I read the Icewind Dale Trilogy... it was okay. But it was exceedingly simplistic, there really wasn't much complexity to the plot, the characters or much of anything else. The writing itself was nothing special either. It seemed sort of generically entertaining, but shallow, like a decent action flick. At best, it's the Con Air of fantasy literature.

I did enjoy it, but I just don't see how it draws the kind of loyal fanbase it seems to. So help me out here, what am I missing? Does it just become great in the later books that I haven't read?

The most famous books (dark elf trilogy?) had interesting characters in Drizzts and Artemis or whatever he was called. Also an interesting environment.

They were easy reading and reasonably suspenseful.

Later books tended to be the same old characters trotted out, who were all but invincible.

I reread when I was 23 or so and found them lacking as well.

n/t

Most 12-16 year olds (the ages when most of us geeks were really into that stuff) aren't the worlds greatest literary critics.

You have to understand, those books were *TARGETED* at mainly that audience.


Great plot and character development is completely lost on 99.9% of human beings at that age.


Ask a 14 year old why "The Usual Suspects" is such a great film. And you won't get much response about plot twists, acting, cinematography, editing, the use of sound and music to heighten and release tension....you will probably get "Because there are guns and lots of cuss words", if you don't get "It was boring and too slow".


And, since those of us geeks and nerds who read them at those ages REALLY enjoyed them (mostly I think because at that age our imaginations are beyond measure off the scale, which makes up for *alot* in an average plot-line)...that warm glow that we associate with that memory carries over into adult-hood.


DON'T RUIN MY WARM FUZZIES MAN! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT! IT WAS THE GREATEST!!!!!!!!!!!!

I DIDN'T READ THIS POST....I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!! LALALALALALALALALALALALAL I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!!!!!!!!


heh.


That all being said. I myself have never read that series. I was too busy with Tolkein, and then Niven and Asimov and other hard sci-fi....then trying to write my own tolkien-rip-off. I had alot of friends that were into it though.

Yeah, I don't know what to tell you. I first read the Icewind Dale trilogy as a twelve year old or so, and I loved it. I've tried to read it again since and it's, at best, a guilty pleasure.

It's kind of like trying to watch the Goonies or Knight Rider as an adult -- nostalgia mixed with "Oh geez, this is kind of corny... why did I think this was so cool when I was a kid?"

One of my friends owns a giant pile of crappy 80's television on DVD for reasons that are, at best, inexplicable. I was at his house last New Year's Eve/Day, and we realized:

1) TV technology has quietly improved quite a bit. Forget about special effects, like Airwolf re-re-re-using the same 5 "helicopter flying past" scenes in every chase, or the stuff on the A-Team that explodes before being hit. Just the sound and the picture quality looks like stuff you or I could do with a digital camcorder now. It's like when you pass by ESPN Classic, and they're performing the oh-so-valuable community service of re-running regular season Clippers games from 1982, and it looks bootlegged. You didn't notice it then, but it doesn't age well.

1B) The above goes triple for any music featured in said TV shows. The less said there, the better.

2) Modern TV seems to have bifurcated towards little/no writing ('reality' shows, coin-flip game shows, etc.) or decent writing. Not so back then. Any given episode of MacGyver has plot holes that B.A. Baracus (*) could drive a semi through. You could set your watch so it beeped five seconds before Michael Knight pushed Turbo Boost. Voltron was less predictable than this stuff. You could tell the writers were exclusively people who couldn't get a job in movies, and that their competition was a Very Special Episode where Punky Brewster horks after eating too many Zagnut bars.

Nowadays, TV shows seem to have learned from getting their butts kicked by HBO in the reviews, and there's at least a sector of the market that writes good stuff.

2B) Whoever cancelled Deadwood, Carnivale, and Rome apparently so that HBO would have more room for Lucky Louie should be locked in a closet full of badgers.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

(*): Mr. T: Great actor, or the greatest actor? If you don't live somewhere where you're spammed with the Comcast commercial where Mr. T. crashes through some guy's bathroom wall like the Kool-Aid Man because he's singing "Born to Be Wild" with all the lyrics wrong ("Lookin' for a mon-kay...."), you need to move. See also the Conan O'Brien sketch where Conan and Mr. T. go apple picking in Vermont.

>Forget about special effects, like Airwolf re-re-re-using
>the same 5 "helicopter flying past" scenes in every chase...

When that show was popular, I actually asked someone at a barbershop to cut my hair like Jan Michael Vincent's. Woe is me.

Seriously? That's just wrong.

If it makes you feel better, they cancelled Lucky Louie a while ago. Which saddens me to this very day.

I mean.. they had a whole episode about how he called his wife a cunt. You can't get that on ABC.

That episode rocked......his buddies were like ya, give it to her! Then he said "So I called her a cunt" and they're like "WHOA, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!" Awesome episode

Here\'s his ad for snickers. A fun mish mash of his best phrases, and the most awesome example of pitching a chocolate bar in the world (pun intended :D)

Btw, did anyone else look at that footballer and think 'I am a leaf on the wind!' ;)

Yhorian

Edit - I heard Mr.T was going to do a music video too, but never finished making it as he had to rush his mother to hospital. Whatever else you might hear are lies.

:(

I thought last week's episode was weaker than the previous four, but it did seem to be setting up several future events. (Written to be a short run, British-style... 10 episodes.) It's by the creator of Deadwood and while it carries some of those hallmarks (ensemble cast featuring characters from all social classes, sharp dialogue, few clear 'good guys' or 'bad guys', etc.), the spirit of the show is much more akin to Carnivale. The guy who plays John steals every scene he's in with his swings from possible prophet to jovial idiot-savant.

It also has a pile of refugees from other HBO shows (Deadwood's Charlie Utter and the hooker-murdering Francis Wolcott, Luiz Guzman from Oz, etc.), and they get solid performances against type from unexpected sources, notably Al Bundy. Lots of "Oh, it's that guy!" moments, though no big stars in the whole thing.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

And while there is a LOT of fantasy out there, most of it isn't any good. People read it anyway because it's what is available. I'd say mostly that the decent action flick fits, but when the other movies are B movies, well it's going to look like the coolest #### ever. Or at least that is my opinion. I'm a fan of the series, but in no way obsessed or anything. I've read other fantasy books, and for the most part found them to be boring or llindreasdeierable (that's incomprehensible in stonelvish, but we're defining a whole new language too, so learn to read it) or possessing other various ungoodnesses.