It annoys me when people say it's shallow to like pretty covers, or "don't judge a book by its cover". It's the publishing house's job to make covers that make people want to buy their book, because the whole point of a cover is to make you want to read/buy the book. If it looks like trash, people are less likely to buy it. Humans like pretty things and that's just how it works.
I think about it as hey, if this book is really good then the publisher is going to put more effort into trying to sell it with a good cover because they are more likely to get a return on their investment. If a book has a bad cover I assume the publisher sees it as a mid -tier book (could also just be a newer author) and will be less willing to spend a whole lot for a good cover so I wont buy it (I only have so much time, I only want to read 4-5 star books). I also just like good art. Unfortunately I think the vast majority of sci-fi and fantasy covers in the US are pretty bad. It seems like there are artists publishers have been working with for a long time that get the contracts simply out of tenure while there are far more impressive artists out there throwing stuff up on deviantart.
That's avery old saying that's not always true for nowadays. So I propose a saying that replaces that one in commonspeak "don't judge a book by its movie" is more likely to fit.
Well sometimes, the fanbase. I get being passionate about authors and books but some stans become somewhat hostile and conflictive when faced with and opinion that does not align with their own.
@@gracelesspassion1750 that "definitely not for everyone" is problem with Malazan fans... many of them think they are superior to everyone just because they've finished the series. And I've seen many instances when somebody reviewed one of the books badly and malaz-fans just downplay the reviewer and mock them that they "did not understand it". Just recent example - Daniel Green did a rant about Malazan and he was immediately mocked in a facebook Malazan group
@@MsAndrej26 I love the Malazan books personally, but yes the elitism in the fanbase annoys me. I also really like a lot of Brandon Sanderson's work - other Malazan fans are always acting as if he's the worst author on the planet. He's not, his books are just different from the Malazan style and that's fine by me, there are other things about his writing that I really enjoy - cracking plot, interesting worlds, well defined magic systems and so on.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the names that look like the author faceplanted their keyboard. The explicit sex scenes always just kind of make me feel like the author was writing one-handed, so to speak
To be fair, a lot of real-life languages have pronunciations that are incomprehensible to native English speakers, and probably vice versa (other language speakers vs English words/names). Like many Irish (or Celtic-based in general) or French names. So at least there's precedent! Lol to your second remark. True!
@@ebnovels I try my best to avoid doing this but if I do have a rather difficult name I have tried making misspelled or mispronounced jokes to have the characters pronounce it in a simple way to help the reader to pronounce it, or I give them a nickname. so far I have gotten good responses from my proof reader.
I don't like it when sometimes the world is super complex and different and original, yet somehow it's still weird for women to wear trousers. And when there are many cultures in the world, we are still following characters from what is the closest to western culture in that world.
Authors get in huge trouble for misrepresenting non-western cultures, intentional or not. Publishers strongly discourage it, so in an over saturated market where the tiniest thing can get you passed over, it’s easier to simply not risk the mistake. They say to write what you know, and most authors writing (and reading) in English know western culture best.
Jarin Jove it IS boring and most of the authors I know are not happy with it. When “I’m about to ruin this man’s whole career” ceases to be a meme and becomes reality, though, authors are very conservative.
You can follow characters aren't very western minded while not offending anyone. Don't draw too heavily from only one real-life culture in an obvious way (using typical stereotypes). Try to find more references and make the created culture unrecognizable. Avoid using iconic elements from the groups of people the authors don't know much about. I don't think that's too hard to do. Some of the cultures I've seen in certain books are quite original and I can't make any link between them and real-life cultures. I really wanted to follow more characters from said cultures, yet the main characters...ah, I don't hate them, but they are just not as interesting.
I’m with you on the “adult for adults sake” point. I wish more books had a rating system on the cover like movies and comics do. Thanks for the video Elliot! :)
Me too!! Wanting to read a novel aimed at adults doesn't necessarily mean I want maximum gore and explicit sex scenes. I wish there was something like an "age 12+" rating for novels for adults that lets me know "yes, the themes in here are complex and interesting to adults, but it's not a gorefest/smut".
We definitely need more standalones in fantasy (that actually STAY as standalones, none of those let's give a bunch of surprise sequels to a book that's 20 years old 🙄). "Too many big books" is arguably the number 1 thing that non-fantasy readers say to you when you try to give recommendations. 😂 One book is easier to push.
I second that. More adult fantasy standalones! Is that 20-year-old-book's sequel a jab at something specific, or just general? (my 1st thought jumped to Neverwhere)
Unfortunately it seems to be a sales issue. Series just sell better. (Source: An author's Twitter thread.) I try pushing series that wrap up well enough in the first book. Mistborn, for example. The story isn't over, but its reached a satisfying conclusion to the events of the book.
I second Mistborn, Dune is another good one. Warbreaker is the only true stand alone that I think is WORTH mentioning (though it seems is not going to be a stand alone for much longer, I think Sanderson is planning a sequel).
The trouble with fantasy standalone as an author is spending so much time worldbuilding for a single effort. This and one of the other points mentioned, that fantasy is so complex, are side effects of what drives fantasy in the first place. Readers want landscapes, government systems, ecologies, technologies, etc. that differ from the real world, but they also want systems that make sense. Consequently, fantasy books must dedicate significant word count to developing these unique settings which enlarge the book and make the systems complex. That’s a LOT of work, in preparation and drafting, to abandon after one publication. Perhaps a good solution is for an author to publish several standalones in a single universe. A self published colleague of mine, B.K. Boes, is developing this idea now, but she only has one book out so far and it’s the beginning of a trilogy.
I've never taken notes while reading a series. My personal philosophy is if I miss something or don't understand it very well that if it's truly important it'll come back around or become clearer or better explained sooner or later 🤷🏻♂️.
Best stand-alone sci-fi book off the top of my head - Armor by John Steakley. Cult classic, the author only wrote two books (Vampires is the other one, with the "s" replaced with a $ sign, also a great urban fantasy read, back in the day) and died before he could do a sequel. Highly recommend it. Best stand-alone fantasy is tougher....Legend by David Gemmell was meant to be a stand-alone, Gemmell had cancer while he was writing it and fully expected to die soon after it was finished...but he made it (yay!) and went on to write a bunch of sequels and prequels, so try that one, it's really good...
What I don't like about most adult books, but I see more in fantasy, is the elitism and superiority that seems to be prevalent from adult readers when they compare an adult genre to it's YA counterparts. It can get to the point where I feel very hesitant to mention that I enjoy reading YA.
I second this. It’s funny too, because fantasy readers are often shamed by non fiction readers or literary fiction readers, but then they turn around and do the same to people who enjoy YA. I don’t understand why people ever feel the need to do that.
@@ebnovels I guess it's classic bullying. I mean they're usually not as outright mean as bullies typically are but whenever someone tries to validate themselves at the expense of others that's basically what their doing. Especially when they themselves have experienced invalidation.
"Overly sexual constantly eg Dresden files" this comment had me lol. The main character is a man in his late thirties who has had 3 girlfriends in his life that we know of. Two other potential characters that may lead to something later but Harry doesn't do casual relationships. 1 actual sex scene that cuts away before getting to bits and pieces descriptions, and is plot relevant. Throughout the course of about 15 years/books as of now. The series features a type of vampire that feeds on emotions, one of them being lust. It would be ridiculous to NOT talk about sex in that case, right? The POV of the series is from the MC, his inner thoughts are what we read. I 100% understand why the guy talks about how beautiful women are, he appreciates them (silently in his head). I'm a middle aged mother of three and this is one of my all time favorite ongoing series, I just don't understand the modern trend of bashing things that are not to your taste without even having valid reasoning. Part of the problem may be that jumping to conclusions about a series after having read only part of it gives you only partial knowledge of it. Thank you for the laugh though 😁
I think the hardest part about reading adult fantasy for me is keeping up with all the different names, locations, historical figures, and events that are thrown at me by the author within the first few chapters. Like damn sis, I'm not give remember all this even by chapter 50, so gtfoh with that right now
Sometimes I have to reread the beginning. I don’t mind not knowing at first if later those things are elaborated on, but when I’m expected to remember, I get a tad annoyed 😆
"When I do book reviews I avoid saying those characters names" I FEEL YOU. Sometimes I wish people could just discuss what was actually the substance of the video was instead of commenting on "this is the actual pronounciation of this made up magical name".... I'm excited for the worst things about YA fantasy video! I feel like people find it easier to hate on YA 😅
Can we get fictional names that aren't just repeated vowels and apostrophes? I slam my head back in my chair when I see Ma'aalashia'an and Innul'chuga'in and Schmu-D'zeef and G'h'chh'lllchu and
LoL -- BOOBS. Twas me. That's why I really appreciate Michael J. Sullivan's writing though -- he writes complex, varied characters - men & women alike! Some of them are gentle... some aren't conventionally attractive but are HELLA smart & admired for it... some are attractive but badass and tough-as-nails... some are strong physically, some are strong emotionally and/or mentally... and any mention of physical aspects is... normal??? Not grossly/weirdly sexualized.
@@kiteflying9317 Nice! I haven't read anything but the First Empire series -- and I need to actually read the last two books still... but yeah I REALLY dig his writing style!
One of my biggest pet peeves with AF books is bland world building or descriptions. I like things like LOTR and GoT. I want to see, hear, feel, and taste the world where the story takes place. I hate it when I feel like I am in the "white room," and have no good sense of what things look like. You mentioned the "mountains" and the "ocean," and yeah, for me, if all an author gives me is "the hardy companions struggled through the rough mountain landscape," I'm going to be very bored and uninterested. They gotta give me more and make me FEEL the struggle and give the mountains grandeur and majesty, lore, and depth.
Did not write the 'nothing' comment, but that's the one I agree with. Most flaws that are mentioned are down to personal taste, and most have little to do with fantasy as a genre but are equally relevant to other genres and media.
