The New Shadow - Your thoughts?

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Well, I've never read Martin, so I can't speak to how that worked out.

You aren't missing as much as current pop culture would have you believe.

Originally Posted by Marwhini

So his works don't show a "More Realistic" Middle-earth at all. What they show is his own cynicism regarding other's beliefs about the world.

I couldn't agree with you more on that one.

Originally Posted by Marwhini

He has made a very compelling Fantasy World. But it is more "Our world with some Fantasy Elements welded onto it" than it is a "More realistic Middle-earth."

I agree with this as well, although on the whole I don't find Martin's world that compelling. Westeros is well constructed (for the most part) but the further east he goes the more bizarre and implausible it becomes. His world is one hundred miles wide but an inch deep.

He does craft a better world than most other fantasy authors, but that is more a condemnation of them rather than an endorsement of him.