What is the most garbage fantasy ever written and why is it Christopher Tortellini's Eragon?

Because it's John Wick's Wicked Fantasy.

A boy of foggy origins lives with his uncle in a remote place of a vast empire headed by an evil Emperor and his right hand man, who was once prominent in an ancient order of guardians with mystical powers.
Through fate or luck, depending on your point of view, this boy comes into the possession of an object vital to a rebellion against the Empire; this object was inadvertently sent to him by a princess in the rebellion, who had attempted to send said object to an old man who once belonged to the same order of guardians as the Emperor’s right-hand man.
This boy seeks the old man to learn of the ways of this ancient order, but eventually has to return to his uncle’s farm, which, the boy finds, has been destroyed by fire, and his uncle killed. The boy then sets off with the old hermit, who also gives him a sword which belonged to his father. As they travel, they train. The boy meets up with a rogue who is full of surprises, but turns out to be fiercely loyal, for all his proclaimed selfishness. The boy also begins "seeing" a beautiful woman imprisoned and in need of help.
The boy decides that he needs to rescue her, even though he doesn't know her; further, he thinks of her only as beautiful (Luke's first words are, "Who is she? She's beautiful?" Eragon can't stop thinking about her beauty). Long story short, the old hermit dies to protect the boy, the boy and the rogue help the beautiful damsel escape.
They then set off to the rebellion to give important information and return the object which the princess had sent the boy. They were followed by the Empire, and prepare for a giant battle that will either save the rebellion or annihilate them.

Another masterpiece from a teenage prodigy

The boy proves his worth with heroics during the battle, but his crowning achievement is his destruction of a noun of much power that has the ability to destroy lots of things. The boy is aided in this by one of his friends, who arrives at precisely the right moment.
The boy is lauded a hero.
The boy has a hallucination of a powerful master who can teach him more of the ancient order. The boy travels to the powerful master to learn the ways of the ancient order's mystical power. While there, he grows very powerful. While he is away, the Rebellion regroups in a new area.
Just when the boy is on a roll with his training, and has grown very powerful, he has a vision of his friends in great danger. He decides he must go to help them. His master warns him not to go. The boy promises that he will return. He leaves.
He finds his friends just in time and is able to distract the enemy so that his friends will remain safe. He finds out that his father was the right-hand man of the Emperor--his father was the one who betrayed the ancient order and helped kill them.
The boy is shocked and ultimately defeated, but not killed. He finds out that someone dear to him has been taken by evil people, and promises to find this person.
Now, is that the plot of Inheritance, or Star Wars?
web.archive.org/web/20070501183115/www.anti-shurtugal.com/starwars.htm

I managed to read Butlerian Jihad and Machine Crusade without immediately setting fire to them.

Can't say the same for certain Ian Watson novels.

These novels are all trash I'm sure but are they international bestsellers? Are they derivative to the point of plagiarism? Were the authors made out to be geniuses as part of a phony marketing ploy? Do the authors BELIEVE they are geniuses on level with Seanus Heaney and "Tolkien at his best?"

Galbatorix did nothing wrong. The elves needed genociding.

In my example, the author felt entitled to give himself a nickname on the front cover.

So probably "yes" to a few of those.

...

Oh and FYI, Tortellini wasn't 15 when he wrote his fanfiction literary abortions. He was 15 when he "imagined" the story and 18 when he started writing it. He finished it at 19, at which point his wealthy and doting parents self-published their spoiled, autistic progeny's """""book""""" instead of letting it languish on fanfiction.net where it belongs.

My aunt wrote a really fucking bad fantasy book.

The entirety of it is on google books for some reason.

She drew the cover herself.

books.google.com/books/about/The_Golden_Moon_of_Alantriock.html?id=oYsBAZNPeTEC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false

There was supposed to be a sequel but she died before she finished it ;_;

At least she is a creative woman.

>anti-shurtugal

Well met, brother!

Fate has bought us together again on Veeky Forums.

Hi guys, what's going on in this thread?

I'm sure her novel is one of the least offensive ones ITT, user.

Honestly it's no worse that most fanfics. The only difference is most fanfics don't get published.

I didn't read the books, because I knew what to expect, but I did see the movie, and I gotta say I can kinda remember two characters from it, the protagonist and his dragon.

