Fightscenes and scenery.

[Concrete]

For purposes of studying writing, I am looking for good examples of scenery-description and fight-scenes in literature. Any and all settings and genres would be fine.
Does anyone have any good examples?

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

For purposes of studying writing, I am looking for good examples of scenery-description and fight-scenes in literature. Any and all settings and genres would be fine.
Does anyone have any good examples?

Bah, I was hoping that I could mention the awesome set of the (in)famous fight-scene in the movie of the Princess Bride. But, never having read the movie, I wouldn't know...

[White_North]

Jim Butcher is fairly good at writing action scenes. It's pretty much his strongest suit. He can tell a scene with incredible momentum and tension. I'd reccomend reading Storm Front, the first book in the Dresden Files series. It's my favourite one, a thoroughly entertaining piece of urban fantasy with a truly amazing fight scene in it.

[Zeofar]

Miss Pross Vs. Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities.

[Knaight]

Guy Gavriel Kay is a master of both fight scenes and scenery, so is George R. R. Martin. That said, those two are currently occupying the "my favorite fantasy authors" list in the vast majority of respects, I'm a bit biased.

[Dienekes]

Personally, GRRM (my current favorite and most infuriating author) is very good at making battles have emotional reactions by piling a lot of consequences onto each battle he writes and the knowledge that he possibly will kill off anyone who gets themselves in danger.

On the other spectrum, Joe Abercrombie writes fun entertaining fight scenes but doesn't necessarily build up a lot of emotion on them, and there is little fear that his heroes will end up in a pit afterwords.

[White_North]

Personally, GRRM (my current favorite and most infuriating author) is very good at making battles have emotional reactions by piling a lot of consequences onto each battle he writes and the knowledge that he possibly will kill off anyone who gets themselves in danger.

+1 to the George RR Martin suggestions. But if you do decide to read him, be aware: the man writes at a pace that would make a snail bored. Combined with his awesome characters and gripping storylines, this may cause unending amounts of despair as you wait years on end for him to finish a book he keeps saying he's about to publish.

[Seonor]

Steven Brust: Vlad Taltos series
Tad Williams: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn
Scott Lynch: The Lies of Locke Lamora

have all good fights in it.

[The Big Dice]

Go for the masters. Any and all of Robert E Howard's Conan stories or Moorcock's Elric books. Also highly reccomended are David Gemmel's work too. Particularly Legend, Waylander, Quest for Lost heroes and Wolf in Shadow.

Honourable mention goes to James Barclay's Chronicles and Legends of the Raven.

[Tamburlaine]

I find Roger Zelazny usually does a good job at fight scenes, letting his descriptive style shift hugely to accommodate drama. Also, scenery (and how it changes) features quite a bit in his Chronicles of Amber.

[Sipex]

As mainstream as this is, the final battle in Harry Potter (spoilers)


It takes place throughout the hogwarts grounds, a place rowling has been steadily estabilishing throughout 7 books. Should be an interesting example.

[Moff Chumley]

Chuck Palahniuk's fight scenes, such as they are, are beautiful. But that's probably not what you're looking for. :smallwink:

[CarpeGuitarrem]

+1 to the George RR Martin suggestions. But if you do decide to read him, be aware: the man writes at a pace that would make a snail bored. Combined with his awesome characters and gripping storylines, this may cause unending amounts of despair as you wait years on end for him to finish a book he keeps saying he's about to publish.
I guess I was desensitized to slow pacing after having read Robert Jordan...

[Hida Reju]

Depends on if you want gun fights or marital combat?

For gunfights I would go with John Ringo his books are usually very heavy into the girt of modern combat.

For more direct combat I would also suggest the Chronicles of Amber by Zelazny he was one of the best of his time.

Another one that was a surprise to me that I enjoyed God Stalk by PC Hodgell it was very well done.

[leakingpen]

I will third Zelazney for good fight scenes.
For both scenery and combat, Raymond Feist, start with magician: apprentice, and work your way down the line. say goodbye to a few months well spent. (honestly, for ANY aspect of the craft of writing, Feist is a must. I reccomend him regularly to people for dialogue, long term plotting, world building, character sketching, ect. He just is a good storyteller, in every way)


Robert Heinlein (yes, stranger in a strange land heinlein) wrote a kinda swords and sorcery novel called glory road. The main character is an olympically trained fencer, and actually breaks down some of the combat scenes swing by swing, blow by blow, in a fun way. also, good scenery.

Christopher Rowley's Bazil Broketail series has okay scenery, and good fight scenes.

Andre Norton is really good at writing scenery in brief. That is, JUST the important details, leaving the rest to the imagination. Forerunner foray comes to mind for that, but all of her stuff.

The stainless steel rat series, by harry harrison, has some good gun combat and gadgetry combat. good for batman like superhero battles.

For space battles, as well as hand to hand modern combat, I really heavily reccomend the Bio of a Space Tyrant series by piers anthony. (yes, xanth piers anthony) A very serious series from the master of the pun.