that long, no ending the effect early).
Another thing you should know about Elric and all of his incarnations, they can combine into a god-level avatar. The more that combine, the more powerful they are. Since Ulric is related by blood, he and Elric can do this. After they do, they then know all of each others memories and such. But one thing about Elric, he is very forgetful because of all his time dreaming, so his memories fade very fast. Ulric suffers no such drawback and continues to remember all of Elrics memories after they seperate. That basically sets you up for the 2 new books. They are about adventures Elric, Ulric, and Oona take together.
Ulric also has a version of Stormbringer called Ravenbrand. This isn't actually Stormbringer, more of a copy of it. Like sliders, there is infinite dimensions of possible worlds, which means many versions of Stormbringer. However, Stormbringer itself is unique from all the others, as it was possessed by a demon while being created. That whole story is covered in the Skrayling Tree so I won't spoil it.
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The Von Beck are insanely dark but very well written Havent read Hawkmoon or Corum but I would assume so. The best though is the first book where the Champion takes on the appearence of Erkhose the champion. In the book he destroys mankind.