The New Shadow - Your thoughts?

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

GRR Martin's ambition to explore 'a more realistic Middle-earth' clearly needs to be taken with not a grain, but a generous pinch of salt. From a writer in a genre where comparisons to Tolkien tend to pop up in jacket blurbs and reviews of every new work of notice, this is nothing but a marketing statement saying that he wants to do something more realistic with the genre, something closer to our own world; to criticise him for neglecting the metaphysical foundations of Middle-earth is to miss the point.

I don't entirely agree with you here. From everything I've ever read on his statements on the matter, Martin does seem to be a genuine admirer of Tolkien's work and is knowledgeable about it. As a motivation, I think that was a real part of Martin's inspiration. What I fault him on is his execution.

In Martin's defense he did not start referring to himself as "the American Tolkien." Others did that. However, it certainly has started appearing on a lot of marketing materials since then.

It could have worked well as a thriller with occult or horror trappings. As a sequel to LotR I don't think it would have been viable, simply because the reduced stakes would make it rather anticlimactic after the cataclysm of Sauron's fall

It almost in a way would have been a bit tedious...or sordid...or some word in between those two.

[Pitchwife]

Oh, I won't debate that GRRM is a genuine Tolkien fan and therefore may have thought that 'a more realistic Middle-earth' was the best way to describe his intentions, or that he attempted to emulate Tolkien in the scope of his world; I mean, he rather obviously paid hommage to the Professor at some points (Valar morghulis). My comment was more a reply to Marhwini's claim that any such attempt 'needs to be approached on Tolkien's terms' - GRRM is not actually writing about Middle-earth, Robert Baratheon isn't Aragorn, so there's no reason for him to bother with Tolkien's 'coherent theological and metaphysical system'. It's entirely possible to be a reverent fan and still do things totally different from Tolkien - and now I feel I've rather overstated my point and will shut up about this.

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

It almost in a way would have been a bit tedious...or sordid...or some word in between those two.

Sordious?
Sordid I get, I think, as in dragging the reader down into the dregs of the human condition after the elating eucatastrophe of Sauron's fall and the Return of the King (but didn't The Scouring of the Shire already do that?). Tedious, I dunno - for him to write, or for us to read?