A-grade, B-grade authors

[Seryn]

At a recent meeting for my university's Tolkien society we were discussing other fantasy authors and we basically came to the conclusion that most modern fantasy authors could be considered 'B-grade', using cliched conventions and often shallow characters and plots. The only authors we could agree on being 'A-grade' (other than Tolkien, being a Tolkien society and all ) were Robin Hobb and Tad Williams.
Would you agree or disagree with this conclusion? Are there any other authors who you would consider to be 'A-grade'?
Personally, i would agree with Tad being one of the better writers, though i havnt read enough of Robin Hobb to comment on her (though by my friends' accounts, she is quite different from most fantasy authors). And i must agree that many other authors certainly do get more than a little cliched at times.

[CoralSkywalker]

Robin Hobb is absolutely great! Though I've only read one of her books so far ^^ But you notice right away that's she's a big talent..
And what about Robert Jordan or Raymond Feist? I've only read pieces of their books.. or short stories and all, but their generally considered to be great authors as well..

And of course Anne Rice certainly deserves the title of being 'A-grade'.. Though her books may not be really fantasy..

[Seryn]

Jordan and Fiest were actually the other two that came to my mind when considering this. Robert Jordan is one of my favourite authors but the more i look back on The Wheel of Time the more i begin to see flaws, or perhaps i'm simply listening to much to everyone elses opinions As for Raymond Fiest, only having one book, Magician, I should probably read a little more before i make an educated opinion on him. Though Magician was definitly a step above alot of other fantasy i've read

[forgottenlegend]

well, i'm only half way the Wheel of Time yet, but i think RJ could easilly be considderd an A-grade author. Compared to the other Fantasy i read (believe me it's a lot) i could think of very little to no big flaws at all...

And imho Feist could be a candidate for A-grade as well, i mean... just read some more of his books, you'll see that the characters areworked out very deeply, and plottwists happen when you'd least expect it...

[Seryn]

Trust me, i thought the same about Jordan when i was half-way through WoT, but by the time you get to book 10 it becomes painfully obvious of how slowly he is drawing things out. As interesting as i find his world to be, it is hard not to become a trifle bored with it. From what i hear however, he redeems himself in book 11 with the pace picking up again. Though ive decided not to read it myself until the series is over and i can read them all in one go.

[CoralSkywalker]

I ordered the first part of WoT a week ago ^^ I should really start to read some more fantasy again..
And I think, Jordan is A-grade anyhow (though I haven't read his books).. maybe some parts of them are not A-like, but still, if you can write such a huge series of such huge (in volume) books: you're A-grade imo ^^

[forgottenlegend]

hmm... it's not just the quantity that counts,
but you're right, i think he deserve A too.

[Seryn]

Yeah i definitly agree with the quantity not counting. I mean if it's a good series than of course you want it to go for as long as possible, but some authors seem to think that writing as many books at possible will compensate for horrible writing.
I refer most specifically to Terry Goodkind. I never got past the first book of his Sword of Truth series, it was so horrible, and yet he has continued to write about 8 of them. I don't know how any self-respecting Tolkien fan could ever read them. For those who have read "Wizard's first rule" and come across the character Samuel you'll know what im talking about. And he also uses another direct rip-off of something from The Wheel of Time (i can't remember the name right now) not to mention his awful writing style in general

[forgottenlegend]

i think you must refer to Gollum (JRR Tolkien)
i expect it IS that very gollum-like witch-helper 'thing' you are referring to?
i cant remember anything like that being in WoT though.

[Sneltrekker]

In WoT?

I guess you could compare Padan Fajin in a way to Gollum?

The merchant who first got turned to the Shadow, then got turned away from the shadow by Mordeth and then basically hunts down the three guys just for the dagger.

[forgottenlegend]

yeah, but Padan is more like Gollum, not like Samuel.

[Sneltrekker]

Yeah, I was referring to:

i think you must refer to Gollum (JRR Tolkien)
i expect it IS that very gollum-like witch-helper 'thing' you are referring to?
i cant remember anything like that being in WoT though

Which I interpreted as you saying there's nothing that could compare to Gollum in WoT, it's of course a long stretch, Gollum vs Padan, but kinda a resemblance

[Seryn]

Sorry, what i meant was in "Wizard's first rule" there is a resemblance to something from WoT, completly unrelated to Gollum.
I can't remember the exact details but the main character (Richard I think, from memory) is captured by the enemy and some woman makes him wear this leather collar and uses it to control him, very much like the way that that race of people (The Seanchan or something like that) in WoT use to control channelers. Not really much of an issue though, it was more the Samuel/Gollum thing that had me irked.

[Sneltrekker]

" is captured by the enemy and some woman makes him wear this leather collar and uses it to control him, very much like the way that that race of people (The Seanchan or something like that) in WoT use to control channelers."

Oooooh, right. Guess I misunderstood then. Yeah, it's the Seanchan (or at least that's their name in the Dutch books)

Anyway, haven't read that other book, so can't tell anything about the Samuel case.