Which author do you think is the best of these three? Raymond E. Feist, David Eddings, or Robert Jordan? I'd say David Eddings.

[This message has been edited by Lithorn (edited January 28, 2002).]

thats a hard choice between Feist and Eddings, at the moment i am reading Feist's "Rage of a Demon King" and the rest of the serpent-war saga. but over christmas i read "The Redemption of Althalus" in two weeks as it was very addictive (the ending was a bit of a let down though). personally i think that Feist is a far better writer than most but Eddings is close behind in my second slot! Feist is way more descriptive and has many different things/plots happening at around the same time with a large mix of strong characters.

Eddings. Then again, I've never read Robert Jordan, so my opinion might be *slighly* biased. He does tend to repeat himself a bit, though.

Well I've only read books by David Eddings out of those three, so I'd have to go with ihm - very interesting storyline :).

Feist, though the Serpentswar saga was probably the worst of the lot. His characters just seemed more real and 3-dimensional than Eddings or Jordan.

Yes, the Serpant war saga is not too good, but the other Feist works are very good. Did you read the Empire trilogy? Amazing!

Eddings? Bah! Not that I don't like him, but it was all downhill from the Belgariad. The Mallorean was decent but was nearly a reenactment of the Belgariad, and the banter became tiresome in the extreme. The Elenium and the Tamuli were good, but again same characters in similar plots. Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress were just plain boring.

Ive never read Feset or whatever his name is. Eddings is awsome. But Jordan takes the whole enchalada! the first time I read the Wheel of Time, there were only six books, so it only took me six days to read them. Once I started I could NOT put them down! Terry Goodkind's 'Sword of Truth' series and George R.R. Martin's 'Song of Ice and Fire' are the only other ones that ever did that... though I did finish Polgara the Scorceress and Athalus in record times... all too good, maybe someday ill be that good. Did I mention im an asspiring author?:evil:

EDDINGS!!!

Redemption of althalus was amazing, crap ending but it was so addictive and great battles, and gods, and characters and.....

I'm currently reading R.A.Salvatore's works and the others don't have anything on him i'm afraid.

Oh and DRIZZT IS AMAZING no matter what anyone else says.

By the way I finished Redemption of althalus before you Feirhanith!

Sorry just thought I might rub it in a little more :)

[This message has been edited by Khazar (edited January 30, 2002).]

Eddings, I must say. Feist, I have read only a little and a long time ago, and Jordan... not exactly the kind of stuff I like.

Eddings has gone downhill as well, but RoA was great... except for the crappy ending, like eveyone says.

Oh, and RAS is totally cool. And, no matter how amazing Drizzt is,

ARTEMIS IS BETTER!!!! :)

Ara
(Sniffling and hating the idea of Swedish lessons....)

Jordan all the way. Eddings started good but have gotten alot worse. The Redemption of Althalus is decent much better than the really bad Tamuli and Elenien. But they are books written for youths they lack any semblence of depht and the plot is straight as an arrow.
Feist is pretty good but he too lacks any greater depht. You dont wonder what will happen with the chars between books.

I can admit that Jordan needs to end tWoT soon as it has too many loose ends and he cant open any more. He needs to start tying things up. But Jordan is my all time favourite writer and I can wait my entire life for the end if that is what it takes.

Martin is also a really good write, dark and gritty. Read him!

I have no read either Feist, or Eddings but Robert Jordans works are really good. My favorite author is Orson Scott Card, the guy writes some awseome, read the speaker for the dead. Just a warning the books or set in the future but are not really science fiction they are all about human experiences.

Feist. My favourite series, in one of my favourite worlds. I like the others too, but Feist isn't as repetitive as Eddings, nor as long-winded as Jordan.

Thorin - That's exactly what SF is: "all about human experiences". And I have to agree Orson Scott Card is good; I loved the short story version of "Ender's Game".

