a GREAT idea for a story

[Fingolas]

I’ve just started reading this book and here is what has happened so far. It’s really, really great.

Our diminutive hero is living a quiet life in a bucolic setting. He and those around him are unconcerned with the affairs of the larger world outside of their sheltered and remote land.
One day a mysterious and imposing figure shows up and informs our hero that his simple life is about to be turned upside down. It seems an immensely evil “Dark Lord” in a far off land is searching for him, and means to pound the snot out of him and then kill him when he finds him. It seems that this Evil Lord is massing an enormous army, and is intent on taking over the known world and our little buddy is somehow tied up in all of this. The mysterious but obviously wise stranger tells our hero and his loyal sidekick that they must leave their little town and RUN!!! He makes plans to meet them later, lets them know that he will send a friend to look after them, and then heads off to parts unknown.
Our hero and his loyal sidekick aren’t quite sure what to make of all this until a dark and terrifying beastie shows up looking for them, at which point they decide to blow town and head for the rendezvous point. They pick up an extra friend along the way and head out. All the while being hunted by the evil creatures sent out by the Dark Lord. Many trials and travails are endured including rotten weather, narrow escapes, getting lost, and nearly getting caught by the Dark Lords evil minions. At one point a mean old tree nearly eats one of the party before he is rescued. At last they arrive at the rendezvous nearly done in. They spend a few days being nursed back to health, and then a conference is held to determine what is to be done about this pesky Dark Lord. It is decided that a group composed of our hero and his faithful sidekick, Men, Elves, Dwarves, and the Wise and Mysterious figure will go on a quest. They intend on marching right into the Dark Ones neighborhood and giving him the business.

This is as far as I’ve read so far. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Why hasn’t anyone thought of this storyline before?

The Sword of Shannara is soooo original.
[img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

[Kalimac]

Please tell me you're kidding (I'm not really a sci-fi reader, except for Tolkien and Lewis). If you're not, how did the author get away with that? Isn't that sort of like "The New Yorker" publishing a bold, groundbreaking new story by a cynical 90s author about a guy who wakes up to find he's turned into a giant cockroach? Wouldn't at least one editor realize where it came from?

[Niphredil Baggins]

Oh, of course they realized! They all advertise Terry Brooks as 'the new Tolkien' or very close. He gets away with it because he's American.

[Niphredil Baggins]

You might also be interested in 'The Halfling's Gem' by R.A. Salvatore...

[Maeglin]

Let's face it. As good as all new fantasy-writers are just cheap Tolkien-wannabes!

That's just me' opinion, oufcorse...

[Kuruharan]

Our hero and his loyal sidekick aren’t quite sure what to make of all this until a dark and terrifying beastie shows up looking for them, at which point they decide to blow town and head for the rendezvous point.

Ah, yes. But you're leaving out a very important point, they went to the Dwarves first instead of the Elves. [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

Actually, I completely agree with you. I tried to read that once, and I gave it up. It's so much longer than Tolkien and so much worse. And the other books in the series are just as bad (so I've heard, after trying to struggle through Sword I gave up on the series).

[Aralaithiel]

Quite depressing, if you ask me! That's why when I began my fan fiction, I looked for an idea that Tolkien hadn't really touched on.
Unfortunately, we cannot prevent such drivel from escaping, other than not read it!

Seeing as how I avoided that series like the plague, let me know if Terry's balrogs have wings or not! ROTFLMAO!!!! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[ElanorGamgee]

That is horrible! I don't understand how any serious author could publish such an obvious copy and still show his face in public.

[Lomelinde]

Oh, trust me, it gets worse. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] I read the Shannara series a long time ago and only one of them had a plotline that didn't seem like it was pulled straight from Tolkien. Terry Brooks is an OK author, but he is nowhere near the caliber of Tolkien, and yes, you're right, he did steal some of Tolkien's ideas.(Elves, elfstones, dwarves, epic quests to destroy evil... [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] ) However, there are much better authors with much more original stories out there; ya just gotta look. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Gimli Son Of Gloin]

That guy is an idiot, a crook,and an unethical ------. That would be like if I copied Romeo and Juliet and changed every "thou" to a "you" and tried to publish it!

[MYyyPreciousSS]

Woow. That is just plain wrong. He shouldn't be able to do that. Such a rip-off. I can't believe he could even be proud of that, let alone even being allowed to publish it.

