[Folwren]

Er...now...I haven't got anythng fantastical to say without repeating things that other people have said already, but I can't help sticking up for Lewis, at least.

To begin with, I'll have to say I haven't read much fantasy other than Lewis and Tolkien. There have been a few random books here and there, but nothing great, and absolutely nothing that came near to being comparable to the LotR and Lewis's Narnia.

I would rather read Tolkien over almost every other fantasy writer because his books carry so much, oh what're the words?. . .power and truth in them. And the contain layer upon layer of the histories and languages that he's developed and poured into his stories. Now, about that power and truth - he doesn't preach to you. No, no, on the contrary, if you didn't want to see Christianity in the books, you wouldn't have to. But you couldn't help seeing the stark difference between good and evil. Some people say that the LotR is bad because it's full of Magic, well. . .I think it's arguable to say that the good guys never use magic.
Other writers? What scruples do they have against the good guys using mysical powers, just as strong if not stronger than the bad guys? What makes the bad people bad, and the good people good? In some cases (as in Harry Potter), the case is questionable. . .

There is one reason where I prefer Tolkien over other Fantasy writers. Another is because of the depth of each and everyone of his characters, depending on their part in the story. You look at the LotR, or the Sil., and you'll see that hardly any one character out of the very many in the story, stays the same that he or she began. There is always developement, either towards the good or the bad.

With all this said (and I could go on longer), I'd still say Lewis is the better writer, and I'd prefer to read him more often and re-read his works more than Tolkien's. The simple fact is, Lewis is the superior writer, in the writing sense. He is concise and easy to understand, providing you know the material you're reading. His Till We Have Faces, though well written and easily understood as a story, is, all the same, uncommonly difficult to actually understand. He can get his characters developed and his story told in seventy pages. And yet those seventy pages are so full of things that after reading it time and time again, I am, for one, still discovering more and more of every one of his Chronicles of Narnia books. Yes, they may appear, at first, childish and simple, but they're not. Like Tolkien's works, there are layers and layers that you can peel back and keep peeling back. In a different sense, perhaps. His world of Narnia is not necessarily as well developed, there are not multiple languages, and yet there is history there, and, even more important than that, there is an underlying truth and value that we as indivuals can learn from.
Eh, that sounds silly, but I think it's true.

And that all mainly has to do with Narnia itself. There are mutliple other books of his, fiction and non-fiction, that could be gone into great detail about, but I won't.

So, Tolkien over others. . .perhaps yes. But not Tolkien over Lewis.

-- Folwren