That's more than I remember from all three of the big ass Terry Brooks novels I read combined -- there I only remember the name of Garet Jax, and that only because some guy used to use that name on a BBS I visited in the 90s. Beyond that, I can't recall a damned thing about any of those lifeless cardboard cutouts Brooks called characters.
For another thing, Brooks's Shannara novels (he insists it's pronounced SHUH-nuh-ruh) were so financially successful that they spawned a glut of cookie cutter Tolkien knockoffs that continue to flood the fantasy lit shelves to this very day. Fantasy prior to Sword of Shannara was a wide, wild frontier with all sorts of bizarre things, but afterwards it was all elves and dwarves and dark lords and magic macguffins that have to be wanged with the doodle to stop the prophecy of canoodle, forever.
Also, Brooks claims he was not channeling Tolkien at all for his ridiculous claptrap about a band of unlikely heroes facing down the return of agreat evil with spunk and a macguffin, no! He was doing a pastiche on old WIlliam Faulkner!

Paolini is but a pale imitation of the crapmonger that is Terry Brooks.

It gets better. Are you willing to look at reddit?
>reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/2bscok/could_yall_please_explain_to_me_why_the/
Scroll down a bit and you’ll see a big post from TryeElf. Read that.

Rest in peace, auntie.

Probably Discworld or Elric.

It skips over the prologue, but her main character is an empath that lives in a house with other psychics, whose eyes change color with her mood, drives a panel van, and is a functioning alcoholic. The last two are what make the main character a self-insert.

The plot involves her somehow traveling through time/dimensions to the past/future/alternate timeline (it's never clearly established) fantasy world where mages are persecuted by evil peasants even though they dindu nuffin. Early on she meets her "spirit sister" who is a magically attuned child wise beyond her years and honestly that's all I remember because it was a blur after that.

Thats not The Sword of Truth series

Is that the one by the Ayn Rand fanboy?

Yep

And the protagonist cuts down some unarmed anti-war protestor strawmen

Looking back I have no idea why I read it

I still like how the fuckhuge not-communist army was beaten by basically causing a football/soccer riot inside it

I hate reddit but I hate Tortellini more. Would one of you be a dear and add the list of words he stole from Tolkien to that thread?

They really were such assholes, though. Tolkien codified the whole "elven superiority" thing, but his asshole elves were recognized as assholes in-story. This Tortilla fellow really unironically portrayed his elves as perfect morally-upright goody two shoes who were always smarter and always stronger and always better than Man.

Sometimes people complain about dwarfags on this board, but man, I think they're forgetting how bad Elves can be in the hands of a nincompoop. At least people usually have a sense of humour about dwarfs.

Wasn't the guy like 14 when he wrote Eragon?

That looks bad but also like it would be really funny.

>his Tortilla fellow really unironically portrayed his elves as perfect morally-upright goody two shoes who were always smarter and always stronger and always better than Man.
Yeah, except that they were horrible murderous pricks

And rapists. Didn't stop Tortilla tho.

>Wasn't the guy like 14 when he wrote Eragon?

Nah he conceptualized it in his mid-teens but didn't actually sit down to write it until he neared his twenties.

I'll give Chinchilla some credit: he basically did what your average high school neckbeard only dreams of doing. How many of us had some spergy, derivative fantasy book idea in high school which we thought would be awesome and then did nothing with it? At least Paolini stuck with it through four books. That's a laborious process no matter how much you steal from Star Wars.

Eye of Argon doesn't count, it was and still is a masterpiece beyond compare

Sorry Lord Double Dubs, it is just that most of us outgrew are chuuni phase, realized we were being cringey, and locked away or forgot our shitty fantasy novel. Pappardelle had parents who totally subscribed to the Church of Self-Esteem and encouraged him despite sucking ass.

>Tolkien
>genius

Haha, no. Autismal linguist whose stories are hackneyed pastiches of Norse myth. They're full of scared old white guy concerns too - orcs as the unwashed working class, the idea that only great men of noble blood can rule, the pastoral Shire vs the evil industrial powers of Isengard and Mordor, the scary brown-skinned people who sided with the Devil.