Definately Robert Jordan. The Wheel of Time is great. The scope of it is huge but he holds it all together real well (except of course leaving Mat out of book 8 :(). It took me a little while to get into Eye of the World, but after that I blasted through the 8 books that were out when my friend loaned them to me in college in one semister. Even made a 4.0 that term, and I'm pretty sure those events are related. Also Winter's Heart has started tying stuff up if you havn't read it joacqin. I think he's said he's aiming for 12 books now, though it was going to be a trilogy originally :)

O.S. Card is really good too, can't wait for the conclusion to the Bean Shadow books. He does tend to repeat some themes in his books though (especially lost/isolated colonies that somehow lose advanced technology)

Well, guess what is so annoying in reading Jordan in Finland? The Finnish versions are published as two books, at least! And I am too lazy to go and buy the originals, so I jst have to wait for the Finnish ones to gewt to a library, and then a dozen people reading them before me... I think they're in the book 4 or 5 now, and they've published at least 10 books...

Ara
(Permanently over-annoyed)

9 actually, I just got Winters Heart for christmas... along with Pillars of Creation(Goodkind is a god!!!) and Sea of Swords(Salvatore is also goddly!)

Oh and Artemis is definaltly cooler!! HE COULD KICK DRIZZT'S DARK ELVEN ASS!!! if only drizzy dint have his 'special' ankle bracers... and enchanted swords... and the love and adoration of million that keeps any hero alive no mater who is cooler.

:evil: Ive Decided Goodkind is better than Jordan... slightly

Yep, that's why I have Artemis in my BG2 party, no matter the fact that he is SLIGHTLY overpowered... ;)

Ara
(Artemis-fangirl forever!)

SLIGHTLY? :lol: :grin:

Goodkind better than Jordan! Are you mad! Goodkind is bad copycat of Jordan. He doesnt have an original thought in his brain. Heck, he cant even make a good story. He must invent a new bad guy for every book. I have read all of Goodkind except Pillars of Creation and they are nothing more than an easy read. Something you read between your 9th and 10th reread of WoT.

Well, sticking to the topic at hand I'd say that Feist is a better writer. Jordan's WoT series and Eddings' Belgariad started out very well, but they started to lag after a while. At the end of the Belgariad, you could pretty much tell what was going to happen, and I was getting pretty sick of the tired comments between the characters. The Malorean was the same series, only slightly re-written, and it seemed pretty ridiculous to have all of these super-powerful people sneaking about the world.

The WoT started out so good! I was really excited when it first came out - over a decade ago. The story lines from the first few books have almost completely disappeared, and all of the last several books haven't advanced the main plot one bit. It almost seems like he's been asked to drag it out so that the publisher can keep selling books. I was given the latest book for a gift in the summer - it's still sitting unread on my bookshelf. I've got better things to read.

Of the three, only Feist has been able to write a complete series that doesn't bore me at the end. The Riftwar saga was thrilling, exciting and surprising right through to the end. One of the signs of a good writer is being able to stay focused throughout, and to keep their audience interested at the same time. Feist acheived it, Eddings barely acheived it, and Jordan has completely lost it at this point. Admitedly, the SerpentWar saga wasn't that great, but his books in between the two series were still pretty good.

After all that, there are several fantasy authors I'd put above any of the above three who might not be as well known by some. In no particular order: Marion-Zimmer Bradley (for her Darkover novels, as well as 'The Mists of Avalon'), C.S. Lewis (Narnia), T.H. White ('The Once and Future King', among others), George R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire), Julian May (The Saga of Pliocene Excile, and pretty much everything else she's written), and the highly underrated writings of Terry Pratchet. If you're in to fantasy, I strongly recommend reading the works of these authors. And if you're in for an extremely good SF read, try 'Doomsday Book' and 'To Say Nothing of the Dog' by Connie Willis.

Oh! And the Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwall (generally not considered fantasy though).

[This message has been edited by Gnolyn Lochbreaker (edited February 01, 2002).]

well after hearing all of your points of view i have to dimiss most of them and say that Fiest is still the better writer. His books have vivid descriptions in them, realistic characters and some random events every so often to keep you going.

I'd have to say that while the Belgariad is good, Eddings has never written anything else as good as that, so he's out of the picture, and Jordan has completely lost his grip on his series, so that leaves Feist. His world is the most interesting, and he doesn't repeat himself as much as other writers do.