Please do not kill me oh nerdlingers

So I looked through a few fantasy novels the other day at my girlfriend’s place. She’s a lovely girl: beautiful, smart, funny, talented and well read. I can only assume that fantasy novels were the closest thing to crack she could get without receiving social stigma while still maintaining a habit to something that is sure to cause cancer in later life.

Seriously, what the hell is with these fucking books? It’s like the authors wanted to write a novel but sadly were born without the ability to actually formulate anything resembling coherence with reality. Or style. Or drama.

I can feel the nerd rage already (not you dear). Why? Because I’m going to single out Robert Jordan here. Mostly because I know you pock-marked greasy bastards out there who curse in elven (I’ll be DAMNED if I’m gonna give THAT a capital letter) will be all over me for saying so, but what the fuck is with this shit? He writes eleven books? ELEVEN?! Religious texts get by with less than this. What makes that uppity bastard think he can string out readers for so long. What’s he doing? Making sure every book has got thirty new characters, two new worlds, five new monsters, plus a handy recipe for dwarf sugar cookies?!

And what makes me, a prospective novelist, most pissed off is that while I (and countless others) try to develop a personal style, a narrative sense and so forth, here comes the magnificently mundane utilitarian shambling writing style of our friend Jordan. How much have I read of him? Not much, but enough to know that if I have to read another word involving a character I don’t care about, from a place I don’t care about, with friends I don’t care about, with a name that involves an apostrophe, someone gon’ die. There’s the trick, my friends: if you want to write a novel, just write! Tumble your way through page after page, introduce characters as you see fit and make sure to make all the women buxom, beautiful and totally created to fulfill deep seated male fantasies that these nerdburgers have.

Oh and look at the amazing titles! Wheel of Time! Knife of Dreams! Fires of Heaven! My word, Robert, you astound me with your brilliance (“A sarcasm detector, that’s a real useful invention” *BAM*). Perhaps I can give you some suggestions for further titles when you write Wheel of Time book number two-hundred-and-twelve-mark-one:

• Coin of Magic
• Sword of Sorcery
• Cup of Death
• Magic Item of Magic Property
• Noun of Intransitive Verb

It’s amazing that you have time to bathe when you’re working on book after book like that, and coming up with some great titles! In fact, I express doubt that you in fact do bathe, basing my beliefs on the people I’ve seen who actually actively enjoy your books and consider them some kind of literature as opposed to mindless (OHHHH ever so mindless) escapism. At least the latter can be excused as being the simple act of rebellion a brain enacts against existence itself… meanwhile the former should be rooted out like a FUCKING PARASITE BURROWING ITS WAY INTO MODERN SOCIETY AS WE KNOW IT.

The test? If you read a book that includes any of the following:

• A heroine who wears skin tight anything and slays dragons/elves/dwarves/quantity surveyors/any monster the author just made up for the sake of the next Dungeons and Dragons rule book and the subsequent retailing.
• A character who’s name is something like Squador, Qu’elic, Excreptor the Megadeathslayer.
• The type of plot that gets a member of any ‘Dark Ages Society’ hot in the pants.
• Complex metaphors on the Bush administration as thinly veiled stereotypical brutish orcs.
• The use of phrases such as ‘Flurox chortled as he spake’. Sorry, but this is a load of wank. Hot, steaming, chunky, wank.

If you note these warning signs, and find yourself justifying your reading of such literature, saying such gems as “Oh come on, Spear of Destiny is just as good as Catch-22, you just don’t appreciate it!” then don’t be surprised if the next sensation you receive is not unlike that of an orc’s slammin jammin appraisal of an elvish countenance on noonsong day.

In other words, I’ll kick you in the nuts.

P.S. My own site, http://borderwaste.blogspot.com/ is now finally being updated. So, uh, go look. Often. And rejoice you bastards!

So I looked through a few fantasy novels the other day at my girlfriend’s place. She’s a lovely girl: beautiful, smart, funny, talented and well read. I can only assume that fantasy novels were the closest thing to crack she could get without receiving social stigma while still maintaining a habit to something that is…