Looking for cliched fantasy books!

[GreyLancaster]

You see this list? (shttp://amethyst-angel.com/cliche.html)

Basically, I'm looking for fantasy books that uses the cliches listed there.


Any help is appreciated :)

[AndyAnime]

You see this list? (shttp://amethyst-angel.com/cliche.html)

Basically, I'm looking for fantasy books that uses the cliches listed there.


Any help is appreciated :)

Terry Pratchett uses quite a few of these cliches...

And takes the ever-loving piss out of 'em. :D

[Expletive Deleted]

For some reason, I'm getting an error trying to read that page.

But if you want cliches, almost any of the many Tolkein ripoffs or RPG novels will do.

[Tages]

I read one Dragonlance novel. For many of the reasons pointed out in that link, that was the only one.

[GreyLancaster]

I read one Dragonlance novel. For many of the reasons pointed out in that link, that was the only one.

What was it called?

[GreyLancaster]

Terry Pratchett uses quite a few of these cliches...

And takes the ever-loving piss out of 'em. :D

I've read most of Discworld novels and they are very awesome, indeed.

But I'm not looking for parodies, I'm looking for books that uses the cliches in a

'serious' manner :)

[Legato]

For some reason, I'm getting an error trying to read that page.

But if you want cliches, almost any of the many Tolkein ripoffs or RPG novels will do.

So your calling Narina a ripoff? Just because a novel has elves or has some inspiration of Tolken doesn't give a person a reason to insult the author's work by calling it a LOTR ripoff. Unless if the author intended to do it.

Conan The Barbarian would be a good enough example for this thread . Also try picking up the vampire hunter D novels.

[Expletive Deleted]

So your calling Narina a ripoff? Just because a novel has elves or has some inspiration of Tolken doesn't give a person a reason to insult the author's work by calling it a LOTR ripoff.. . . huh?

I'm talking about stuff like Terry Brooks's SWORD OF SHANNARA which is lifted almost point-for-point from the Lord of the Rings. Or Dennis McKieran's Iron Tower series, which basically oozes Tolkein.

I'm not impugning everyone who writes fantasy fiction with hints of Tolkein. I'm impugning the unoriginal ones for whom Tolkein is the only influence.

[Legato]

. . . huh?

I'm talking about stuff like Terry Brooks's SWORD OF SHANNARA which is lifted almost point-for-point from the Lord of the Rings. Or Dennis McKieran's Iron Tower series, which basically oozes Tolkein.

I'm not impugning everyone who writes fantasy fiction with hints of Tolkein. I'm impugning the unoriginal ones for whom Tolkein is the only influence.

Ok now I get it.

[Hiromi]

#1 - A wedding takes place where the phrase "And if there's anyone present who can see why these two shouldn't be joined in marriage, speak now or forever hold your peace," is followed by a scene in which nobody holds their peace. (Corollary: It is a Universal Rule of Fantasy that the hero and his buddies, when attempting to stop a wedding between the hero's love interest and the villain, MUST choose the particular moment after that phrase is uttered, to launch their attack, --even if waiting to do so puts them at a strategic disadvantage.)


I love Princess Bride for completly not doing that one. But then Princess Bride was primarily satire.

[BcAugust]

. . . huh?

I'm talking about stuff like Terry Brooks's SWORD OF SHANNARA which is lifted almost point-for-point from the Lord of the Rings. Or Dennis McKieran's Iron Tower series, which basically oozes Tolkein.

I'm not impugning everyone who writes fantasy fiction with hints of Tolkein. I'm impugning the unoriginal ones for whom Tolkein is the only influence.

Shannara, I'll agree with. Dennis McKieran actually did quite a bit of different stuff with his "Tolkien" ripoff, that makes it less a ripoff and more like a Jazz take on LOTR.... and it grows progressively less cliched and Tolkien.

On topic...Terry Goodkind's work. Well, once you get past all the sex and torture scenes. Other then that, well... I tend to stick to fantasy that doesn't, though there's a few all new cliches in there....

[Greg Hatcher]

Whoever said Shannara, I couldn't agree more. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title.

EDIT: Finally got the list page to come up. I gotta tell you, looking over the first few entries, it's pretty much all there in Star Wars.

Time to run and hide now...

[Dennis K]

I'm not impugning everyone who writes fantasy fiction with hints of Tolkein. I'm impugning the unoriginal ones for whom Tolkein is the only influence.