The thread compels me. I must confess: I read all of inheritance and enjoyed it, except for the part where the kid and the elf girl didn't fuck. My excuse is I started reading it when I was eight, and the last book came out when I was fifteen. I was unfamiliar with LOTR, and dismissed the Star Wars rip off cause I was a kid, and liked dragons at the time

I had no idea how much of a hack Paolini was, and I could tell even as a kid the settings magic system was bullshit, but I was pretty hype for all the books. Forgive me for my shit taste

Not quite accurate. He came up for it when he was 14, couldn't figure out where to go with it, and dropped it for a while, instead reading books on writing. Then he plotted out the four book series and started writing for real. He finished the final version of the first book by the time he was 17, and his parents self-published it in 2001 when he was about 18 years old.

...

nice trips, and we were ignoring him

Sounds like you were just a normal kid. Taste is something you have to develop over time, and if 8 year olds didn't love all kinds of dumb shit they wouldn't be 8 year olds. Same for 15 year olds, actually -- they're quite similar, except 8 year olds don't think they've figured it all out and know everything yey.

> it is just that most of us outgrew are chuuni phase, realized we were being cringey, and locked away or forgot our shitty fantasy novel

You say that but worldbuilding and setting threads suggest otherwise.

Well World is the worst.

I know it's sci-fi, but it's legitimately the only series which I just had to straight up stop out of disgust, and I was like 12 and had read basically everything Dragonlance. (And dragonlance was decent for about two books)

Like the main character is this Han Solo esque woman who travels the galaxy, and then the inner working of a biological labotary the size of a planet (The Well World). Which basically serves to compare various species of sapient life by placing them in pens the size of countries, but to keep things fair technological levels are strictly enforced. (Very strong species don't get to have guns, very weak ones get lasers. Except one place where the strong species conquered the weak one, forced the weak one to switch biomes, and then had both tech and strength)
Anyway.
So this sounds just like schlock, and I was enjoying it as shlock.

But then the main character is turned into a donkey centaur ting without real functional limbs and used as a cocksleeve by the villains, described in fairly vivid detail and at great length.

I know you won't believe me, but it's not b8. Google Michael Moorcock's article 'Epic Pooh' for a more in-depth analysis (his article on Starship Troopers is A-class too). It's fine if you don't reply, I'm not after (you)s, but do read the article, ESPECIALLY if you're a diehard Tolkien (or Heinlein) fanboy.

his parents owned the publishing company

Actually I say Main Character, she was technically a side kick. But it's a Han Solo/Luke Skywalker situation, except Luke isn't present for like half the book at times.

That premise sounded really cool and I couldn't understand your issue until I got to
>But then the main character is turned into a donkey centaur ting without real functional limbs and used as a cocksleeve by the villains, described in fairly vivid detail and at great length.

>"The treatment of colour nearly always horrifies anyone going out from Britain, & not only in South Africa. Unfort[unately], not many retain that generous sentiment for long." ― Letter 61 — Written to Christopher Tolkien who was stationed in South Africa during World War II

>"I have the hatred of apartheid in my bones; and most of all I detest the segregation or separation of Language and Literature. I do not care which of them you think White." ― From a Valedictory Address to the University of Oxford in 1959

>"I must say that the enclosed letter from Rutten & Loening is a bit stiff. Do I suffer this impertinence because of the possession of a German name, or do their lunatic laws require a certificate of arisch origin from all persons of all countries? ... Personally I should be inclined to refuse to give any Bestätigung (although it happens that I can), and let a German translation go hang. In any case I should object strongly to any such declaration appearing in print. I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine." ― Letter 29 — Tolkien's German publishers had asked whether he was of Aryan origin

>"It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil at heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace." ― The Two Towers, "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit"

Tolkien was not racist. And as far as politics go he actually leaned towards anarchism.

So did Chesterton. All the best English authors back in the day had a streak of it.

not immediately related, but when you watched Paul Joseph's "Zeitgeist" did you find it revelatory?

Here's the author by the way.

And what's worse is that the cock sleeve things happens right the fuck out of nowhere, and I've been told that the author realized that he'd completely fucked over a principal character and then gave her functional limbs again later.
Which sort of just made the whole ordeal pointless.

I wouldn't know, I stopped on the second page of her sexual assault being described.

