Is Asunder worth buying?

#51
Guest_simfamUP_*

Posté 27 août 2012 - 07:29

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Fisto The Sexbot wrote...

Come on, just look at this mess:

“The water was littered with bits of flotsam that pooled at the edges, lapping wetly against the stone…”

“Maric dug into his stew ravenously. Katriel picked at hers gingerly, sipping on some of the broth. The dwarf all but gulped his down greedily, finishing it long before the others were even half done, and then belching loudly. He wiped his beard with the back of his hand."

This is just bad.

That didn't stop me from falling in love with Loghain's character, or Maric's or being sucked into the story. And thanks for quoting a rather terrible paragraph, like it's not common to find one of those in any book. It reminds me of all the ME3 critics. Yes, the point of being a "critic" is pointing out the bad, yet a critic should never leave out the good when pointing all the crap out.

Look at a Feast for Crows, or A Dance with Dragons. Those two surprass The Stolen Throne in it's language but are considered the worst two of the Song of Ice and Fire series.

I don't think literature needs to be an exact skill, the same way Body Building isn't an exact science. J.R.R Tolkien hated Shakespeare and disliked allegory. David Gaider might not have the best descriptive writing (this was his *first* book by the way. I imagine writing for video games is very different) but he has a way with characters that even matches Martin's own.

Hell, The Calling has a large cast, and is a very small book compared to AGOT. Yet I felt for each of those characters as much as I did for each character in AGOT. Now that's a feat. The guy had me misty eyed when Kern and Hafter were going to have their "last stand" that place really hit home due to my own relationship with my dog.

Modifié par simfamSP, 27 août 2012 - 07:30 .

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#52
Sylvius the Mad

Posté 27 août 2012 - 06:55

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Frankly, I would rather read David Gaider than George R.R. Martin. I find Martin's writing style incredibly repetitive.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 27 août 2012 - 06:55 .

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#53
nightscrawl

Posté 27 août 2012 - 07:29

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Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Frankly, I would rather read David Gaider than George R.R. Martin. I find Martin's writing style incredibly repetitive.

Other than the intense brutality of some of GRRM's characters, I think the chief difference are the battles. More often than not, I find the Ice and Fire battles very exciting and engaging. Some time ago I read the Orcs trilogy. I liked the characters and the overall plot, but the fight scenes, of which there are many, are overly descriptive and tedious. For the most part, I just wanted to get through them. I felt that way with most of the fight scenes in The Stolen Throne as well. However, I will add that with each succeeding book they did get better, which is certainly a testament to David and allowing himself to grow as a writer rather than saying "this is how I write, and how I will write, for all time." Other than enjoying the novels, this is one reason why I would like for DG to continue on, because I know they will get better and better.

The important thing to me, and I hope to David too, is that I care about the characters. There are some I like a lot, some I'm indifferent about, some I can't stand, and some it makes me happy to see die. If there is not one I like, and this applies to all forms of entertainment, I will stop watching/reading. "Why am I watching this? I don't give a s*** about any of these people." In this, I think that David Gaider and George R.R. Martin are the same. And if they can change your mind about a character, like my mind was changed about Loghain and Jamie Lannister, well then that is truly magic.

Another difference of course is the base material. GRRM built his world from scratch, as David and the Bioware folks did, but they have a distanct advantage (I think so anyway) in that we can actually go and walk around in the world. We've been to Denerim, we've been to the Deep Roads, we've seen darkspawn, dragons, elves, dwarves, and demons. In other words, we know the world. In that regard, the game is almost supplemental material to the novel, rather than the other way around. The only thing GRRM can rely on are his words, and to be honest, with "a cast of thousands" in his novels, a little repetition isn't too bad haha...

I like both equally. I also like Lord of the Rings and Dune, both of which also have a highly constructed, detailed, fictional world. So I don't think it necessarily follows that one cannot enjoy multiple authors of the same type (this is not directed at you Sylvius, just a general remark) or that one is trash while the other is treasure.

And... I got a bit carried away here. >.>