[Olorin_TLA]

Hello, Id just thought I'd make my own little comment on here. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] (I had an old accoutn with about 11 posts, but soon after, to cut a long story short, I got a new PC, and never got round to importing my Favourties list of bookmarks [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img])

Anyway, I'd have to partially agree with Nimrodel's statement of "Tolkien CREATED the genre, so of course, everything else is just an imitation. Even if their ideas are the OPPOSITE of Tolkien's, his is still the template (good choice of words Iarwain)
from which their comparison is drawn."

While I don't think that many people would copy Tolkien, he is the Creator of the genre as it were, and you can't escape. Perosnal example: I like to write, and in ym sotries there are diffrent gruops of Elves; some that live in cities, others split off from these who live in woodlands, and others split off from these who lvie in the desert. Anyway, the easy thing to do would be to name the first two "High Elves" and "Wood Elves." But I thought, no, that would be too similar, best change "High Elves" to...hmm, "Goldne Elves." All well and good. Until the time where they're driven into the Wood Elves' lands, forming...the Goldne Wood. At that poitn I laughed and gave up trying to avoid it, it's just one of those things in oife. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]
Pratchett in fact said that TOlkien is like Mt. Fuji in traditional Japanses art: in all fantasy he's either in the mid-ground, in the distant, or in the forground, and if you can't see him it's because you're standing ontop of the mountain.