Oh hey, I've read those and I remember him being turned into a donkey-centaur thing, but not the bit you're talking about. I guess I didn't notice it? Just forgot it in favor of the good bits? Weird.
I suppose all I can say is, it was the 70s, and shock value was big in genre fiction at the time. I suppose I wouldn't be fazed by that -- I read Dangerous Visions and its sequel like a decade before I picked up Well World, and just about anything published is pretty tame in comparison to some of that stuff, especially in Again, Dangerous Visions.

This is pretty charming, actually.
RIP Aunt Dawn.

It's probably not a good book, but it seems like a rather innocent passion project.

Motherfucker did you just talk shit about Discworld?

This More-Cock faggot should have actually learned something about Tolkien before making him out to be an an elitist authoritarian racist snob.

Arguing that Orcs are supposed to be the working classes? Please. Tolkien was raised in poverty by a single mother who couldn't even count on her family for support after her conversion to Catholocism. These accusations are baseless. It's name calling, they're not valid criticisms in the least. Get fucked.

At least one of you is samefagging, but I can't tell which.

underrated post

I mean you can talk a LOT of shit about discworld, and I fucking love it.

Like the fact that any main character who survives more than one book is a Mary Sue.
All of them, especially fucking Weatherwax. (But also, the Guard. All of it)

Like the fact that keeping a somewhat consistent characterization of the characters went out the windows after Guards Guards.

Like the fact that half the books were based on whatever social cause made him Pratchett angry at the moment.

That being said of course, I fucking love Discworld.

How did you come to that conclusion?

Epic Pooh amuses me. Though not so much for 'look at it eviscerate Tolkien/CS Lewis' as 'aww, who's being provocative. You're being provocative Moorcock'. It's kinda adorable.

that and I strongly disagree that CS Lewis never tried to provoke with his work. If you DO recognize the Strong Christian Overtones you also have to recognize that his take on Christianity is only normal by a modern perspective. For the time it was written themes like 'Religion in the face of the probability that there is no god' and 'Good people of other faiths going to heaven more easily than asshole Christian's was a serious challenge to what was taught children and society in general in his time.

>Probably Discworld or Elric.
Fucker, i will cut you and offer your blood to the Lords of Chaos while i bury your bones in Death's corn field.

I read it when I was 12, and my only experience with Sci-fi and Fantasy was TV shows, Dragonlance, Harry Potter, and Tolkien.

Also, the Screwtape letters is a scathing condemnation of mainstream Christianity and Christians.
Moorcock couldn't do more deft criticism of a philosophical movement if he had a team of university lecturers at his beck and call.

Poster count. I realize, only too late, that it was quite possibly a mistake on my part.

>Epic Pooh amuses me. Though not so much for 'look at it eviscerate Tolkien/CS Lewis' as 'aww, who's being provocative. You're being provocative Moorcock'. It's kinda adorable.

Just read it now, and yeah, it's got that late 70s punk rock ethos of sneering at the stuffy old farts going on, which I guess makes sense since it was written in '78. It's an entertaining read, and more nuanced than the guy upthread is letting on.
Entertaining, but mostly in the way of listening to the Sex Pistols. "Gather together all the aging hippies and boring old farts, and set light to them!"

>So did Chesterton. All the best English authors back in the day had a streak of it.
I wouldn't say that, exactly. He certainly thought government shouldn't get in the way of people, but he hjad a great respect for laws rightly made.
Somewhat related to the topic of anarchism is The Man Who Was Thursday- which is a very odd mystery, in that you know what the twist is for most of the book, but you still don't expect it when it actually appears, and then you realize you never knew the twist at all.
It's like going to watch a magician. I wanted to step into a time machine, go back to shake his hand and then sock him a good one after reading it.

>Probably Discworld or Elric.

Yeah. The Silver Chair is the one that really stuck with me. The whole 'if there is no heaven and no reward we'll MAKE a world worthy of being called heaven without a God to help' blew my tiny little child mind and really got me thinking in terms of morality and WHY I do things rather than 'follow the list, receive reward'. It's a challenging and adult idea to share with kids, the idea of morality in the face of no rewards for it.

The Man Who Was Thursday annoys me because its definition of Anarchism is so fucking wrong. Like it's clear that this is written by a conservative guy who has never, EVER, talked to an anarchist.