[Kalimac]

Lomelinde - to be totally fair, it wasn't like Tolkien invented Elves or Dwarves or epic quests to destroy evil either. But he used the themes to such effect and got such wonderful stories out of them that I think some modern sci-fi authors (and I'll admit I haven't read too much of them) can't really compete with Tolkien's imagination or think outside "the box" that he made with LOTR. The Quest to Destroy Evil has a lot of variations out there in literary history, but the one they're stuck on is Tolkien's, so of course they come off sounding like weak imitations of him, which they are.

[Fingolas]

For those that have read the Sword of Shannara, see if you agree with this list of characters in relation to LOTR.

Shea Ohmsford = Frodo Baggins

Flick Ohmsford = Sam Gamgee

Allanon = Gandalf

Warlock Lord = Sauron

Menion = Boromir

Hendel = Gimli

Balinor = Aragorn

Durin & Dayel = Legolas

Skull Bearers = Ring Wraiths

I’m only 175 pages in but so far the similarities are striking. Sort of like low fat Tolkien, or Tolkien Lite. All the elements are there but it just doesn’t taste right.

I have to admit that Tolkien is really the only Fantasy that I’ve read. I read some SciFi, but the majority of my reading is non-fiction, politics, history and such, so I’m a little unfamiliar with what’s available. I actually picked this book up after seeing it mentioned on another thread here. While at the bookstore I noticed that the bulk of the Fantasy offerings seemed to follow the same general guidelines. (Actually this is being discussed very thoroughly on another thread here, Kalessins Rant).

I plan on finishing this book and then moving on to what I hope will be something better.

What I would like is for some of you to suggest some non-formulaic works.
This may be asking too much. After all even Tolkien used a formula that goes all the way back to Homers Iliad. Notice how the fall of Gondolin is almost identical to the Iliad and the fall of Troy.

I’ve seen mention of The Wheel Of Time series, but after checking it out, it didn’t look much better than the Shannara series. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Birdland]

Fingolas - Let me humbly offer my list from the "What other fantasy books..." thread.

Many of the books that I recommend may have some elements of fantasy, but it is secondary to the character development and descriptive narrative. Only two are in the format of a "trilogy". Many would argue that some are not "fantasy" books at all, which may be true. The reason I love these books is that all the authors will take the elements of legends and myths, and look behind them to find their "human" heart.

(BTW - A lot of these are based on Arthurian legend, a favorite topic of mine.)

First and foremost - The Once and Future King by T.H. White. White was a contemporary of Tolkien, and his Arthurian legend starts out as almost reading like a children's book, but as the characters grow older, they and the novel lose this innocence, and it become a very sad, and deeply moving novel.

Mary Stewart's "Merlin Quartet" - Follows the life of Merlin from childhood to old age. Merlin has "The Gift", but otherwise, Stewart has taken the legend of Merlin and explained it in terms of ancient British and Roman history.

Gormanghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peakes - Very dark, bizarre and twisted tale. Few magical elements. Maybe you could describe it as gothic romance with a twist of Edward Gorey.

Winter's Tale - Mark Helprin - An alternative history of New York City with fantasy elements, such as the Flying Horse, the "white wall", the Rainbow Bridge, and the Wild Men of the marshes.

Prince Ombra - Rodrick MacLeish - sadly may be out of print. Classical fantasy set in modern times. The child protagonist is selected to be "The Hero of the Borrowed Heart", but must face Ombra, the Ultimate Evil, before he is grown. Gives some great background on the creation of legends and myths.

Little, Big - John Crowley. Crowley is my own "lost author", I read him in the 80s, but for some reason do not have any of his books now. I'm correcting that now through e-Bay. Little Big is a multi-generational tale of an American mansion surrounded by an alternative world of Fairie. Also try "Engine Summer". An alternative history of Britain where technology never advances beyond the Steam Age. (I think I'm remembering that right. Dang it! What happened to my Crowley???!!!)

Lastly and lovingly - The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle. A true fantasy novel written with gentle humor and stunning descriptive narrative. A knee-slapping, heart tugging gem! For me, Beagles later works have never matched this incredible novel, but I'd highly recommend "A Fine and Private Place" and "Tamsin" as well. Both ghost stories actually, but wonderful novels.