I get kind of bored that most of the Worlds in High Fantasy resemble the Middle Ages... I wish for more variation there but that is not just a problem of Adult fantasy I guess
I feel like landscapes, if done well, are amazing to read! Some examples I can think of the top of my head is North of The Wall in ASOIAF, when Jon is scaling the cliffs. As well as, The Last Storm Lord Trilogy by Glenda Larke, she has a unique desert in the story and I didn't mind traversing that beast of nature. Hehe
I like taking notes for complex plots and magic systems, it immerses me even more into the book and helps me kill even more time (which is one of the reasons I'm reading books in the first place) so it's a win-win for me
In a lot of the stories i read, i like to put myself in the POV of the hero. So, if the hero is slaying a dragon, i imagine i'm slaying that dragon. If they are a powerful wizard, i imagine that i'm a powerful wizard. Because those thing aren't real, i don't know that i wouldn't be the greatest dragon slayer, the most powerful wizard or the chosen one. What is real, is BEAUTIFUL WOMEN! And they don't throw themselves at me wherever i go. So it takes me out of the fantasy when this keeps happening to the hero. I'm currently reading The Lady of the Lake and wherever Geralt goes beautiful women are dying to jump his bones. Why does every hero have to look like Henry Cavill or Jason Momoa? I'd like to read a story where after the hero saves the day, the beautiful maiden starts flirting with his mate instead, while he stands there feeling awkward and underappreciated.
That's an interesting perspective! I definitely don't think all male main protagonists should look like a chiseled man hunk, and I also don't think that everyone needs to be in a relationship or find a lover at the end of something. Nice Sharingan btw
Sonny I agree! I think the awkward lead characters are pretty well represented in children’s and middle-grade lit, but somewhere in YA and adult leads become wish-fulfilment conduits instead, and I don’t understand it. Even adults like to see themselves represented in fiction, even in fantasy. I’m currently reading a sci-fi book where the main character deliberately checks out unpopular books from the library so that the library doesn’t purge them from the shelves, and I’m just like, “YES, THESE ARE MY PEOPLE!” 😂
@@Pajali because adults don't care about relating to characters, they already know who they are and can understand following a character that doesn't represent them.
I think, when it comes to the complexity issue, it's more about how it's executed. Basically, if your world/story/rules are super complex, you better not be info dumping. Yeah, info dumping isn't recommended in any situation, but some stories can get away with it as long as the info dump isn't too dense and too hard to follow. Kinda like eating a 6 inch pizza all in one go by yourself. Might be a bit uncomfortable, but it's doable without ending up totally regretting your life choices. But if you're going to have a lot of complexity in your story, you better give your readers the info piece by piece in easily understandable and digestible chunks. Allow the info to ruminate for a bit, give the reader a chance to get aquainted with the new knowledge. Then, you can move on to start sharing more information little by little. In other words, let your reader eat just one slice of your outrageously enormous pizza at a time and save the other slices for future meals. Give the reader the time they need to eat and enjoy that whole pizza without causing them uneccessary pain and making them so horribly violently sick that they never want to eat another pizza again.
I like discriptions of landscapes or buildings it sets the scene. One that gets me is the constant or repeated descriptions. Another is when fashion is described or a change in clothes that really ain't that different.
I agree about the romance point you made for both adult and YA fantasy. Specifically, I have a problem with perpetuating unhealthy relationships in both rather than one being "worse" than the other. Now, I don't have a problem with unhealthy relationships being portrayed in books for story elements. My issue is with readers not realizing the intention and mistaking them for being healthy. I also wish there were more standalones!
Oh my goodness, the names! I’m an excellent reader and speller but I often struggle with pronunciation too. Sometimes I think fantasy authors just sit on the keyboard and whatever pops out is the character/place name haha
I'm reading the Wheel of Time series, I'm on book 6 I think, but I cannot imagine the world at all, what vegetation there is, if it's rich or a dessert. It totally changed my mind about descriptive pages, because it gives me information how the world is and it's more interesting than reading the one character is tugging their braid every 5 minutes
I'm on book 12 and as long as you can overlook the slow pace of books 8-10 you are in for an absolute treat. The series so far has some of my favourite scenes I've read. Book 6 in particular :O
This was me when I tried to read LOTR this first time: “I don’t need to know about every bloody blade of grass in the shire, Tolkien, move along already.” The pages and pages of description bore me to death.
But there are also some readers (like me) who love that stuff!!!! I know i put that kinda thing in my own novels...because i love doing it. That is the part of writing that brings me joy. And, yes, some reviewers do complain, but most don't. To each there own on this subject for sure.
Howdy Elliot, hope all is well 😊👋💫💜 I can already tell this is gonna be a fun series. I totally agree with that first one in that i don't like Adult fantasy books that are too complex. It needs to be somewhat easy for me comprehend what's going on. The other things i don't like in adult fantasy books is there not enough action and the actual writing being too small. I like somewhat thick lettering if it's gonna be a big book. Also I'm not a fan of love triangles unless it makes sense. I personally don't mind the explicit scenes in a book. That's all i can think of (for now haha) Wishing you a great Happy Reading Day
A great and happy reading day to you! Also, the tiny prints is absolutely a “no no” as one person in the video put it! I can’t stand the tiny print either 😅
I feel like some adult fantasy books are unnecessarily long and could be shortened by 100 pages. They sometimes have very slow-moving plots and sometimes nothing happens until after chapters and chapters .
I agree Names in fantasy of both places and people are sometimes too difficult to pronounce . This isn't a problem but it would be helpful if authors give us some kind of guide on how to pronounce the fictional languages and names they make up.
The worst thing to me is that these books are always long series. I don't have the money or patience to read like a million books. Also I hate having to take notes. I read classics and have the same problem with the notes thing. Hugs from Argentina. ❤
I’m more willing to give authors a pass on this just because the books tend to be the size of 3-4 books from other genres, but I also understand the frustration when a series is supposed to be 10 books long and it’s 4 or 6 years between instalments. 😭
I wasn't the person who left the world building comment, but I definitely have an opinion on it. Adult fantasy is my fav genre and my fav part of it is often the world building, and you often can get some really interesting amazing stuff from it, but I can understand where this comment is coming from, because there has been a lot of fantasy that Ive read where the original ideas get so bogged down by influence from more popular works. Or just repeating tropes that at one point are incredible but over time have become so overplayed. For every mind blowing new world I feel like theres definitely a half dozen that just feel like watered down or knock off versions of it. Thats not always a bad thing. Sometimes books that ape other books or are heavily inspired by them can still be great, but Ive definitely been turned off of a book more than once because I was just like... well I could be reading the original though.
I’m terrible with names. I just don’t remember them. This is why it’s so important for each character to have a distinct personality. I tell most characters apart from each other by their character voice and just ignore names.
Maybe I'm biased because romance is my second favorite genre but why is everyone so prudish when it comes to sex scenes?? I agree when the author is just using it in place of world building or plot but in general i don't understand why it's such a big deal.
Hmm, good question! If I had to guess, it’s that for some, they either just don’t like content that explicit, or they don’t like that sex is the only thing making the book “adult.” But if anyone else would care to share their opinion, I’d be curious to see as well!
Kayla M for me it’s more of a it wasn’t what I was looking for. You can have all the romance you want, just give me a hint on the summary/description so I know what to expect. But yeah I don’t mind romance and I feel like I am in the mood for it I know where to look 😍
I don't mind sex scenes... BUT I do mind them when they are too explicit and just there for shock value (my comment was the one about FABIO in the cover 🤣). "It"comes to mind for example, the scene in the sewers makes no sense to me IMHO... It ruined the book for me and we are taking about a book with a freaking space turtle on it 😳 my main issue is with King in general... Some of his sexual content is fine but some of it seems to just come out of no where 🤷🏻♂️ I cant recall any other author that bothered me that much right now...
Rodrigo Santos I was thinking that too! I love King, he’s one of my favorite authors and I love It, but what the heck was that about? The whole book was a coming of age story, we didn’t need...whatever that was for the kids grow up and come of age. That was literally what the whole book was about. That scene was disturbing, disgusting and unnecessary.
Sex scenes make me pretty uncomfortable most of the time (like my face turns all red). That’s not really what I’m looking for when I read a magical adventure.
Not every book needs a romance sub-plot. True. However. Romance is one of the most sure-fire ways to add tension and drama and character building to a story, especially if there are love-triangles involved (another thing i see readers complain about all too often). Just a professional authors two-cents here. but as a writer, I never understood why readers complained about cringey romance in books. All I have to do is look around the real world and i can spot TONS of cringey real-life romances, like "why is that couple still together, or why did she choose that douchebag, or why are those two so sappy and lovey-dovey all the time?". It doesn't mean I go around and tell everyone to stop dating. Romance runs the gamut in real life, so why can't it also run the gamut in fiction? Just cuz it ain't the exact romance you would choose doesn't make it less legit. Same with the 'nobody writes female characters the right way" complaint. Well, who is to say what the right way is? Female personalities also run the gamut. Just because a female in a story doesn't react the same way to a situation that you would, or that you think is best, doesn't mean that the female character has been written 'poorly'. I think that kinda one-size-fits-all criticism discounts how varied and unique female personalities are.
When women fall in love with their abusers and rapists, it goes beyond “different personalities” for a great deal of people. It’s also frustrating for a lot of readers when female characters are only there to be raped, or to have tragedy happen to them so that male characters have development. I find it more of a one size fits all statement to decide that all of that is fine because women have different personalities than it is to point out that this happens quite frequently in this genre and that it might need to be further examined. As for romance, my personal interpretation of what people are saying is that the romance is often underdeveloped or the women in the relationships are prizes for the men. I’m totally with you that there are tons of relationships I think are cringy or unhealthy 😆 Also, I agree that people are constantly wanting companionship in their real lives, so wouldn’t it make sense for characters to want that as well? I’m with you on that 100%. Although I think we might disagree with one another a bit here, I appreciate you voicing your opinion and doing so respectfully :)
@@ebnovels i can totally see those points you make. You are one of about a half-dozen BookTubers i follow religioiusly. Believe it or not i learn a lot about writing from you BookTubers. In fact I know that a lot of us writers secretly follow the BookTubers. Keep up the good work your channel is DOPE!
