ISO bad Terry Brooks ripoffs

[thedarkages]

I have been charged with the unlikely task of improving a 100,000 word manuscript of the sword and sorcery variety. The man who dumped this job upon me asked me to read Terry Brooks's Sword of Shannara series. In addition, he urged me to find a work or works that are derivative of Brooks but which are of far lesser quality. If anyone can give me some titles and authors along the latter lines, I would be most grateful. (Mode of gratitude to be specified later.)

(If I've asked you this personally, don't take this general call for answers amiss -- I just need a broader range of responses.)

Comments

[mcohenmn.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, hard to go downhill from Brooks, but maybe:

George R.R. Martin
Terry Goodkind
Robin Hobb

It's all a matter of taste, I suppose.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Heh, GRRM has a rabid following. I only read "A Game of Thrones", which isn't bad, but it's way too soapy for my taste.

The trick is that i have no idea about such crapular authors. I know people hate what happened to Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series after about the sixth book. Raymond Feist's book are light and carborrific; they're entertaining but they don't really stick with you. I mean, i consider Terry Brooks hackneyed enough... and you want to find someone who knocked HIM off? Oy.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I don't think Virconium Nights will do it -- it's not bad. It's a sort of odd post-apocalypse pulp. Similarly, the Kane stories I've read thus far of Karl Wagner, while not exactly deathless prose, are excellent, feverish sword and sorcery pulp. Ron Edwards described it as "balls to the wall", and so far, he seems correct.

No, you want something just plain, well, bad. Trouble is, we tend to avoid that sort of thing. Check out David Eddings, maybe, though this is a second hand, er, recommendation(?).

Lionel Fanthorpe (google-able) is bottom of barrel, but bottom of barrel sf, and I'm not sure if he'd get published today.

Hm, check out Atlanta Nights. I think that's the book that was written by sf authors to prove to an obnoxious publisher that the publisher didn't know beans about quality. Mm, but it's mainstream. It was written as a hoax, and the publisher bought it lock, stock, and both barrels.

-Lisa