Well, there you go. You may not like my suggestions, but at least none of them are your typical "three-pack" cut-and-paste, "Tolkien Lite" fantasies that you'll find in the "Genre" section of your local bookstores.

[ April 10, 2002: Message edited by: Birdland ]

[Starbreeze]

Let's face it. As good as all new fantasy-writers are just cheap Tolkien-wannabes!

Argh! That is not true! I consider myself to be an up and coming (aspiring) fantasy author but much as I like Tolkien's work, I do not find myself to be a "cheap Tolkien wannabe! I have been compared to Tolkien by my friends but really Fantasy wirters today are a)not anywhere near as goo and b)often in a totally different category to Tolkien!
If you want my opinion most modern fantasy books (mine are not included in this!) are full of smut and focus too much on the *hmhm* sexual attraction between characters. This automatically removes them from "Tolkien's Category" as nowhere in his books are such attractions mentioned or even implied.
Sorry Maeglin, but you have angered me, an I may not be responsible for my actions right now, including what I write, so please forgive me if I, in turn, anger you. My purpose is only to point out that we may have a slight difference of opinion about this. I am usually very difficult to anger so prehaps you will see how much your implicated accusation hurts me (and probably most other modern fantasy writers in my category) though I will admit that some are, as you say, cheap wannabes, I feel I must make it clear that that is not the case for all, or even most writers today.
Thank you everyone for listening to my angered ramblings

~~ Angry Starbreeze ~~
[img]smilies/mad.gif[/img]

[Kuruharan]

If you want my opinion most modern fantasy books (mine are not included in this!) are full of smut and focus too much on the *hmhm* sexual attraction between characters.

Well, having almost any sexual attraction in a book would have more than Tolkien, but I agree with what you're saying.

I’ve seen mention of The Wheel Of Time series, but after checking it out, it didn’t look much better than the Shannara series. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I'm afraid to say that I personally did not think too highly of them. However, I know people who do like them, so there may just be something wrong with me. I always had the feeling that Jordan's world lacked the "depth" and the "feeling" that Middle earth has. It all seemed rather superficial, to me at least.

[Ibun_Clawarrow]

Though I'm sure this has probably been said before in other posts, I just want to put in my two cents, so to speak. I've been interested in trying to write fantasy for quite awhile, but every idea I come up with seems to be based on Tolkien or some other person. To a large degree, I would have to agree that the fantasy genre is one of the most cliched out there. I mean, the setting is always medievel Europe-ish, the characters generally tend to be white, and the races of man, dwarf, elf, etc. have become almost standard from series to series. Of course you need some sort of conflict in a book and "Dark Lord/Force trying to rule the world" is a very convient one for fantasy. While I would be interested in trying to a find new direction for fantasy besides the "Dark Lord" convention, its been very difficult for e to think of anything else for characters in a fantasy book to do other than fight an omniprescent evil overlord. I think Tolkien's work is different than most fantasy because his actually reads like epic literature and legend rather than just a fictional tale. Thanks for my rant.

[Fingolas]

Birdland,

Thanks for the input. I’ll head down to the bookstore this weekend and investigate your suggestions.

If anyone else has any suggestions, feel free.

Ibun_Clawarrow,

While I would be interested in trying to a find new direction for fantasy besides the "Dark Lord" convention, its been very difficult for e to think of anything else for characters in a fantasy book to do other than fight an omniprescent evil overlord.

Try thinking out of the box. Lets see…

Lets say that once there really were elves, gnomes, pixies, fairies or such, take your pick. Let say that this race is basically non-confrontational and upon encountering Man millennia ago saw how aggressive and warlike he was and avoided him, knowing that they were at a disadvantage, (survival of the fittest and all that). At first this was easy to do. It was a big planet and sparsely populated. But as Mans population grew and spread they saw that it was just a matter of time until they were discovered and dominated or enslaved or wiped out or whatever. Lets say that they went under ground where they built their cities and lived for thousands of years until mans technology advanced to the point where they feared discovery again. Having nowhere else to go they decided upon a different course of action. Lets say that World War one and World War two were brought about through the manipulations of this race in an effort to reduce our numbers or lead us to self destruction. Since this is fantasy I suppose we need some magic, so lets say this race is able to take human form and walk among us. Suppose Hitler was one of them. Lets say that after all of this there is a faction within this race that decides that this is the wrong course to take and decides to reveal themselves to the Humans. Think of all the wacky hijinks that would ensue from the conflict with the others of their race that wanted to bring about an even bigger war. Perhaps nuclear. What if they did make contact with a group of Humans, take your pick as to which group or how many, and brought them into the drama. You could do all kinds of things with this and take any number of directions. Perhaps by the time its all over man has learned to live a more peaceful life and has been taught some “magic”, so he doesn’t need to rely upon technology so much. And the Elves, Gnomes or whatever are able to live among us in peace.