Warbreaker is awesome (everything BS is), and if you dig into the whole Cosmere stuff it becomes even better (with characters reappearing in other novels and such)
I agree with a lot of the things. As long as in one book you only have one or two of these issues I think it’s ok- obviously you can always skim trough passages you don’t like. :) Im excited for the next Videos in the series and I was so happy my comment was shown hehe even though it was just the „they are too long“ one which felt stupid now compared to all the more sophisticated and well thought trough comments 😆😆
@@_DarkEmperor Your argument doesn't work. Sexualisation of a woman for no reason is not the same as a battle in a war to move the story forward. Let's say your strong army was 100% women. Cool. That still has nothing to do with the sexualisation of a woman for no reason or other examples of poor treatment. What you don't seem to comprehend is that this boils down to poor writing, not what characters take the most damage. Sexualisation of women in literature is perfectly fine. As is the murder, the torture, the rape, etc. Same with men. What matters here is execution. A woman being sexualised through description because the point-of-view character is a male teenager-that can work. It makes logical sense and develops character. For no reason...well, that's poor writing then. That is what is meant (most of the time) when referring to the poor treatment of women in literature. For example, let's change your army to 100% women again. A great many are slaughtered, eaten alive, and tortured as in your example. Yes, that can work. It makes logical sense and moves the story forward. That is not poor treatment of women. Just as it isn't when it's men going through it. Poor treatment in this context does not mean literal harm of a fictional character. This is obvious, and I can't tell if your reading comprehension is lacking or if you willfully chose to be ignorant. Another reason to sexualise a woman in literature. Erotica. Because that's the entire point of erotica. It can work, it makes logical sense, and it moves that specific type of story forward. Now all my examples can still become poor treatment because, as I said before, it comes down to execution. We'll make your army all men again. This time though, they all shout for no reason, "We're dumb men. We are scum. We all deserve to die just for being men." And they proceed to do battle with this weird mindset given to the reader. That is poor writing, that is poor execution, that is poor treatment of men. Your exact scenario mixed with poor execution equals poor treatment, whether the army is all male or all female or fifty-fifty. How many soldiers get tortured, eaten, and/or killed doesn't matter. That was never the point.
@@DrawbackDrawback You are missing the point. People recognise when women are merely put in a sexual context and fret over whether they think it is acceptable or not. Where-as thousands of men being killed is par for the course. So a when naked woman raises more eye-brows than dead men I think we need to reassess our priorities...
@@_DarkEmperor My example was that it is bad writing when there's no reason. If you wrote an army with low self esteem on purpose for a reason then it can be good writing. Reading comprehension, mate.
I can never have enough complexity in the world-building and magic systems! I'm more miffed about the recent "low magic" trend in which fantasy novels have sometimes simply become historical fiction, but without the research.
@@ebnovels Examples would be (these aren't in any way bad books, just very low magic/no magic) : The Thief + sequels by Megan Whalen Turner, the Memories of Lady Trent series (does have dragons, but that's it), the Ranger's Apprentice series, We Set the Dark on Fire, The Warlord Chronicles by Bernhard Cornwell, the Baru Cormorant series, Amberlough, Riverside series, Fencer trilogy, engineer trilogy, Guy Gavriel Kay's novels (he DID the historical research though!), The False Prince, The Runaway King, Sword of the Guardian, Legends of Ithyria, the Temeraire series also has no magic apart from dragons, The Dagger and the Coin series, The Montague siblings, Hraban Chronicles, River of Teeth series, Adventures of Arabella Ashby, The Goblin Emperor, Joe Abercrombie's books are extremely low magic, The Folding Knife, Spindle's End - and a lot of grimdark fantasy is no/low fantasy and focuses just on warriors. I've got absolutely nothing against these books, but still sometimes I wish they came with a "low magic!" label so that I would know in advance and wouldn't have to read half the book before realizing this and being disappointed because I happen to prefer high magic worlds when I read fantasy. Somehow nobody ever tells me in advance!
over the top extra drama. its not just enough to have a great challenge that will be almost impossible to over come. but then add oh this is happening, oh this bad guy shows up. movies do this more then novels, but still happens in books. these are fun to watch! look forward to your other ones in the series.
@@ebnovels i agree that enjoy better when things dont go smooth. Cause that rarely ever happens in life! It be a pretty boring book if everything went as planned. Hard to describe the over the top, but am sure know it when see it. Wheel of time relationships are pretty awful. Love the series though!
Agree with the WoT comment. *minor spoiler* The Lan/Nyneave thing just came out of nowhere and all the girls just fall in love with Rand for no real reason
I agree that Lan & Nyneave just came out of the blue. Although, with Rand (at least in my Headcanon) I felt that the reason they all fell n love with him was because he was ta'veren, and he needed them loyal to him. That's why they were ok with sharing him, because they had been wrapped up in the web.
for me it would be that despite the content being different, there has been a tendency to recycle naming elements in the titles, like "The name of X" or "The x of Kings". Even books that are tremendously good have fallen into this.
My personal peeve is when using a college word in substitution for one that is simple and works better for flow. As in the word stipends and other words that feel bloated.
I hope you like Elizabeth Moon (whenever you clear out your postbox next anyway), I think the female representation in Fantasy is well done in her Fantasy "series".
Have you read The Priory of the Orange Tree? Everything you dislike about fantasy genre is NOT this book. Strong female characters who don't have to be abused to reach character development. LGBTQ representation. And dragons. So, so good! I'd love to know your thoughts of the book!
WOT is horrible for relationships... and I seem to recall an interview about that at some point. But it is a problem with the books. You can still love the story and not like that aspect :D
Regarding lack of LGBTQ, Joe Abercrombie short stories "sharp ends" has one a few lesbian female characters. However, the main plot is not about their sexual preferences its Lord grimdark obviously. Still there are references to their interests and it reads well. Same in Gentleman bastards book 2 there are references to preferences on the ship. I don't think it makes the book better or worse. Just more flavor. I have not read any books where sexual preference is the central conflict or theme.
I was telling my husband that I really love your glasses and he said to comment and ask you what style they are (duh!) so here I am, asking what style your glasses are 😅
Glasses USA! I wasn’t sponsored either, I just really liked them (although I might be working with them in the future! :D). Anyway, the brand is Muse on their website, and these exact frames are actually a really deep red 👓
Totally agree with you on the long, complicated names I do exactly the same. When I see that name later on in the story I just say to myself, yeah it's the one with the hard name :D Edit: Wrote my first comment before watching the video to the end, sorry. I also agree that descriptions for things we can easily imagine ourselves some times get out of hand and this is quite annoying, we are not morons ffs!
I am not a Fantasy reader, but thanks to Booktube I have started to try (I loved The lies of Locke Lamora despite some issues with pacing in the second half of the book). The one comment I strongly agree with and I find it a HUGE obstacle is the lack of stand alones. I find it very off putting that I need to commit to 1500+ pages story everytime I want to read a fantasy. So, I often ask if the first book is more or less self contained (Like Locke Lamora).
Oh man, I would have loved to give my answer. Here it is though: Lazy tolkinean maps. That is one of the things I hate the most. If when I open a book there is a map, looks like Tolkien and has a place named Elvthrand or something like that, I put it down. Also, should a map have more interesting names and another style, but the geography doesn't make sense (magic can make it make sense), also I put it down.
I loooove it when a book/series prides itself on being so "unique" and "diverse" with extensive worldbuilding and interesting characters and then you open it up to read it and there's one black girl, maybe a gay guy, and the same medieval Europe based setting as every other Tolkien rip-off. Spare me.
Horacio Nelson The challenge is finding foreign authors who write fantasy that is in or has been translated into English. YA is getting better about this, but adult fantasy tends to be more Europe-centered. Part of that is just its history (a lot of the seminal works of high fantasy are from decades ago, before there was much interest in other settings), but modern fantasy doesn’t have the excuse of not knowing much about other cultures and places. I don’t think an author should HAVE to set the world in a non-European setting, but saying authors are just “writing what they know” seems incredibly limiting considering the incredible amount of information available if they want to research other cultures for inspiration.
Very interesting watch, thank you. An interesting series for me (which I'm currently reading) is Bradley Beaulieu's 'The Song of the Shattered Sands'. The main character is handled really well in my opinion. She's a badass but it's not shoved in your face, she just does things that happen to be badass. She's also very open about sex, and there are a lot of sex scenes in the book which are fairly graphic actually, but I don't mind it because it always made sense and despite the first one being a bit of a shock to me I actually think they're well written. I'd be curious to know if you have any thoughts on the series
I think the long descriptions of the immediate setting can sometimes be the best way to tell the reader about the character’s mood and general attitude toward the situation.
I totally agree with the complexity comment. I recently read House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J Maas and honestly, I just could not keep up with the politics and the hierarchy in that world. Eventually I just decided to drop it and just go with the flow and I found that works fine for me 😌 Also love this concept !
Urgh, those books irritated me SO much. Using thesaurus words instead of plain English: check. Abusive relationships: check. Multiple times over. Gratuitous sex scenes: check. Sooooo many. Exposition dumping: check. A dinner party conversation where a secondary character explains the whole backstory of one of the protagonists in a single monologue?! Lazy world building: check. How do you have a flipping sentient cauldron, that's suddenly super powerful and central to the main plot, yet never mention it till two thirds of the way through the second book in the series?! Lazy character building: check. How can a hero protagonist suddenly become the main enemy? Oh let's not develop that at all, we'll just have the total change of character happen between books 1 & 2, so we don't have to explain it. That will be a nice surprise for the readers! And yet somehow they still managed to be compelling! But I gave up after book 2, as the irritations kept piling higher! I took a very long break from reading fantasy, and I think I've come back to it after many years as a much pickier reader than I was before!
I personally have difficulty with overly complex magic. I’m not a magic fan to begin with (ironic because I do LOVE the adult fantasy genre). I don’t use magic in Skyrim and rarely use it other games, and my own fantasy series has limited magic.
Elliot Brooks I will say, I’ve been using magic constantly in the Final Fantasy VII remake because it’s practically unavoidable. But in Kingdom Hearts, I may use cure every few battles, but not often. I’m a rogue myself, normally. I do like Allomancy, because there’s more or less a pseudoscience to it.
3:52 I know this is a cartoon and not a book but the Cleome ark in Wakfu had so many rage inducing arguments when I watched to the point I can't stand Cleome that much. She's not even that bad she just got put into the plot for drama. POINTLESS DRAMA BETWEEN DALLY AND EVA!
I often enjoy a shorter, faster paced story, but feel I am limited to the urban or young adult genres to get it. I know new world-building can be complex and all, but there nothing wrong with leaving a little to the imagination and delivering a quicker, simpler plot on occasion!
I honestly think that a lot of those complaints are a personal taste of a minory, such as not liking long series (reasonably long, not the Wheel of Time long) or complexity of the world, and then there are complaints about bad writing that spread across all genres, such as poor character development or awkwardly written sex scenes
WoT has the WORST relationships period. The way men and women treat each other is horrible. it makes sense the magic users would, but everybody else it makes no sense.
