Defining Characteristics: RH and ML

[Cecilyk]

Hi all! I'm here as a Hobb fan, but have never read any Lindholm. I've read that Hobb thinks the two styles of writing are quite distictive and I'm curious. If I love Farseer/Liveship/Tawny Man, would I like Megan Lindholm? What would you say is different between the two styles of story-telling?

[Sini]

I like them both. Hobb does big with the world building, Lindholm not as much. Both do characters extremely well. My favourite ML is Cloven Hooves, followed by her only science fiction novel, Alien Earth.

You can read a Lindholm short story, Cut, online http://www.asimovs.com/Nebulas03/cut.shtml .

[Tintaglia]

I like them both. Hobb does big with the world building, Lindholm not as much. Both do characters extremely well. My favourite ML is Cloven Hooves, followed by her only science fiction novel, Alien Earth.

You can read a Lindholm short story, Cut, online http://www.asimovs.com/Nebulas03/cut.shtml .

Sini, where did you get Cloven hooves? It's the only Lindholm's book I wasn't be able to order...
Then, back in topic: I red the first two novels of Ki and Vandien, and I was a bit wooried: I loved so much RH I feared bein g disappointed by a change in style and characters.
Even tought there are changes (a "smaller" world, smaller plots, less characters) I find ML stuff as good as RH's, only differente.
I like the fantasy she writes: minimal, intriguing, different.

[Sini]

I have the Voyager Classics edition from 2002, which I ordered back then. It's one of those items I'd save first in a fire - it's signed Looks like those are quite pricey now - even an old library copy is £20 (amazon.co.uk used books)! A new edition is definately needed...

[Mervi]

The ML casts of characters seem to be smaller in numbers, and the problems that have to be solved are often (but not always!) only concerning the character in question and their immediate surroundings, not the fate of the entire world, like in the Hobb stories.
She has actually answered this question a few times that I can remember, most recently a couple of weeks ago in this French message board chat where she said:

I think the two pseudonyms tell very different types of stories. They certainly keep very different LiveJournals.
When I get an idea for a story, it's very easy to tell if it's a Hobb or Lindholm story. Lindholm tends to be a bit darker and more cynical. Hobb is more epic, emotional and detailed.

I had never thought about ML as cynical, I need to keep that idea in mind next time I read one of those stories and see if I can find that tone. What do you all think?

[Tintaglia]

I had never thought about ML as cynical, I need to keep that idea in mind next time I read one of those stories and see if I can find that tone. What do you all think?

It's difficult for me to say, having read only the first two books of Ki and Vandien's quartet and a couple of short stories...
I don't find ML cynical, maybe only... sadder than RH.
I try to explain myself: Robin solves all the threads and the problems, and often her characters have good end (the Liveship trilogy, the Tawny man trilogy), sometimes a excessively good end (Soldier son trilogy: why Nevare

Spoiler

must return beautiful, rich and loved? Well loved, for me, would had sufficed!

); Megan leaves always a bitter taste on my tongue, (Lavender

Spoiler

dies, and the child is "sold out"; Janie refuses her humanity and becomes a Windsinger;

in Cut... we know what the granny must do to protege her granddaughter), but I like it.
Now I have at home The rendeering people: I'll hope to have more to say in a while.

Tintaglia, I edited your message a bit to hide the biggest spoilers. -- Mervi
Edited it again, I think the spoiler code plugin must have got broken/changed at some point. I'm truly sorry!

[Albertosaurus Rex]

The spoiler tag uses spoiler], not spoil. Now you just spoiled the end of The Soldier Son for me.

[Farseer]

While only having read three chapters and an prologue of any ML work, I can already see the similarities, in both story and style, with RH works. Without my prior knowledge of their joined identity, I cannot guarantee that I'd have known for sure but I think I'd have suspected that these authors had some kind of connection with each other, even if it was only that one was a fan or reader of the other.

It possibly could have also been different if I'd chosen a different place to begin my ML sojourn but, with 'The Reindeer People', I think it is very apparent. Let's see if I change my mind by the end of the book!

[Farseer]

I had never thought about ML as cynical, I need to keep that idea in mind next time I read one of those stories and see if I can find that tone. What do you all think?

No Mervi, I haven't found that TRP and WB adopts a more cynical voice but I, too, will keep it in mind for later reads.

Having now completed both books, I must stand by my earlier comment but have to take it even further by saying that, yes, I'd have known. I know that I am in a minority (and even go against what Robin herself has to say on the matter!) but, for want of a better way to put it, I think 'Hobb's' presence, be it that from either the RotE or the SS books, is vividly apparent within the pages. The only point where I was able to truly lose sight of her, and feel like it was only ML in there, was during a brief few chapters in the latter stages of TRP.

Further, it almost seemed to me that the story was written as not so much a forerunner but as a practice run for her later Hobb works (the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies especially). As I read, I often found myself thinking that it was as though they shared the same frame but were cloaked in different skins, were fitted with some different appliances, situated in different places and faced in different directions. I know what you're thinking... that that could apply to any number of books!

*Hobb/Farseer kind of spoiler?*

Spoiler

More than once though I thought of Fool's words to Fitz when Shrewd had repeated his compliments to Fitz on his scribing progress. They had been in Shrewd's chamber and Fool noted that, in his state of ill health, Shrewd's repetition of the words should show Fitz how truly important it was to Shrewd that he hear them.

In a same vein, I get the feeling that a basic, though powerful, story or message was very important to Margaret Ogden and in her strong desire or need to tell it, she has told it to us twice....once as Lindholm and then as Hobb (or vice-versa if, like me, you read Hobb first! ). I thoroughly enjoyed the story in its own right but this fascinated and engaged me all the more, purely from a 'writing' perspective.

All in all, the word choice, style, themes and basic story elements left no doubt for me BUT that only makes me look forward to the other ML books even more than previously, to see if this remains my opinion across the expanse of her works. I have a feeling though that, from here on, Hobb may step into the shadows and Lindholm will jump out and demand my sole attention.

Next stop, the ML short stories in 'The Inheritance'!

[finella]

My opinion now is not really complex and probably unfair, as I read all RH books, but never finished a ML book, instead of her latest short stories in "The Inheritance". Therefore please don’t take it too serious.

I first read Robin Hobb and as I love her books so much, I also wanted to become familiar with ML’s books. I started with Ki and Vandien and must admit, that it didn’t thrill me that much. I don’t really know, what’s the difference, but Robin is able to tear me into her stories and doesn’t let go. ML’s characters don’t come that close to me, apart from some exceptions like i.e. Lonnie in „Strays“.

What I wanted to say is, that for me, Robin Hobb and Megan Lindholm are two completely different writers with different style and different stories. RH’s style is more poetic – I love the way, she describes everything, I love her characters. Here diction is so , hm, pictoresque, polished and so, so rich and stirring (you see I go into raptures). Whereas MH’s stories are somehow strange and a bit disturbing (again: I can only judge the short-stories, because I never finished Ki and Vandien or other novels).
I feel it similar like Tintaglia: ML’ stories left a bitter taste on my tongue. I didn’t feel very comfortable with them. Even Strays made me somehow furious and also very sad .
Funny enough: Reading ML’s short stories I needed the dictionnary every little while, whereas I didn’t need it at all (more or less) with the RH stories.

RH’s stories simply overwhelm me with all her charme and magic .