What you say may be true, but I don't care. Tolkein's never been able to keep me interested long enough to get through an entire book of his. I just don't like how it's written. Pretty much the same reason why I never enjoyed reading Thor. I'm really not looking to be challenged when I'm reading fiction, I want to be entertained.

[CaptMagellan]

Conan The Barbarian would be a good enough example for this thread .

Maybe some of the worst pastiches, but the original stories by REH, the only cliche on the overused setting and storyline list that applies is #3.

Conan had no problem stealing and keeping for himself.

None of the others apply to Robert E Howard's Conan stories.

The Barbarian characterization cliche #26 only applies to the Arnold craptacular movies - not the original stories.

But.... well... ok...these cliched plot devices (the last list) apply to the Conan stories:

#37. - Scantily-clad and hatless heroes and heroines are able to walk for miles outdoors under a blazing sun without even the slightest hint of a sunburn or skin damage afterwards.

They occasionally had skin damage but only a passing mention and then it was forgotten. Only a couple of stories but enough to be valid.

#61. - The villain of a "barbarian fantasy"/sword-and-sorcery story/movie maintains a harem of scantily-clad slave girls.

The stories were written for Weird Tales. Scantilly clad women were a necessity. ;)

But honestly, REH was far less guilty of cliches like these than most modern fantasy writers. Certainly less guilty than people like Terry Brooks, Raymond Feist, or any of the D&D novelists.

[Legato]

I like the book but I cant help that Harry Potter may have broken a few rules on this list.

One thing I dont get is the Scantilly clad women cliche. Lets say the hero runs into a tribe of Amazon Women dressed in outfits that looked like your standard bikini instead of actual clothing.

How can any warrior take a amazon seriously when they are dressed half naked?

[Inkthinker]

REH's books didn't "follow" many of those cliches, they created them.

I'd suggest just about any of the early "Mystara" D&D novels. I wish I could recall a title, but that the moment I'm drawing a blank.

[Karl J. Barnes]

The Forgotten Realms novels are very cliched though some are enjoyable.

[CaptMagellan]

REH's books didn't "follow" many of those cliches, they created them.

Very true. While I still think the majority of the cliches on those lists don't apply to REH/Conan, the ones that do only became cliches when the hordes of imitators started writing substandard Conan ripoffs.

(Brak the Barbarian anyone?)

[GreyLancaster]

Very true. While I still think the majority of the cliches on those lists don't apply to REH/Conan, the ones that do only became cliches when the hordes of imitators started writing substandard Conan ripoffs.

(Brak the Barbarian anyone?)


Brak the Barbarian? Sounds like the kind of book I'm looking for, who wrote it?

[Shem the Penman]

John Jakes.

You could also try pretty much anything Lin Carter ever did ... although in Carter's case, it was more a conscious attempt to copy the earlier writers he drew from.

I'd also suggest looking for a copy of Urshurak, a fantasy novel by the Brothers Hildebrandt. Like the Shannara books, it's a blatant Tolkien ripoff. Lovely art, though.

[JuggernautRM]

Fixed the link for you guys http://amethyst-angel.com/cliche.html

[Inkthinker]

Yeah, by that list I think that you ought to try the early Forgotten Realms "Icewind Dale" trilogy.

It's about as solidly traditional and cliche fantasy as you can get, and hits at least, I think, about half of those points.

[Legato]

Some of the cliches on this list seem ridiculous.

Elves, orcs, dwarves, trolls, dragons, unicorns and other race has appeared in Dungeons and Dragons.

Now this is just stupid. Elves, orcs, dwarves, etc has been around way before D & D was even invented. Most of them came from Norse Mythology, Greek, and a few others while Orcs were made famous from Tolken.


Everybody in the world speaks the same language.

I dont know what book this person has read but LOTR, The Arthurian Legends, and even Conan has had cases whare different races speak different languages. If they do have the same then how else are they gonna learn how adapt with the other race's culture?

Sometimes I feel that this person is just putting cliches for the heck of it.

[Doodle Bob]

Now this is just stupid. Elves, orcs, dwarves, etc has been around way before D & D was even invented. Most of them came from Norse Mythology, Greek, and a few others while Orcs were made famous from Tolken.


Actually, as far as I can tell, Tolkien made up the term "Orc" as well of course as "halflings."



Sometimes I feel that this person is just putting cliches for the heck of it.

this is a very confusing statement. A cliche is simply a literary form -- e.g. a phrase, a storyline, a stereotypical character -- that gets used over and over again. We talk in cliches, we write in cliches, we watch tv shows that rely solely on cliches. All this author is doing is noting the many storylines that various fantasy writers have relied on since the days of Weird Tales.