I wish that books would give pronunciation guides for their made-up character names, if they're not obviously based on cultural or traditional names from an irl country than I can't get the vibe of how I'm meant to say it,
I definitely sympathise with the people who think the worlds are too complex. For me, it depends a lot on HOW the world is presented-as much as I roll my eyes when Sanderson talks about the flora retracting AGAIN in the Stormlight Archive, he does at least fit that organically into the story (most of the time). If the author has to sit the reader down and give a lecture on how the magic system works, not only is the pacing of the story destroyed but also I’m bored. If the author shows us how the magic is being used, we can usually connect the dots ourselves about what its abilities and limitations are. 🤓
As an artist I hate the "don't judge a book by its cover" saying. I honestly believe that what it's actually supposed to mean (don't judge people solely on your first impression of them) works more legitimate than the metaphor. Like... yes, you DO need to judge a LITERAL book by its LITERAL cover. There's a reason books have pretty covers: TO GET YOUR ATTENTION. If a book's cover is of a boy and a girl in some kind of romantic situation and they've both been airbrushed to hell and back, I'm not going to give that book a second look because I'm not the kind to read cheesy love stories. If I see a well-drawn fantasy landscape that appeals to my personal tastes, I will probably pick up that book. The cover is there to tell you something about the book. A book's cover is deliberately chosen. A person's appearance might not be.
This. I find you can actually tell very well by the cover at which audience the book is aimed at, which helps a lot in figuring out whether it's interesting to me or not.
The bigger the better for me lol. I have no issues with complexity in Adult fantasy. In fact that is why it is one of my favorite genres. And I find the character work to be done better in adult fantasy. Most of the YA characters just seem to be made out of the same mold, with no real depth to them.
Most of the famous ones I've read like Throne of Glass series, Children of Blood and Bone, The Cruel Prince, Grisha trilogy, Daughter of Smoke and Bone etc... All of the protagonists and main characters just felt like tiny variations of the same caricature. Of course, Adult fantasy is not exempt from this, but I find that this to be rare in the ones I have read.
On the BOOBS! Y'all realize that there's not a male directed romance genre, right? Like that's a lot of what you're getting in a twist over here: "romance" for guys.
7:12 You are talking about Nynaeve and Lan, right? Yeah, I starter the series last month, still on Book 2, and yes I totally felt that way with those 2. I didn't felt cringe over the sudden romance, more like, the age gap between them is what turns me off the most. EDIT: Wait, hawkish nose? Or either I haven't got to that part yet, or I miss read Nynaeve.
Go figure a bunch of nerds that write fantasy don't know how to write romance, lol. I totally agree that romance in most fantasy stories is trying too hard, or poorly developed, or just complete nonsense. I loved Rage of Dragons that I read recently but lol the sex scene in that book, oof. That's just one example but it rings pretty true for just about every fantasy novel that I've read. Also, THERE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ROMANCE IN YOUR NOVEL! I'm perfectly fine without the main protagonist needing to have a love interest for the sake of a love interest, and it can also get super lazy when that love interest is the driving force of their entire story-line. Fantasy books don't have to be Mario trying to save Princess Peach alright? My biggest gripe with fantasy right now though is having your main character get knocked out or pass out when they should be dead. This has saved characters SO. MANY. TIMES. and it bothers me. Destruction all around, the hero is bleeding out, and then passes out thinking of all the mistakes they made, how they wish they could change things. Oh just kidding they wake up in the next scene and are ok now!
I had one sex scene in my first novel Forgetting Moon. It was the only scene my editor crossed out of the entire novel with a note saying, "Let me save you the embarrassment." :D
Ah, I think that would fall under my complaint too of the stakes sometimes being “super high” only to have no one get seriously injured 😆 Hahahaha, and I love your first remark. Us nerds 🤣
I do the same thing with complicates names. I either pronounce it like I think it's pronounced or like you shorten it. I don't have time to constantly wonder if I'm pronouncing it correctly. lol I just want to read the book. Darnit. lol
I agree that adult fantasy has bad romance, but I think people are more nitpicky about YA because the plot in the adult fantasy books is more prevalent. Say usually in adult books the plot is like 90% of the book and the romance takes up the other 10. Whereas in YA the romance/plot ratio is usually 50/50, so it’s not as easy to look past it. Does that make sense? English isn’t my first language so idk if I’m explaining myself well. Anyways I’ve never read a good romance in an adult book, but i don’t strongly hate them either. I’ve read a lot of good romances in YA books, but the ones I dislike, I dislike with passion.
I agree ya romance is way better haha, cetain adult fanatsy authors *cough* rothfuss *cough* are terrible at romance!! And agree that i like some super complex and some less complex fantasies to satisfy both my smart brain and my dumb brain (yes I have two!!!) And it (AF) definetly needs better written women and lgbtq+ rep but there are some absolutely amazing diverse adult fantasy books (jade city, sword of kaigen, poppy war, all nk jemisen books) that all deserve so much more hype!!
I'd actually argue it's easier to find good standalones in science-fiction than it is in fantasy. Also I guess I'm really out of the loop on YA SFF, 'cause I really did have an issue with how relationships and characters' maturity levels were portrayed... Hence why I don't even bother with that category anymore.
One of the bad thing with fantasy books is that you always have to compare it either to Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. For young adult it's even worse. Then it's either Twilight or Hunger Games which isn't even really fantasy. Or Harry Potter ofc
I have wanted to read warbreaker... but I'm scared because I don't want a cliffhanger in a book that is never going to get more books >_< is that the case?
The repetitive, "focus group" plot and world building...so many novels and stories seem like clones..change the names and they are almost intergabgable.
My main problem with Malazan was just that it ended up reading like a Dungeons and Dragons campaign more than a story. You could pretty much see the dice being rolled at times. Also just the fact that Erikson would write himself into corners at points and then have a character do something utterly mindboggling in order to get them where he wants them to be. There's one particular bit in, I think, Memories of Ice that I'm thinking of specifically. I read the same ten or so pages over and over again in a baffled attempt to figure out if I'd missed something. But there was nothing. Erikson just had a character that he wanted to be in a totally different place, and had literally no way of getting them there, because so many of the characters are stupidly overpowered, their dice rolls wouldn't fit, and so he pulled something completely incomprehensible out of his arse.
When the description was "slow pacing" and "sudden out of nowhere romance", tWoT immediately popped into my head, and two seconds later you said it too. I love the books, but I'm happy to admit they have a LOT of flaws.
For me, it would be a very often present emotional disconnection from reader to characters (give me all the emotional turmoil, gosh darn it! 😂), which might stem from the 3rd person perspective? 🤔 and infodumping. A whole lot of infodumping. For example, if you infodump everything about the magic system, for me, you suck out all the charm & mystery out of it. There's nothing to ponder at or theorize about. (Looking at you, Warbreaker 👀). Oh! And also, when the magic system (and world building) overshadows the characters, especially when it happens to the point where the characters become only marionettes and when the story wouldn't really change if characters switched roles 🤷♀️
01:43 ~ Instead of complex, maybe they simply want there to be more than just the faction the protagonist supports and the one the antagonist supports. How the author presents that can be very simple, because the reader doesn't need to know anything outside of what the protagonist experiences.
Many of those points are the criteria publishing houses use to determine which label to put on a book. Complex, long, explicit scenes, sexy women -> Adult. Googly-eyed romance, strong women, female protagonist -> YA.
I hate when epic fantasy doesn't provide any sorta recap for the story in the beginning of the book. Because not all readers are going to binge a series before a new release ... instalment at least give peeps option to have it or skip it.
@@MrSonny665 FR i caught up with ASAOIF 2019 and i still need that recap if TWOW coming in 2020-2021. In Terms of DoS i will read first 2 books if he actually finishes the 3rd book atm just waiting for him to complete the trilogy.
It annoys me when people say it's shallow to like pretty covers, or "don't judge a book by its cover". It's the publishing house's job to make covers that make people want to buy their book, because the whole point of a cover is to make you want to read/buy the book. If it looks like trash, people are less likely to buy it. Humans like pretty things and that's just how it works.
I've yet to encounter someone who it like..."I collect only ugly covers"
That's why i never buy romance...the covers suck
Thank you like the cover looks intriguing makes me want to get the book half of the time
I think about it as hey, if this book is really good then the publisher is going to put more effort into trying to sell it with a good cover because they are more likely to get a return on their investment. If a book has a bad cover I assume the publisher sees it as a mid -tier book (could also just be a newer author) and will be less willing to spend a whole lot for a good cover so I wont buy it (I only have so much time, I only want to read 4-5 star books). I also just like good art. Unfortunately I think the vast majority of sci-fi and fantasy covers in the US are pretty bad. It seems like there are artists publishers have been working with for a long time that get the contracts simply out of tenure while there are far more impressive artists out there throwing stuff up on deviantart.
That's avery old saying that's not always true for nowadays. So I propose a saying that replaces that one in commonspeak "don't judge a book by its movie" is more likely to fit.
Well sometimes, the fanbase. I get being passionate about authors and books but some stans become somewhat hostile and conflictive when faced with and opinion that does not align with their own.
Yes! I don’t think I saw any comment mentioning this, but I completely agree 😄
Ahem Ahem Malazan...😉
**sighs** Agreed. I get told how much I should love Dresden Files a lot. Mostly kind enthusiasm, but sometimes...
@@gracelesspassion1750 that "definitely not for everyone" is problem with Malazan fans... many of them think they are superior to everyone just because they've finished the series. And I've seen many instances when somebody reviewed one of the books badly and malaz-fans just downplay the reviewer and mock them that they "did not understand it".
Just recent example - Daniel Green did a rant about Malazan and he was immediately mocked in a facebook Malazan group
@@MsAndrej26 I love the Malazan books personally, but yes the elitism in the fanbase annoys me. I also really like a lot of Brandon Sanderson's work - other Malazan fans are always acting as if he's the worst author on the planet. He's not, his books are just different from the Malazan style and that's fine by me, there are other things about his writing that I really enjoy - cracking plot, interesting worlds, well defined magic systems and so on.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the names that look like the author faceplanted their keyboard.
The explicit sex scenes always just kind of make me feel like the author was writing one-handed, so to speak
I’m now going to name a character by hitting my face into the keyboard and seeing what comes up 💁🏻♀️
To be fair, a lot of real-life languages have pronunciations that are incomprehensible to native English speakers, and probably vice versa (other language speakers vs English words/names). Like many Irish (or Celtic-based in general) or French names. So at least there's precedent!
Lol to your second remark. True!
Olfghanifax The Wise rippled his muscles enticingly.
@@ebnovels I try my best to avoid doing this but if I do have a rather difficult name I have tried making misspelled or mispronounced jokes to have the characters pronounce it in a simple way to help the reader to pronounce it, or I give them a nickname. so far I have gotten good responses from my proof reader.
dude your entire comment has me dying 😂😂
I don't like it when sometimes the world is super complex and different and original, yet somehow it's still weird for women to wear trousers.
And when there are many cultures in the world, we are still following characters from what is the closest to western culture in that world.
