kofeiiniturpa;n9172770 said:
That's too bad. There's some great stuff you're missing out on.
Yeah... I know. The problem here though is that the setting and genre makes all the difference to me. If it is not the right setting or genre I will probably not be interested.
Take for example stories like your average Romeo and Juliet... or Jane Eyre, or your average Jane Austen stuff... and put it in the "proper" settings and/or genres that they take place in... and you will find that I will hiss worse then a Vampire caught in sunlight, as I then try to flee from the horrors of stuff like that! XD
I really do not like that 18th-19th century Jane Eyre stuff kind of stuff... it's sort of on the same level as Country and Western music, and the Swedish music style called "Dansband"... I loath it... it makes me tired watching/hearing it... it makes me want to verbally groan, and my eyes roll all over in pure reflex of it all... and it makes my skin crawl where I just want to get away from it... XD
But take the exact same stories I mentioned, and put them in settings and genres that I like (of course addapting them to such a degree that they would work in those settings and genres of course... there is no point in doing it if your not going to adapt it so that it workd for an sci-fi action movie or something)... and you will probably find a person (me that is) who munches all that up with bones, skin, fure, hair and all... XD
So far nothing has been able to save neither Country and Wester, or Dansband for me though... that is pretty much a lost cause there... XD
kofeiiniturpa;n9172770 said:
I grew out of fantasy literature arounf 15-20 years ago. Or, I just got bored one day reading god knows how manyeth book of The Wheel of TIme and witnessing how in the past thousand+ pages the story hadn't moved an inch, and decided to leave fantasy out completely for a while... and I just never went back, couldn't get into it anymore. I even tried The Song of Ice and Fire a while ago, but it just didn't work.
I also grew up on Fantasy more or less, but during my teen years. I found Fantasy only a few weeks after I turned 13 (back in mid 1992), and I have never turned back since then. What did it for me was that I finally found the first book in David Eddings bookseries "The Belgariad"... to this day his books (anything connected to Belgarion, and the other series about Sparhawk as well) are my favorit fantasy books of all time... even though I have read a lot of other fantasy since, and even though I am 38 at the moment (Eddings books are pretty much youthbooks really... but they where placed in the adult section).
When I started reading books (I was about 10 years) I had started out on your average
"young kid who lives his life, with school, home, friends, etc" stuff, pretty common stuff I guess. I later also found and read some several "The Hardy Boys" books... and actually I did read 2 kids/youth fantasy books as well (it had not captured me though at the time).
But the ones I liked the most at that time where a lot of "Historical youth" novels by the same Swedish author (there are no English translations of any of his books... neither his youthbooks, or his books for adults (which where crime/detective/lawyer/Scandinavian noir types of books... never read them... but have seen some of the Swedish movies and tv-series that where spawned out of them))... the premis of each of those books was that the author had picked one fairly to very big event in Swedish history (roughly speaking most of them took place somewhere between the 13th to extreamly early 18th century), where he then created a compleatly made up young boy/teen (12-16'ish I think most of them where) and shoved that guy straight into the middle of that actual historical event, where the guy usually had to overcome something.
