Authorial Control and World Building

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by PrinceOfTheHalflings

As I recall, Clarke thought highly of The Lord of The Rings - although I can't find a specific quote, other than a quote from him comparing Frank Herbert's Dune to The Lord Of The Rings that was on the back cover of the first paperback edition of Dune around 1970:

Also, in Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two, Heywood Floyd references The Lord of the Rings when describing the surface of the moon Io, quoting part of the description of Orodruin:

Do you remember how I introduced you to The Lord of the Rings, when we were kids back at that Oxford conference? Well Io is Mordor: look up Part Three. There's a passage about "rivers of molten rock that wound their way . . . until they cooled and lay like twisted dragon-shapes vomited from the tormented earth." That's a perfect description: how did Tolkien know, a quarter century before anyone ever saw a picture of Io? Talk about Nature imitating Art.

I always thought that quote was a little odd from an intertextual point of view, because I feel as if Orodruin is meant to look obscene and horrifyingly grotesque, whereas Clarke seems to be trying to convey a more neutral impression of awe at natural phenomena.

To contribute something more on-topic, Professor Tolkien's personal interpretation of the themes of his work is interesting when it appears that he to an extent sees ideas of humility and moral necessity in The Lord of the Rings not as themes in themselves but rather components of his ideas about Fall, Mortality and the Machine. This may be something not unusual with creative people, however; it is always possible that there are ideas or even stories which seem very clear to them but have not necessarily been conveyed on paper in a way which every reader will notice. I think Professor Tolkien is a minor case; I've noticed more egregious examples in interviews where defensive writers (especially for television) seem to have swathes of additional characterisation and plotting in their heads that they have never conveyed to the audience, and become frustrated when the confused audience is revealed to not be composed of mind-readers!