Hahaha, that’s very true! And yes, your last sentence rings true for a lot of stories I’ve come across.
Authors get in huge trouble for misrepresenting non-western cultures, intentional or not. Publishers strongly discourage it, so in an over saturated market where the tiniest thing can get you passed over, it’s easier to simply not risk the mistake. They say to write what you know, and most authors writing (and reading) in English know western culture best.
@@Meshuga63 Well, that's boring...
Jarin Jove it IS boring and most of the authors I know are not happy with it. When “I’m about to ruin this man’s whole career” ceases to be a meme and becomes reality, though, authors are very conservative.
You can follow characters aren't very western minded while not offending anyone.
Don't draw too heavily from only one real-life culture in an obvious way (using typical stereotypes). Try to find more references and make the created culture unrecognizable. Avoid using iconic elements from the groups of people the authors don't know much about.
I don't think that's too hard to do.
Some of the cultures I've seen in certain books are quite original and I can't make any link between them and real-life cultures. I really wanted to follow more characters from said cultures, yet the main characters...ah, I don't hate them, but they are just not as interesting.
I’m with you on the “adult for adults sake” point. I wish more books had a rating system on the cover like movies and comics do. Thanks for the video Elliot! :)
Me too!! Wanting to read a novel aimed at adults doesn't necessarily mean I want maximum gore and explicit sex scenes. I wish there was something like an "age 12+" rating for novels for adults that lets me know "yes, the themes in here are complex and interesting to adults, but it's not a gorefest/smut".
I wish they did too! And you’re welcome :D
I do swear, but adding swearing to an otherwise bland story does not make it any more interesting.
Maybe not on the cover though
N.v West I agree, I meant the back cover, (like on a DVD) but was half asleep when I wrote this haha.
We definitely need more standalones in fantasy (that actually STAY as standalones, none of those let's give a bunch of surprise sequels to a book that's 20 years old 🙄). "Too many big books" is arguably the number 1 thing that non-fantasy readers say to you when you try to give recommendations. 😂 One book is easier to push.
I second that. More adult fantasy standalones!
Is that 20-year-old-book's sequel a jab at something specific, or just general? (my 1st thought jumped to Neverwhere)
That’s very true! I know most of my family members have noticed the size of a lot of fantasy books (they’re not really fantasy readers!).
Unfortunately it seems to be a sales issue. Series just sell better. (Source: An author's Twitter thread.)
I try pushing series that wrap up well enough in the first book. Mistborn, for example. The story isn't over, but its reached a satisfying conclusion to the events of the book.
I second Mistborn, Dune is another good one. Warbreaker is the only true stand alone that I think is WORTH mentioning (though it seems is not going to be a stand alone for much longer, I think Sanderson is planning a sequel).
The trouble with fantasy standalone as an author is spending so much time worldbuilding for a single effort. This and one of the other points mentioned, that fantasy is so complex, are side effects of what drives fantasy in the first place. Readers want landscapes, government systems, ecologies, technologies, etc. that differ from the real world, but they also want systems that make sense. Consequently, fantasy books must dedicate significant word count to developing these unique settings which enlarge the book and make the systems complex. That’s a LOT of work, in preparation and drafting, to abandon after one publication.
Perhaps a good solution is for an author to publish several standalones in a single universe. A self published colleague of mine, B.K. Boes, is developing this idea now, but she only has one book out so far and it’s the beginning of a trilogy.
I've never taken notes while reading a series. My personal philosophy is if I miss something or don't understand it very well that if it's truly important it'll come back around or become clearer or better explained sooner or later 🤷🏻♂️.
Same lol
that's a good point. Also definitely don't read The Wheel of Time in that case
I second standalones. I lovvvvve my long series, but Im already in the middle of sooo many. Sometimes i just want a 1 book commitment 🤦🏾♀️
Me too!
Best stand-alone sci-fi book off the top of my head - Armor by John Steakley. Cult classic, the author only wrote two books (Vampires is the other one, with the "s" replaced with a $ sign, also a great urban fantasy read, back in the day) and died before he could do a sequel. Highly recommend it. Best stand-alone fantasy is tougher....Legend by David Gemmell was meant to be a stand-alone, Gemmell had cancer while he was writing it and fully expected to die soon after it was finished...but he made it (yay!) and went on to write a bunch of sequels and prequels, so try that one, it's really good...
@@ebnovels I can't seem to find that stand alone book you recommended at 3:45
What I don't like about most adult books, but I see more in fantasy, is the elitism and superiority that seems to be prevalent from adult readers when they compare an adult genre to it's YA counterparts. It can get to the point where I feel very hesitant to mention that I enjoy reading YA.
I second this. It’s funny too, because fantasy readers are often shamed by non fiction readers or literary fiction readers, but then they turn around and do the same to people who enjoy YA. I don’t understand why people ever feel the need to do that.
@@ebnovels I guess it's classic bullying. I mean they're usually not as outright mean as bullies typically are but whenever someone tries to validate themselves at the expense of others that's basically what their doing. Especially when they themselves have experienced invalidation.
YA is trash and everyone is right to shame you
"Overly sexual constantly eg Dresden files" this comment had me lol.
The main character is a man in his late thirties who has had 3 girlfriends in his life that we know of. Two other potential characters that may lead to something later but Harry doesn't do casual relationships. 1 actual sex scene that cuts away before getting to bits and pieces descriptions, and is plot relevant. Throughout the course of about 15 years/books as of now.
The series features a type of vampire that feeds on emotions, one of them being lust. It would be ridiculous to NOT talk about sex in that case, right?
The POV of the series is from the MC, his inner thoughts are what we read. I 100% understand why the guy talks about how beautiful women are, he appreciates them (silently in his head).
I'm a middle aged mother of three and this is one of my all time favorite ongoing series, I just don't understand the modern trend of bashing things that are not to your taste without even having valid reasoning. Part of the problem may be that jumping to conclusions about a series after having read only part of it gives you only partial knowledge of it.
Thank you for the laugh though 😁
I think the hardest part about reading adult fantasy for me is keeping up with all the different names, locations, historical figures, and events that are thrown at me by the author within the first few chapters. Like damn sis, I'm not give remember all this even by chapter 50, so gtfoh with that right now
Sometimes I have to reread the beginning. I don’t mind not knowing at first if later those things are elaborated on, but when I’m expected to remember, I get a tad annoyed 😆
sounds like your iq is too low for this genre, maybe romance novels would be more your speed
"When I do book reviews I avoid saying those characters names"
I FEEL YOU. Sometimes I wish people could just discuss what was actually the substance of the video was instead of commenting on "this is the actual pronounciation of this made up magical name"....
I'm excited for the worst things about YA fantasy video! I feel like people find it easier to hate on YA 😅
Hahaha, I think for many people it’s easier to hate on YA too 😆 Haha, and yes on the names!
@@ebnovels Authors really need to put up prononciation videos on YT when they publish a book.
More than one apostrophe in a name is a catastrophe.
Can we get fictional names that aren't just repeated vowels and apostrophes? I slam my head back in my chair when I see Ma'aalashia'an and Innul'chuga'in and Schmu-D'zeef and G'h'chh'lllchu and
I feel the names one so hard. My eyes just glaze over some of them.
LoL -- BOOBS. Twas me.
That's why I really appreciate Michael J. Sullivan's writing though -- he writes complex, varied characters - men & women alike! Some of them are gentle... some aren't conventionally attractive but are HELLA smart & admired for it... some are attractive but badass and tough-as-nails... some are strong physically, some are strong emotionally and/or mentally... and any mention of physical aspects is... normal??? Not grossly/weirdly sexualized.
that's one of my fav author, got his whole Riyria and First Empire series :)
@@kiteflying9317 Nice! I haven't read anything but the First Empire series -- and I need to actually read the last two books still... but yeah I REALLY dig his writing style!
One of my biggest pet peeves with AF books is bland world building or descriptions. I like things like LOTR and GoT. I want to see, hear, feel, and taste the world where the story takes place. I hate it when I feel like I am in the "white room," and have no good sense of what things look like. You mentioned the "mountains" and the "ocean," and yeah, for me, if all an author gives me is "the hardy companions struggled through the rough mountain landscape," I'm going to be very bored and uninterested. They gotta give me more and make me FEEL the struggle and give the mountains grandeur and majesty, lore, and depth.
AMEN!
Did not write the 'nothing' comment, but that's the one I agree with.
Most flaws that are mentioned are down to personal taste, and most have little to do with fantasy as a genre but are equally relevant to other genres and media.
I get kind of bored that most of the Worlds in High Fantasy resemble the Middle Ages... I wish for more variation there but that is not just a problem of Adult fantasy I guess
I feel like landscapes, if done well, are amazing to read! Some examples I can think of the top of my head is North of The Wall in ASOIAF, when Jon is scaling the cliffs. As well as, The Last Storm Lord Trilogy by Glenda Larke, she has a unique desert in the story and I didn't mind traversing that beast of nature. Hehe
I feel the same way with the person who wrote they don’t want to take notes to keep up. I’m too lazy for that shit
Hahaha, sometimes it can be fun...but only sometimes 😆
Yes! That's how I felt trying to read Rage of Dragons.
I like taking notes for complex plots and magic systems, it immerses me even more into the book and helps me kill even more time (which is one of the reasons I'm reading books in the first place) so it's a win-win for me
In a lot of the stories i read, i like to put myself in the POV of the hero. So, if the hero is slaying a dragon, i imagine i'm slaying that dragon. If they are a powerful wizard, i imagine that i'm a powerful wizard.
Because those thing aren't real, i don't know that i wouldn't be the greatest dragon slayer, the most powerful wizard or the chosen one.
What is real, is BEAUTIFUL WOMEN! And they don't throw themselves at me wherever i go. So it takes me out of the fantasy when this keeps happening to the hero.
I'm currently reading The Lady of the Lake and wherever Geralt goes beautiful women are dying to jump his bones. Why does every hero have to look like Henry Cavill or Jason Momoa? I'd like to read a story where after the hero saves the day, the beautiful maiden starts flirting with his mate instead, while he stands there feeling awkward and underappreciated.
That's an interesting perspective! I definitely don't think all male main protagonists should look like a chiseled man hunk, and I also don't think that everyone needs to be in a relationship or find a lover at the end of something. Nice Sharingan btw
Can't relate lol
Sonny I agree! I think the awkward lead characters are pretty well represented in children’s and middle-grade lit, but somewhere in YA and adult leads become wish-fulfilment conduits instead, and I don’t understand it. Even adults like to see themselves represented in fiction, even in fantasy. I’m currently reading a sci-fi book where the main character deliberately checks out unpopular books from the library so that the library doesn’t purge them from the shelves, and I’m just like, “YES, THESE ARE MY PEOPLE!” 😂
@@Pajali what's the book? It sounds cool.