[Roquefort Raider]

Now this is just stupid. Elves, orcs, dwarves, etc has been around way before D & D was even invented. Most of them came from Norse Mythology, Greek, and a few others while Orcs were made famous from Tolken.

Not to mention that most things Dungeons & Dragons-related are the worst kind of clichéd material I have ever seen.

I'm also annoyed by how many kids assume that what they learn from D&D books belongs to an actual mythology instead of being a hodgepodge of elements taken from multiple traditions, with a lot of pop culture mixed in.

[Gordon Smith]

Actually, as far as I can tell, Tolkien made up the term "Orc" as well of course as "halflings."



Tolkien took the word 'orc' from the poem Beowulf. In Old English, the terms 'orc' and 'orcneas' denote some sort of demon. Ultimately, orc derives from the Latin word Orcus, one of the names used for Pluto, the god of the Underworld. As for 'halfling', Tolkien basically borrowed that one as well. It has an antecedent in halflin, a term from Scottish Gaelic that is used to describe a teenaged boy.

[CaptMagellan]

Now this is just stupid. Elves, orcs, dwarves, etc has been around way before D & D was even invented. Most of them came from Norse Mythology, Greek, and a few others while Orcs were made famous from Tolken.

One of the things that I dislike about Tolkein (and subsequently all of the authors/creators - RPG, movies, books, etc. - that followed his lead) was the making of Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, etc. as actual physical races. I think this has led to one of the silliest cliches in fantasy lit.

Elves and Dwarves in Norse mythology (ON: Ljosalfar and Svartalfar respectfully) are spiritual entities from other worlds than that of physical reality (Midgardhr). When they physically interact with humans it's a rare and special event.

Creatures like Trolls, Draugr, and creatures like Grendel and his mam are physical monsters, but again, not with whole nations of those beings that evolved concurrently with humans.

Making them into physical beings with actual nations etc. worked for Tolkein but when other, lesser writers took his lead it just became silly. Now there are writers that have been influenced as much by D&D (with it's myriad competing sentient species) as Tolkein who have written some incredibly bad fantasy.

And I personally hate Hobbits. It's probably my one major prejudice.

Damn furry footed wastes of flesh. Turn 'em all into stew. That's what I say. ;)

[Karl J. Barnes]

Damn furry footed wastes of flesh. Turn 'em all into stew. That's what I say. ;)

Baba Yaga??Is that you??

[CaptMagellan]

Baba Yaga??Is that you??

Maaaaayyyyyybbbbeee.

Come on into my hut and let's talk awhile.

Get comfortable. Take your shoes off.
<looks to see if there is an undo amount of fur> :evilsmile

[Tages]

What was it called?
I think "Dragons of a Summer Flame."

[MKTerra]

For some reason, I'm getting an error trying to read that page.The URL seems to have an extra "s" in the front by mistake. Remove the s and it should work...

Edit: Ah, looks like he posted a fixed link. Nevermind :)

[Kirayoshi]

I did stumble onto an anthology series that covered(so to speak) the scantily clad warrior woman genre. The books, all from Baen, definitely have their tongues firmly planted in their cheeks: "Chicks in Chainmail", "Did You Say Chicks?", "Chicks and Chained Males" and "The Chick is In The Mail".

[Doodle Bob]

Tolkien took the word 'orc' from the poem Beowulf. In Old English, the terms 'orc' and 'orcneas' denote some sort of demon. Ultimately, orc derives from the Latin word Orcus, one of the names used for Pluto, the god of the Underworld. As for 'halfling', Tolkien basically borrowed that one as well. It has an antecedent in halflin, a term from Scottish Gaelic that is used to describe a teenaged boy.

I should be more specific. the term "orc" does not show up on its own in any Old English texts. The word they used is "orcneas", meaning roughly monsters. This is the word that is in Beowulf. It's unclear to me what the singular form of this is. It still seems that Tolkien is the one who shortened it to "orc" and let it represent a specific group of beings.

Tolkien based everything on existing philology, but my point is that he originated several fantasy cliches, that didn't necessarily exist in the traditional folklore. He took what was there and re-shaped it in a way that has since been copied many, many times.

[Damon]

I think another good cliche type series has been the Robert Newcomb "Chronicles of Blood and Stone" I mean good as in it is very cliche I didnt mean good as in it was a good read :)