Of course part of my issue may be that I didn't find it as nice as everyone else, because I got the whole thing spoiled.

I always understood it as that he wasn't talking about anarchism in the political sense which is hilarious to me because none of the Council are actually anarchist or have any idea what the true purpose of the organization is, but about the idea that there should be no laws, philosophical, moral, etc. at all.

The magic system as top tier, but alas, it was another hack, he stole it from Le Guin (which, instead of Tortellini's "le grammar error xD", made the discovery of a SINGLE fucking word the focus of a whole book, and a damn good book at it)

That's a very good summary of it yeah.

I think the fact that he was able to talk about such subjects, discuss the idea of morality, the notion of religion, and what it all means, and convey that to children, in a way that engaged and still engages them, is pure fucking genius.

And I honestly think it's sad we don't get more of that.
Like we don't really have a lot of current writers who write about adult concepts to children in that way, and I'm not talking about death, and sex, and violence, and loss, because that we have. It's the idea of questioning and finding out what you actually believe and why you believe it that's lacking.

I think a lot of why he doesn't get as much respect these days is well...yeah he's talking about concepts that make basic sense to adults these days but how you broach the concept to children is complex if you want to get them thinking rather than regurgitating it. Teaching critical thinking is hard but it looks simple to people who already do it.

It feels like he believes that's what anarchism is. That's what I get from the text, and given his political leanings and his other works I don't see much evidence of it being otherwise.

Especially because he takes time out to deal with other philosophies more fairly, and they aren't the focus of the whole work.

Fair enough. It's sort of an oddball work in the first place, IIRC Chesterton said it was supposed to all be a dream and the quote
>They say we are a lot of jolly gentlemen who pretend they are anarchists.
appears in it, so I wasn't sure how seriously to take it.

On the topic of various moralities and the silver chair: the giants feast. Showing three protagonists with three separate moral views of the same situation. That of eating an Animal (not an animal)

>moorcock

People still take him seriously?

It's explicitly said to be a dream, in the title and at the end of the book. Chesterton was very exasperated in life by the letters people sent him enquiring upon this point.

Well I don't really have a reTORT for that.

The Earthsea books were a masterpiece of economical storytelling, especially since we are now in the age where every fantasy series has to be 10 books long each with 800 pages.

Tombs of Atuan in particular showcased just how strong a tight and focused book can be. There is one major location, four major characters including the protagonist and long stretches with no dialogue; yet it all works to place the focus squarely on Tenar and her growth in such an isolated existence.

The worldbuilding, sense of wonder about the magic and the strong characters in general make the series a treat but way you never felt there was a word wasted always impressed me on a technical level.

You can do better, Carlos.

Not one mention of Mercedes Lackey? Don't get me wrong, her five gorillion books should languish in Hell for eternity, but fuck me if she doesn't deserve a place among the worst fantasy authors ever.

Yeah, the first time I read it I thought the subtitle was metaphorical, until I got to the very end, and even then I had to double-check. It explains a lot about the book, really.
Mind giving an example? I've literally never heard of her until today.

I dunno, I've heard folks say her early books were pretty good, but then she had health problems and started writing outlines and letting her talentless husband write the actual books based on the outlines, and it was all a quick roll down shit hill from there on out.

But I don't have a CAR to get there...los...

>not "But I don't have a CAR, los!"
Shame on you.

I'm just having a WHALE of a problem making the jokes

Just look at this map. It's hideous, disgusting, criminal. This is a decent looking fan map, but the construction and geography is despicable.

Talk about a STICKY SITUATION!

how can someone do rain shadow so wrong

not really an expert on maps or earth science- what is wrong with it apart from being very clichéd?

I mean he invented a fuckton of fantasy tropes.

But he did come out and say that what is truly important is the themes and so in writing, not the thrills and escapism.
And then he writes...
Well everything he's ever written.

This pains me to look at, but the only thing I can really put my finger on is
>Mountains on the coast?
>What the fuck is the desert doing in the center of the landmass surrounded by plains and a forest a day's travel north
>How the fuck do those rivers even exist
Can a cartographyfag take over here?

Daily reminder that even though Tortaloodle's books aren't good. Roan is /ourguy/

Yeah, I respect him as a fiction writer, but a lot of his nonfiction just feels like he's just taking the piss.