@@Pajali because adults don't care about relating to characters, they already know who they are and can understand following a character that doesn't represent them.
I think, when it comes to the complexity issue, it's more about how it's executed. Basically, if your world/story/rules are super complex, you better not be info dumping.
Yeah, info dumping isn't recommended in any situation, but some stories can get away with it as long as the info dump isn't too dense and too hard to follow. Kinda like eating a 6 inch pizza all in one go by yourself. Might be a bit uncomfortable, but it's doable without ending up totally regretting your life choices.
But if you're going to have a lot of complexity in your story, you better give your readers the info piece by piece in easily understandable and digestible chunks. Allow the info to ruminate for a bit, give the reader a chance to get aquainted with the new knowledge. Then, you can move on to start sharing more information little by little.
In other words, let your reader eat just one slice of your outrageously enormous pizza at a time and save the other slices for future meals. Give the reader the time they need to eat and enjoy that whole pizza without causing them uneccessary pain and making them so horribly violently sick that they never want to eat another pizza again.
I like discriptions of landscapes or buildings it sets the scene. One that gets me is the constant or repeated descriptions. Another is when fashion is described or a change in clothes that really ain't that different.
I agree about the romance point you made for both adult and YA fantasy. Specifically, I have a problem with perpetuating unhealthy relationships in both rather than one being "worse" than the other. Now, I don't have a problem with unhealthy relationships being portrayed in books for story elements. My issue is with readers not realizing the intention and mistaking them for being healthy. I also wish there were more standalones!
Oh my goodness, the names! I’m an excellent reader and speller but I often struggle with pronunciation too. Sometimes I think fantasy authors just sit on the keyboard and whatever pops out is the character/place name haha
Type type type! Ok, that’s the character name-that’s what it feels like sometimes 😆
I'm reading the Wheel of Time series, I'm on book 6 I think, but I cannot imagine the world at all, what vegetation there is, if it's rich or a dessert. It totally changed my mind about descriptive pages, because it gives me information how the world is and it's more interesting than reading the one character is tugging their braid every 5 minutes
I'm on book 12 and as long as you can overlook the slow pace of books 8-10 you are in for an absolute treat. The series so far has some of my favourite scenes I've read. Book 6 in particular :O
This was me when I tried to read LOTR this first time: “I don’t need to know about every bloody blade of grass in the shire, Tolkien, move along already.” The pages and pages of description bore me to death.
Hahaha, I feel you 😆
Shardik by Richard Adams is worse than LOTR.
But there are also some readers (like me) who love that stuff!!!! I know i put that kinda thing in my own novels...because i love doing it. That is the part of writing that brings me joy. And, yes, some reviewers do complain, but most don't. To each there own on this subject for sure.
Or in the words of Epic Rap Battles of History: "We don't need the backstory on every f**kin' tree branch!
" 😉
@Mike's Library obviously. ruclips.net/video/XAAp_luluo0/видео.html
Howdy Elliot, hope all is well 😊👋💫💜 I can already tell this is gonna be a fun series. I totally agree with that first one in that i don't like Adult fantasy books that are too complex. It needs to be somewhat easy for me comprehend what's going on. The other things i don't like in adult fantasy books is there not enough action and the actual writing being too small. I like somewhat thick lettering if it's gonna be a big book. Also I'm not a fan of love triangles unless it makes sense. I personally don't mind the explicit scenes in a book. That's all i can think of (for now haha) Wishing you a great Happy Reading Day
A great and happy reading day to you! Also, the tiny prints is absolutely a “no no” as one person in the video put it! I can’t stand the tiny print either 😅
Fantasy recommendations that somehow side step all of these problems: mistborn, stormlight archives, and mother of learning (webnovel).
I feel like some adult fantasy books are unnecessarily long and could be shortened by 100 pages. They sometimes have very slow-moving plots and sometimes nothing happens until after chapters and chapters .
I agree Names in fantasy of both places and people are sometimes too difficult to pronounce . This isn't a problem but it would be helpful if authors give us some kind of guide on how to pronounce the fictional languages and names they make up.
I do always appreciate pronunciation guides. Unless, of course, I like how I pronounce it better 🤣
The worst thing to me is that these books are always long series. I don't have the money or patience to read like a million books. Also I hate having to take notes. I read classics and have the same problem with the notes thing. Hugs from Argentina. ❤
I agree. I wish there were more stand alone books.
My favorite standalone fantasy book is Elantris... It's amazing how Brandon Sanderson accomplishes so much in such a short book
3:42 ugh, I love Warbreaker so much!! Literally just started listening to the audiobook again, it's so good 😍
Reading WoT right now n I'm totally with you on that underdeveloped relationship thing. Like out of nowhere these people are in love😒
I actually think several of the points made in this video can be projected onto video games as well
The worst thing about fantasy books is that they take too long to get published. *Everyone looking at George RR Martin*
Dream Master I hear ya! It’s hard to be motivated to read Pat Rothfuss for the same reason.
Haha, that’s definitely true for some series!
Yeah, but it helps if they get written.
*Bead of sweat drips down GRRM;s forehead*
I’m more willing to give authors a pass on this just because the books tend to be the size of 3-4 books from other genres, but I also understand the frustration when a series is supposed to be 10 books long and it’s 4 or 6 years between instalments. 😭
I wasn't the person who left the world building comment, but I definitely have an opinion on it. Adult fantasy is my fav genre and my fav part of it is often the world building, and you often can get some really interesting amazing stuff from it, but I can understand where this comment is coming from, because there has been a lot of fantasy that Ive read where the original ideas get so bogged down by influence from more popular works. Or just repeating tropes that at one point are incredible but over time have become so overplayed. For every mind blowing new world I feel like theres definitely a half dozen that just feel like watered down or knock off versions of it. Thats not always a bad thing. Sometimes books that ape other books or are heavily inspired by them can still be great, but Ive definitely been turned off of a book more than once because I was just like... well I could be reading the original though.
I’m terrible with names. I just don’t remember them. This is why it’s so important for each character to have a distinct personality. I tell most characters apart from each other by their character voice and just ignore names.
Maybe I'm biased because romance is my second favorite genre but why is everyone so prudish when it comes to sex scenes?? I agree when the author is just using it in place of world building or plot but in general i don't understand why it's such a big deal.
Hmm, good question! If I had to guess, it’s that for some, they either just don’t like content that explicit, or they don’t like that sex is the only thing making the book “adult.” But if anyone else would care to share their opinion, I’d be curious to see as well!
Kayla M for me it’s more of a it wasn’t what I was looking for. You can have all the romance you want, just give me a hint on the summary/description so I know what to expect. But yeah I don’t mind romance and I feel like I am in the mood for it I know where to look 😍
I don't mind sex scenes... BUT I do mind them when they are too explicit and just there for shock value (my comment was the one about FABIO in the cover 🤣). "It"comes to mind for example, the scene in the sewers makes no sense to me IMHO... It ruined the book for me and we are taking about a book with a freaking space turtle on it 😳 my main issue is with King in general... Some of his sexual content is fine but some of it seems to just come out of no where 🤷🏻♂️ I cant recall any other author that bothered me that much right now...
Rodrigo Santos I was thinking that too! I love King, he’s one of my favorite authors and I love It, but what the heck was that about? The whole book was a coming of age story, we didn’t need...whatever that was for the kids grow up and come of age. That was literally what the whole book was about. That scene was disturbing, disgusting and unnecessary.
Sex scenes make me pretty uncomfortable most of the time (like my face turns all red). That’s not really what I’m looking for when I read a magical adventure.
Not every book needs a romance sub-plot. True. However. Romance is one of the most sure-fire ways to add tension and drama and character building to a story, especially if there are love-triangles involved (another thing i see readers complain about all too often). Just a professional authors two-cents here. but as a writer, I never understood why readers complained about cringey romance in books. All I have to do is look around the real world and i can spot TONS of cringey real-life romances, like "why is that couple still together, or why did she choose that douchebag, or why are those two so sappy and lovey-dovey all the time?". It doesn't mean I go around and tell everyone to stop dating. Romance runs the gamut in real life, so why can't it also run the gamut in fiction? Just cuz it ain't the exact romance you would choose doesn't make it less legit. Same with the 'nobody writes female characters the right way" complaint. Well, who is to say what the right way is? Female personalities also run the gamut. Just because a female in a story doesn't react the same way to a situation that you would, or that you think is best, doesn't mean that the female character has been written 'poorly'. I think that kinda one-size-fits-all criticism discounts how varied and unique female personalities are.
When women fall in love with their abusers and rapists, it goes beyond “different personalities” for a great deal of people. It’s also frustrating for a lot of readers when female characters are only there to be raped, or to have tragedy happen to them so that male characters have development. I find it more of a one size fits all statement to decide that all of that is fine because women have different personalities than it is to point out that this happens quite frequently in this genre and that it might need to be further examined.
As for romance, my personal interpretation of what people are saying is that the romance is often underdeveloped or the women in the relationships are prizes for the men. I’m totally with you that there are tons of relationships I think are cringy or unhealthy 😆 Also, I agree that people are constantly wanting companionship in their real lives, so wouldn’t it make sense for characters to want that as well? I’m with you on that 100%.
Although I think we might disagree with one another a bit here, I appreciate you voicing your opinion and doing so respectfully :)
@@ebnovels i can totally see those points you make. You are one of about a half-dozen BookTubers i follow religioiusly. Believe it or not i learn a lot about writing from you BookTubers. In fact I know that a lot of us writers secretly follow the BookTubers. Keep up the good work your channel is DOPE!
Well thanks! I appreciate that 😄
Warbreaker is awesome (everything BS is), and if you dig into the whole Cosmere stuff it becomes even better (with characters reappearing in other novels and such)
I agree with a lot of the things. As long as in one book you only have one or two of these issues I think it’s ok- obviously you can always skim trough passages you don’t like. :)
Im excited for the next Videos in the series and I was so happy my comment was shown hehe even though it was just the „they are too long“ one which felt stupid now compared to all the more sophisticated and well thought trough comments 😆😆
I sooo agree that the treatment of women in adult fantasy is usually poor.
@@_DarkEmperor Your argument doesn't work. Sexualisation of a woman for no reason is not the same as a battle in a war to move the story forward. Let's say your strong army was 100% women. Cool. That still has nothing to do with the sexualisation of a woman for no reason or other examples of poor treatment.
