Worst fantasy books ever written ?

[CruelDespot]

I kinda doubt there would be much Locvecraft stuff on the shelves now without CoC. Or that a lot of authors in the horror field considered him a major influence.

Stephen King specifically credited HPL as a major influence. So has Clive Barker. Brian Lumley even wrote a series set in HPL's Dreamlands. I could go on and on. Hugely influential.

But I concede the original point about HPL not seeming scary to the modern reader. I think that is because he was such a huge influence. His ideas that were ground-breaking at the time have now become routine. Since everybody else is using his ideas, they don't seem remarkable any more.

Kind of like any invention. The airplane for example. The Wright Brothers and their plane were important because they were the first. But that doesn't mean it is a good plane by today's standards.

:focus:

Worst Fantasy? I have to jump on the Wheel of Time bandwagon.
I was only able to get through the first few.
Started out hugely derivative of Tolkien.
The only romance was a very juvenile "We are both too shy to express our love" subplot. Tiresome.
And the climax was always a big magical battle within the minds of the hero and the villain. So there was this grand abstract imagery, but really it was a lot like Dragonball Z. "I just unlocked a thousand times more power" "Oh, yeah, well I just unlocked a bazillion times more power!"

[Agentorange]

Originally Posted by Simlasa

Well... it certainly seems that way... until you actually read some of his stuff and notice that very few, if any, of his stories fit that mold.

The thing with the Mythos stories is, that once you've read a few... you start to anticipate the Mythos in all his stories... kind of a variation on 'the butler did it' syndrome in English mysteries... though how many actually feature muderous butlers (I suspect not many... but I wouldn't know).
Thats why I always thought it was important, in COC games, to toss in plenty of sessions where the Mythos played no part at all... and leave plenty of evil to good old human nature.

I may have exaggerated a little bit Though he does seem overly fond of the words batrachian, squamous and rugose.

[CthulhuFnord]

Originally Posted by CruelDespot

And the climax was always a big magical battle within the minds of the hero and the villain. So there was this grand abstract imagery, but really it was a lot like Dragonball Z. "I just unlocked a thousand times more power" "Oh, yeah, well I just unlocked a bazillion times more power!"

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Simlasa

Well... it certainly seems that way... until you actually read some of his stuff and notice that very few, if any, of his stories fit that mold.

The thing with the Mythos stories is, that once you've read a few... you start to anticipate the Mythos in all his stories... kind of a variation on 'the butler did it' syndrome in English mysteries... though how many actually feature muderous butlers (I suspect not many... but I wouldn't know).

I believe it was a common theme in the stage plays of the late Victorian era. Not surprising considering the audience for such things.

Originally Posted by Simlasa

Thats why I always thought it was important, in COC games, to toss in plenty of sessions where the Mythos played no part at all... and leave plenty of evil to good old human nature.

It's important in horror RPGing in general. One problem with horror RPGs is that thanks to the nature of the game, the players are sort of forwarned and expect to see monsters. That throws off a lot of the fear on the supermnatural. Instead of being afradi of having the vampire turn them into souless monsters or the werewolf rip[ing them apart, the PCs start toting around garlic, crucifixes, hammers, stakes, and assault shotguns loaded with silver buckshot.

By defination is become impossible for it to be horror anymore, since the players know what to expect. So a GM has to surprise them with what they don't expect. My best horor adventures were in "normal" RPGs where the impact was greater.

One of my favorite CoC adventures was one where the GM didn't use any Mythos stuff or monsters. We were up against gangsters (they didn't know what the funky statue was for, just that it was worth big bucks). It really threw the group for a loop.

Deep Ones are known to call you up on the phone and do a drive by shooting. Or wire you car with explosives. Or bribe officials.

We was scared.

[soltakss]

The gaming group I used to play in had a CoC campaign before my time. They someone with 200% Shotgun and no other skills, they depth-charged the Deep Ones in San Fransisco Bay and went around with tommy guns knocking off cultists.

They had a whale of a time and actually survived to make a campaign.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by soltakss

The gaming group I used to play in had a CoC campaign before my time. They someone with 200% Shotgun and no other skills, they depth-charged the Deep Ones in San Fransisco Bay and went around with tommy guns knocking off cultists.

They had a whale of a time and actually survived to make a campaign.

My most successful CoC character, and my last, was someone who didn't believe in the mythos stuff, steered clear of books with arcane knowledge and spells (not that it was anything helpful to PCs anyway), and was the only character in the campaign who not only survived, but ended up with a higher SAN than when we started playing.

The goal of the game seems to be to withstand enough encounters with supernatural creatures to go permanently insane and start up [i]your own cult[/I} to worship supernatural creatures.

[sladethesniper]

Wow, good thoughts.

The gang with the 200% shotgun character sounds like my group

As for Worst Fantasy Novels:

Bottom line: 99.9% of D&D, Star Trek, Halo, Magic: the Gathering novels...all of them just SUCK (1 exception...for D&D "Knight of the Black Rose")!!!!!

Anything by Jerry Pournelle or Larry Niven...even though it is Sci-Fi, I hate it and must tell everyone that I hate it.

The Wheel of Time series. I have read the first 10 pages of each book and I just can't find the interest to justify wasting the time to read one more page...it sucks.

The Shannara series was....acceptable for one book...every other book is THE SAME...I read the sword of shannara, but the song and the elfstones were the same book and the moronic family of the Ohmsford's was too retarded to be taken seriously.

Matthew Riley and Scarecrow was pretty good IMO...it was a good four hour read on an airplane so that was good.

As for Lovecraft...his stories rock and along with Poe are IMO the two masters of American Fiction, regardless of what my Lit professors say (even though August Derleth was actually better at Lovecraftian writing that Lovecraft)!

-STS

[badcat]

I would add the third Gor book, 'Priest-Kings of Gor' to the not awful Gor list. At least I thought so. The rest of the series I agree, I couldn't read them even when I was in my early twenties and read smut, well, sometimes...

I agree about Lovecraft too. I like Lumley and Ramsey better for Mythos fiction. CAS and Howard too. I am sort of an apostate when it comes to CoC, using more of a 'Lumley flavor' than the recommended 'Lovecraftian' we-are-doomed-to-go-crazy-and-die flavor. It's still very scary, or so I've been told by my players.

For bad fantasy, a couple of writers that get my vote are the Tolkien rip-off artists like Brooks and McKiernan. And Robert Jordan trying to write Conan stories. Or anything else.

[badcat]

Hey, Slade, my major English Lit major in college though Lovecrafts' fiction was the greatest although he was not allowed to introduce it in classes. Prof. Merrill was a gun/train/horror loving geek in professor's tweads. Cool guy. I had him for Shakespeare...'two handed engine of destruction' and 'once more unto the breach, dear friends', two of his favorite quotes.

[badcat]

Hey, Slade, my major English Lit professor in college thought Lovecrafts' fiction was the greatest although he was not allowed to introduce it in classes. Prof. Merrill was a gun/train/horror loving geek in professor's tweads. Cool guy. I had him for Shakespeare...'two handed engine of destruction' and 'once more unto the breach, dear friends', two of his favorite quotes.