In my favorit one of them a young guy had found him self having been conscripted into the Swedish military, and was sent off to Russia, where his first ever battle was "The Battle of Poltava" which went really badly for the Swedes (this battle is by many considered to be the point where Sweden started to decline as one of the "Great Powers" of Europe), the battle is lost and the kid get's captured by Russian soldiers, he is sent away to Sibera as a workslave at some workcamp, but decides to plan for his escape (he does not think he would survive staying there due to the conditions), and then you follow him as he tries to travel through Russia and back home to Sweden and his family. In another one the guy was accused, and jailed (innocently so), for being the one who started the fire that burned down much of the Castle in Stockholm back in the the very late 17th century (like the last few years or so). And in the third and last that I can recall, which I actually do not remember much at all about the story, it took place somewhere in the range of the 1660-1700's or so, where the kid was either part of, or was sent to infiltrate (as a spy for the Swedes) a group of "Snapphanes"... which where a pro-Danish guerrilla organization which fought against the Swedes on Swedish soil, and did what ever they could to hinder and undermine, and what not, the Swedes. It ultimatly failed of course... especially after the Danish king ordered them to start killing "Swedish loyalists", aka people in Scania and other previously Danish provinses and such which where now Swedish, people who through a pretty ruthless "Swedification" policy had sworn allegiance to the Swedish king... due to that, them killing people like that, it drove a wedge between the local population and the Snapphanes and Denmark... to such a degree that when Denmark some time later attacked Sweden in those locations, Sweden where able to muster up local millitias which fought against the Danes. Sweden and Denmark has been at each others throats a lot of times through out history... I don't think there are a lot of other nations out there which has fought each other as often as Sweden and Denmark has... XD
Anyway... once I had read all that I felt I wanted to read from the childrens/teen section I wondered what I was going to do now. Decided that I guess I should check out the adult sections of the libraries (not as in 18+ kind of "adult section"... just a section which where dedicated to "normal" none children/teen books... XD ). The way I went about it was to start at Aa, and then pull out every single book untill I found something interesting. So I was TOTALLY judging the books by their cover (both front and back)... XD It was not untill I came to Ee that I finally found something interesting... when as I mentioned above found the fist book in David Eddings "The Belgariad" series... when I pulled out that book, "Pawn of Prophecy", and saw the
front cover of the book, it instantly clicked and spoke to me...I barelly had to read the text on the back befor I was already sold on it. XD
Those Eddings books that are connected to Belgarion, and the other series connected to Sparhawk, are books which I keep re-reading every now and then, at most there will be 2-3 years between each time... by now I have probably read the original "The Belgariad" series about 15 times, and "The Mallorean" 1 time less (the Swedish translation of this series had not come out yet when I found Eddings, and it was not untill some several years later that I started reading books in English)... the books about Sparhawk I am probably up to having read about 12 times I think (each time I re-read Eddings Fantasy books these days, I always read all of them in a row).
The books series which are closest after that for me is probably Katharine Kerr's "Deverry Cycle" series, which I think I have re-read 5 times since I found them maybe around 96-97'ish... although, annoyingly I have been unable to read the last 3 books in Swedish, because the Swedish company that translated the series here decided that
"naa... we are going to stop doing that because it is not seeling well enough"... which is highly frustrating. I mean you translated the first 12 books, why stop now with only 3 books left?!
Technicly I have read Robert Jordan books more often then Kerr's... but most of those came from the fact that the Swedish translations where still ongoing when I found them... but eventually I stopped re-reading the entire series each time a new book came out... XD Decided to start waiting for the series to actually finish first... then he died... and then Brandon Sanderson was choicen to finish it, and right now I am for the first time finally reading the entire thing from start to finish (I came to the first Sanderson book a week or so ago). Annoyingly enough though, the same company which translates almost all Fantasy books in Sweden, that decided to stop translating Kerrs books, also decided to not translate the last 3 Wheel of Time books... so once again I can't read the entire series in Swedish!
It's not that I have to read them/books in Swedish, I am perfectly fine with reading English, but it's annoying because I am a bit of a completionist, and I like symetry, and also because the slight difference you might find between the English and Swedish version of a book will give it a slightly different flavour which is nice... so yeah... annoying. XD
These authors, David Eddings, Katharine Kerr, and Robert Jordan, are my favorit Fantasy authors... favorit authors in general as well.
And yay! I just found out that a few months ago there came out word that Wheel of Time is going to be made into a tv-series! Here is hoping that Eddings books will find it's way out to tv-series as well, which is something I have wanted ever since I first read the books.
Would like to see Kerr's books to as tv-series... but I am not sure how the Deverry series would work as a tv-series though... since that one jumps back and forth in time a lot (several hundreds of years in jumps at times)... as in it followes the souls of each of the main characters in the books "now", where they go back and look at who the soul was in a past life... and not only for a short flashback or something either... usually for an entire chapter, and occationally an entire book... could get a bit to confusing for a tv-series, especialy if not "done right"... what ever "right" would be for a series like that. XD
/babble