What you don't seem to comprehend is that this boils down to poor writing, not what characters take the most damage. Sexualisation of women in literature is perfectly fine. As is the murder, the torture, the rape, etc. Same with men. What matters here is execution. A woman being sexualised through description because the point-of-view character is a male teenager-that can work. It makes logical sense and develops character. For no reason...well, that's poor writing then. That is what is meant (most of the time) when referring to the poor treatment of women in literature.
For example, let's change your army to 100% women again. A great many are slaughtered, eaten alive, and tortured as in your example. Yes, that can work. It makes logical sense and moves the story forward. That is not poor treatment of women. Just as it isn't when it's men going through it. Poor treatment in this context does not mean literal harm of a fictional character. This is obvious, and I can't tell if your reading comprehension is lacking or if you willfully chose to be ignorant.
Another reason to sexualise a woman in literature. Erotica. Because that's the entire point of erotica. It can work, it makes logical sense, and it moves that specific type of story forward. Now all my examples can still become poor treatment because, as I said before, it comes down to execution.
We'll make your army all men again. This time though, they all shout for no reason, "We're dumb men. We are scum. We all deserve to die just for being men." And they proceed to do battle with this weird mindset given to the reader. That is poor writing, that is poor execution, that is poor treatment of men. Your exact scenario mixed with poor execution equals poor treatment, whether the army is all male or all female or fifty-fifty. How many soldiers get tortured, eaten, and/or killed doesn't matter.
That was never the point.
@@DrawbackDrawback You are missing the point. People recognise when women are merely put in a sexual context and fret over whether they think it is acceptable or not. Where-as thousands of men being killed is par for the course. So a when naked woman raises more eye-brows than dead men I think we need to reassess our priorities...
@@_DarkEmperor hey, tbh I didn't quite understand your argument?
@@_DarkEmperor thats because thats how war is represented and described, have you heard of ww1 and 2
@@_DarkEmperor My example was that it is bad writing when there's no reason. If you wrote an army with low self esteem on purpose for a reason then it can be good writing. Reading comprehension, mate.
I can never have enough complexity in the world-building and magic systems! I'm more miffed about the recent "low magic" trend in which fantasy novels have sometimes simply become historical fiction, but without the research.
Just curious, which adult fantasy comes to mind for what you described? :)
@@ebnovels Examples would be (these aren't in any way bad books, just very low magic/no magic) : The Thief + sequels by Megan Whalen Turner, the Memories of Lady Trent series (does have dragons, but that's it), the Ranger's Apprentice series, We Set the Dark on Fire, The Warlord Chronicles by Bernhard Cornwell, the Baru Cormorant series, Amberlough, Riverside series, Fencer trilogy, engineer trilogy, Guy Gavriel Kay's novels (he DID the historical research though!), The False Prince, The Runaway King, Sword of the Guardian, Legends of Ithyria, the Temeraire series also has no magic apart from dragons, The Dagger and the Coin series, The Montague siblings, Hraban Chronicles, River of Teeth series, Adventures of Arabella Ashby, The Goblin Emperor, Joe Abercrombie's books are extremely low magic, The Folding Knife, Spindle's End - and a lot of grimdark fantasy is no/low fantasy and focuses just on warriors.
I've got absolutely nothing against these books, but still sometimes I wish they came with a "low magic!" label so that I would know in advance and wouldn't have to read half the book before realizing this and being disappointed because I happen to prefer high magic worlds when I read fantasy. Somehow nobody ever tells me in advance!
Omg the excessive descriptions that go on for eons 😂😂😂 excited for the rest of this series
Thanks, me too! :D
over the top extra drama. its not just enough to have a great challenge that will be almost impossible to over come. but then add oh this is happening, oh this bad guy shows up. movies do this more then novels, but still happens in books. these are fun to watch! look forward to your other ones in the series.
Thanks! I think I actually love when a bunch of things go wrong 😆
@@ebnovels i agree that enjoy better when things dont go smooth. Cause that rarely ever happens in life! It be a pretty boring book if everything went as planned. Hard to describe the over the top, but am sure know it when see it. Wheel of time relationships are pretty awful. Love the series though!
Agree with the WoT comment. *minor spoiler* The Lan/Nyneave thing just came out of nowhere and all the girls just fall in love with Rand for no real reason
I agree that Lan & Nyneave just came out of the blue. Although, with Rand (at least in my Headcanon) I felt that the reason they all fell n love with him was because he was ta'veren, and he needed them loyal to him. That's why they were ok with sharing him, because they had been wrapped up in the web.
for me it would be that despite the content being different, there has been a tendency to recycle naming elements in the titles, like "The name of X" or "The x of Kings". Even books that are tremendously good have fallen into this.
Definitely, it seems that almost every adult fantasy is called "the x of y" while almost every ya fantasy is called "the x of y and z"
'The Assassin of Dragons'. It is inevitable that will at some point become the name of a real book at this rate.
I have read Warbreaker recently. Awesome.
And because I have a little patience, I read Llarimar just "L" throughout the entire book. 😂
Ironically, I think that’s actually how the audiobook narrator said it 😄
My personal peeve is when using a college word in substitution for one that is simple and works better for flow. As in the word stipends and other words that feel bloated.
You can replace "when using a college word in substitution for one that is simple" with "using a big word in place of something simple."
I hope you like Elizabeth Moon (whenever you clear out your postbox next anyway), I think the female representation in Fantasy is well done in her Fantasy "series".
Have you read The Priory of the Orange Tree? Everything you dislike about fantasy genre is NOT this book. Strong female characters who don't have to be abused to reach character development. LGBTQ representation. And dragons. So, so good! I'd love to know your thoughts of the book!
I’m halfway through it rn and OML IT’S PHENOMENAL
All of this is so true trying to understand why things have to be so complicated in fantasy doesn't make any sense to me
WOT is horrible for relationships... and I seem to recall an interview about that at some point. But it is a problem with the books. You can still love the story and not like that aspect :D
Regarding lack of LGBTQ, Joe Abercrombie short stories "sharp ends" has one a few lesbian female characters. However, the main plot is not about their sexual preferences its Lord grimdark obviously. Still there are references to their interests and it reads well. Same in Gentleman bastards book 2 there are references to preferences on the ship. I don't think it makes the book better or worse. Just more flavor. I have not read any books where sexual preference is the central conflict or theme.
I was telling my husband that I really love your glasses and he said to comment and ask you what style they are (duh!) so here I am, asking what style your glasses are 😅
Glasses USA! I wasn’t sponsored either, I just really liked them (although I might be working with them in the future! :D). Anyway, the brand is Muse on their website, and these exact frames are actually a really deep red 👓
@@ebnovels I actually ordered my sunglasses from Glasses USA! Thank you :D
Totally agree with you on the long, complicated names I do exactly the same. When I see that name later on in the story I just say to myself, yeah it's the one with the hard name :D
Edit: Wrote my first comment before watching the video to the end, sorry. I also agree that descriptions for things we can easily imagine ourselves some times get out of hand and this is quite annoying, we are not morons ffs!
I am not a Fantasy reader, but thanks to Booktube I have started to try (I loved The lies of Locke Lamora despite some issues with pacing in the second half of the book). The one comment I strongly agree with and I find it a HUGE obstacle is the lack of stand alones. I find it very off putting that I need to commit to 1500+ pages story everytime I want to read a fantasy. So, I often ask if the first book is more or less self contained (Like Locke Lamora).
Here Here! good points all around. I don't really read a lot of Fantasy for a lot of these reasons, but maybe someday. I'm getting there
Oh man, I would have loved to give my answer. Here it is though: Lazy tolkinean maps. That is one of the things I hate the most. If when I open a book there is a map, looks like Tolkien and has a place named Elvthrand or something like that, I put it down.
Also, should a map have more interesting names and another style, but the geography doesn't make sense (magic can make it make sense), also I put it down.
I loooove it when a book/series prides itself on being so "unique" and "diverse" with extensive worldbuilding and interesting characters and then you open it up to read it and there's one black girl, maybe a gay guy, and the same medieval Europe based setting as every other Tolkien rip-off.
Spare me.
Horacio Nelson The challenge is finding foreign authors who write fantasy that is in or has been translated into English. YA is getting better about this, but adult fantasy tends to be more Europe-centered. Part of that is just its history (a lot of the seminal works of high fantasy are from decades ago, before there was much interest in other settings), but modern fantasy doesn’t have the excuse of not knowing much about other cultures and places. I don’t think an author should HAVE to set the world in a non-European setting, but saying authors are just “writing what they know” seems incredibly limiting considering the incredible amount of information available if they want to research other cultures for inspiration.
Ok I'm not the only one that makes up a new simpler name for some of these characters 😆
Very interesting watch, thank you.
An interesting series for me (which I'm currently reading) is Bradley Beaulieu's 'The Song of the Shattered Sands'. The main character is handled really well in my opinion. She's a badass but it's not shoved in your face, she just does things that happen to be badass. She's also very open about sex, and there are a lot of sex scenes in the book which are fairly graphic actually, but I don't mind it because it always made sense and despite the first one being a bit of a shock to me I actually think they're well written.
I'd be curious to know if you have any thoughts on the series
I think the long descriptions of the immediate setting can sometimes be the best way to tell the reader about the character’s mood and general attitude toward the situation.
The hard to pronounce names!
Do you mean the names which are not real names or names which are not-English real names?
@@lindapenttinen3382 Most names i read in Fantasy books
There are a lot of difficult names 😆
I totally agree with the complexity comment. I recently read House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J Maas and honestly, I just could not keep up with the politics and the hierarchy in that world. Eventually I just decided to drop it and just go with the flow and I found that works fine for me 😌 Also love this concept !
Urgh, those books irritated me SO much.
Using thesaurus words instead of plain English: check.
Abusive relationships: check. Multiple times over.
Gratuitous sex scenes: check. Sooooo many.
Exposition dumping: check. A dinner party conversation where a secondary character explains the whole backstory of one of the protagonists in a single monologue?!
Lazy world building: check. How do you have a flipping sentient cauldron, that's suddenly super powerful and central to the main plot, yet never mention it till two thirds of the way through the second book in the series?!
Lazy character building: check. How can a hero protagonist suddenly become the main enemy? Oh let's not develop that at all, we'll just have the total change of character happen between books 1 & 2, so we don't have to explain it. That will be a nice surprise for the readers!
And yet somehow they still managed to be compelling! But I gave up after book 2, as the irritations kept piling higher!
I took a very long break from reading fantasy, and I think I've come back to it after many years as a much pickier reader than I was before!
I personally have difficulty with overly complex magic. I’m not a magic fan to begin with (ironic because I do LOVE the adult fantasy genre). I don’t use magic in Skyrim and rarely use it other games, and my own fantasy series has limited magic.
In games, I almost always go for dual wielding. I like my people fast! 😆 I like some complex magic, but others don’t work for me.
Elliot Brooks I will say, I’ve been using magic constantly in the Final Fantasy VII remake because it’s practically unavoidable. But in Kingdom Hearts, I may use cure every few battles, but not often. I’m a rogue myself, normally. I do like Allomancy, because there’s more or less a pseudoscience to it.
3:52
I know this is a cartoon and not a book but the Cleome ark in Wakfu had so many rage inducing arguments when I watched to the point I can't stand Cleome that much. She's not even that bad she just got put into the plot for drama. POINTLESS DRAMA BETWEEN DALLY AND EVA!
I often enjoy a shorter, faster paced story, but feel I am limited to the urban or young adult genres to get it. I know new world-building can be complex and all, but there nothing wrong with leaving a little to the imagination and delivering a quicker, simpler plot on occasion!
That’s true! I also think adult fantasy doesn’t HAVE to have a super complex world 😊
I honestly think that a lot of those complaints are a personal taste of a minory, such as not liking long series (reasonably long, not the Wheel of Time long) or complexity of the world, and then there are complaints about bad writing that spread across all genres, such as poor character development or awkwardly written sex scenes
WoT has the WORST relationships period. The way men and women treat each other is horrible. it makes sense the magic users would, but everybody else it makes no sense.
I wish that books would give pronunciation guides for their made-up character names, if they're not obviously based on cultural or traditional names from an irl country than I can't get the vibe of how I'm meant to say it,
I definitely sympathise with the people who think the worlds are too complex. For me, it depends a lot on HOW the world is presented-as much as I roll my eyes when Sanderson talks about the flora retracting AGAIN in the Stormlight Archive, he does at least fit that organically into the story (most of the time). If the author has to sit the reader down and give a lecture on how the magic system works, not only is the pacing of the story destroyed but also I’m bored. If the author shows us how the magic is being used, we can usually connect the dots ourselves about what its abilities and limitations are. 🤓
As an artist I hate the "don't judge a book by its cover" saying. I honestly believe that what it's actually supposed to mean (don't judge people solely on your first impression of them) works more legitimate than the metaphor. Like... yes, you DO need to judge a LITERAL book by its LITERAL cover. There's a reason books have pretty covers: TO GET YOUR ATTENTION. If a book's cover is of a boy and a girl in some kind of romantic situation and they've both been airbrushed to hell and back, I'm not going to give that book a second look because I'm not the kind to read cheesy love stories. If I see a well-drawn fantasy landscape that appeals to my personal tastes, I will probably pick up that book. The cover is there to tell you something about the book. A book's cover is deliberately chosen. A person's appearance might not be.
This. I find you can actually tell very well by the cover at which audience the book is aimed at, which helps a lot in figuring out whether it's interesting to me or not.
The bigger the better for me lol. I have no issues with complexity in Adult fantasy. In fact that is why it is one of my favorite genres. And I find the character work to be done better in adult fantasy. Most of the YA characters just seem to be made out of the same mold, with no real depth to them.
Just curious, which YA books come to mind when you think of cardboard cutouts/lack of depth? I think it happens in both! 😊
Most of the famous ones I've read like Throne of Glass series, Children of Blood and Bone, The Cruel Prince, Grisha trilogy, Daughter of Smoke and Bone etc... All of the protagonists and main characters just felt like tiny variations of the same caricature. Of course, Adult fantasy is not exempt from this, but I find that this to be rare in the ones I have read.
On the BOOBS! Y'all realize that there's not a male directed romance genre, right? Like that's a lot of what you're getting in a twist over here: "romance" for guys.
I'm a simple man looking for simple things, but every now and then I want something so complex that it makes me want something simple again.
7:12 You are talking about Nynaeve and Lan, right? Yeah, I starter the series last month, still on Book 2, and yes I totally felt that way with those 2. I didn't felt cringe over the sudden romance, more like, the age gap between them is what turns me off the most. EDIT: Wait, hawkish nose? Or either I haven't got to that part yet, or I miss read Nynaeve.
I am so happy to see Vagabond in the backround!!! Like so happy!!!
Go figure a bunch of nerds that write fantasy don't know how to write romance, lol. I totally agree that romance in most fantasy stories is trying too hard, or poorly developed, or just complete nonsense. I loved Rage of Dragons that I read recently but lol the sex scene in that book, oof. That's just one example but it rings pretty true for just about every fantasy novel that I've read. Also, THERE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ROMANCE IN YOUR NOVEL! I'm perfectly fine without the main protagonist needing to have a love interest for the sake of a love interest, and it can also get super lazy when that love interest is the driving force of their entire story-line. Fantasy books don't have to be Mario trying to save Princess Peach alright?
My biggest gripe with fantasy right now though is having your main character get knocked out or pass out when they should be dead. This has saved characters SO. MANY. TIMES. and it bothers me. Destruction all around, the hero is bleeding out, and then passes out thinking of all the mistakes they made, how they wish they could change things. Oh just kidding they wake up in the next scene and are ok now!
I had one sex scene in my first novel Forgetting Moon. It was the only scene my editor crossed out of the entire novel with a note saying, "Let me save you the embarrassment." :D
Ah, I think that would fall under my complaint too of the stakes sometimes being “super high” only to have no one get seriously injured 😆
Hahahaha, and I love your first remark. Us nerds 🤣
@@ebnovels To be fair I haven't yet read your book so I'm not judging you! -_-
elantris is way better than warbreaker imo. Warbreaker was, imo, sanderson's worst book in the cosmere. Still good though.
I need to reread Elantris!
Amazing video idea!🤣 I enjoyed watching this so much.
I do the same thing with complicates names. I either pronounce it like I think it's pronounced or like you shorten it. I don't have time to constantly wonder if I'm pronouncing it correctly. lol I just want to read the book. Darnit. lol
I agree that adult fantasy has bad romance, but I think people are more nitpicky about YA because the plot in the adult fantasy books is more prevalent. Say usually in adult books the plot is like 90% of the book and the romance takes up the other 10. Whereas in YA the romance/plot ratio is usually 50/50, so it’s not as easy to look past it. Does that make sense? English isn’t my first language so idk if I’m explaining myself well.
Anyways I’ve never read a good romance in an adult book, but i don’t strongly hate them either. I’ve read a lot of good romances in YA books, but the ones I dislike, I dislike with passion.
I agree ya romance is way better haha, cetain adult fanatsy authors *cough* rothfuss *cough* are terrible at romance!!
And agree that i like some super complex and some less complex fantasies to satisfy both my smart brain and my dumb brain (yes I have two!!!)
And it (AF) definetly needs better written women and lgbtq+ rep but there are some absolutely amazing diverse adult fantasy books (jade city, sword of kaigen, poppy war, all nk jemisen books) that all deserve so much more hype!!
I'd actually argue it's easier to find good standalones in science-fiction than it is in fantasy. Also I guess I'm really out of the loop on YA SFF, 'cause I really did have an issue with how relationships and characters' maturity levels were portrayed... Hence why I don't even bother with that category anymore.
Another great video on this channel, thanks for the awesome content Elliot
You’re very welcome!
One of the bad thing with fantasy books is that you always have to compare it either to Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. For young adult it's even worse. Then it's either Twilight or Hunger Games which isn't even really fantasy. Or Harry Potter ofc
Ah, that’s very true! I didn’t see anyone mention that, but it’s a good point 😄
I have wanted to read warbreaker... but I'm scared because I don't want a cliffhanger in a book that is never going to get more books >_< is that the case?
It's not a cliffhanger imo. But it leaves it open for the eventual sequel that's planned
No, it stands alone although it is subly referenced in later Sanderson books. That said, it's definitely not my favourite of his books.
The repetitive, "focus group" plot and world building...so many novels and stories seem like clones..change the names and they are almost intergabgable.
Elliot you're great hope you're doing well in the pandemic looking forward to reading your boook
I hope you’re doing well too!
My main problem with Malazan was just that it ended up reading like a Dungeons and Dragons campaign more than a story. You could pretty much see the dice being rolled at times. Also just the fact that Erikson would write himself into corners at points and then have a character do something utterly mindboggling in order to get them where he wants them to be. There's one particular bit in, I think, Memories of Ice that I'm thinking of specifically. I read the same ten or so pages over and over again in a baffled attempt to figure out if I'd missed something. But there was nothing. Erikson just had a character that he wanted to be in a totally different place, and had literally no way of getting them there, because so many of the characters are stupidly overpowered, their dice rolls wouldn't fit, and so he pulled something completely incomprehensible out of his arse.
When the description was "slow pacing" and "sudden out of nowhere romance", tWoT immediately popped into my head, and two seconds later you said it too. I love the books, but I'm happy to admit they have a LOT of flaws.
For me, it would be a very often present emotional disconnection from reader to characters (give me all the emotional turmoil, gosh darn it! 😂), which might stem from the 3rd person perspective? 🤔 and infodumping. A whole lot of infodumping. For example, if you infodump everything about the magic system, for me, you suck out all the charm & mystery out of it. There's nothing to ponder at or theorize about. (Looking at you, Warbreaker 👀). Oh! And also, when the magic system (and world building) overshadows the characters, especially when it happens to the point where the characters become only marionettes and when the story wouldn't really change if characters switched roles 🤷♀️
01:43 ~ Instead of complex, maybe they simply want there to be more than just the faction the protagonist supports and the one the antagonist supports. How the author presents that can be very simple, because the reader doesn't need to know anything outside of what the protagonist experiences.
Many of those points are the criteria publishing houses use to determine which label to put on a book. Complex, long, explicit scenes, sexy women -> Adult. Googly-eyed romance, strong women, female protagonist -> YA.
To be honest, i love it when the Landscape is described in pages after pages :P
I like this one. But because it is old how can I find the others in this 5 part series?
I hate when epic fantasy doesn't provide any sorta recap for the story in the beginning of the book. Because not all readers are going to binge a series before a new release ... instalment at least give peeps option to have it or skip it.
@@MrSonny665 FR i caught up with ASAOIF 2019 and i still need that recap if TWOW coming in 2020-2021. In Terms of DoS i will read first 2 books if he actually finishes the 3rd book atm just waiting for him to complete the trilogy.