And they all lived happily ever after till the end of their days.


Here’s another…

Ever see a mentally disturbed person walking down the street talking to themself. What if they really were talking to someone. Perhaps they are all around us but only they can see them. I think someone could do a lot with that. Not “The Sixth Sense”, but a whole other reality just on the edge of our perception.

There are endless possibilities here. Let your imagination run wild.

P.S. If I ever see one of these stories in the future, I’ll expect a royalty check from you! [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

[Lomelinde]

I didn't mean Brooks stole THE idea of elves and dwarves and what not and what have you. I meant that his elves and dwarves and quests and so on...bear striking resemblance to those of Tolkien and, no matter how hard I try to read it with an unbiased mind, his characters come off as cheap imitations and his plotlines are all the same. Oh, well. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] Oh, while we're suggesting other great books, I highly recommend The Dragon and the Unicorn by A.A. Attanasio. This guy has TALENT. It's very different from anything else, and it's just an incredible read. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Nar]

Birdland-- thank you for the recommendations-- I've seen enough of your posts to know they're bound to be good. I confess the 'wall O' schlock' impression I get from all those series lined up in the fantasy/sci fi section defeats me. I have faith there are good books in there but how to find them? I get books from other people, I like them, but when I pull something off the shelves, it never seems to work. Can anyone recommend a reliable source of book reviews?

Starbreeze--good! Write something as soon as possible-- could you please make your publishers put a mindbending pattern on the front instead of muscled human figures, so I can tell it's yours? And the spine! Tell them to put a starburst or a fractal or something on the spine, so I can find it. Please don't feel bad any more *tries to insert smiley face--fails once again--curse this modern technology!*

I like to channel the French Foreign Legion -- I love the line 'March or Die!' 'Write or die!' I mutter to myself. (meaning figuratively, of course) If all else fails, switch the font to symbol. It's not just that if you can't see what you write, you can't stop and edit, it's so much more enticing to see the words come out in greek letters and mathematical symbols, as if the story is streaming in from another world. Typos are something awful, though.

[Birdland]

While looking for something else on the Web (of course) I found this list by author and critic David Pringle: 100 Best Fantasy Novels.

Some of the books I wouldn't exactly consider fantasy, like King or Shirley Jackson, but all in all a great list, with some old friends and forgotten treasures. He even has a fantasy book by Robert Graves, one of my favorite historical novelists.

Oh, and BTW: four of my suggestions listed above made Pringle's list! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Amarinth]

hey birdie, i checked out the pringle list and whoah! lotr is no. 16????!!!!!!! i hope this is in no particular order, or else what blasphemy is this?!!! [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

i've only read 3 books from this list: (38) the last of the unicorn; (55) salem's lot; (63) the thomas covenant chronicles. mary stewart's merlin novels did not make it, though, and i agree with you, it's probably one of the best modern fantasy, even fiction, there is.

[Amarinth]

jeez, i mean four books, including lotr...

[Nazgûl Queen]

<center><font color="red">I noticed that about Sword of Shanarra too... *growls*

One really interesting author is Terry Goodkind... his stroies are in a series and he has created new powers and races and his books also convey a sort of philosophy...

The first book, Wizards First Rule is your basic book about a boy in a rural environment being taken into a strange quest (his guide is a confessor [woman with very special powers]) to defeat a guy trying to take over the world...
And he does it through his use of the Wizards First Rule - "People are stupid." Its really fascinating..

The other books, however, deviate greatly from your normal fantasy... he gets magic powers and stuff and is trying to unite the world against an EVIl communist-type order, but more often than not they refuse them. Lots of things happen in this war, such as in book 6 he is taken by a disillusioned servant of the enemy to teach him how righteous their cause is, and he ends up bringing about a rebellion in their capital city...

An excellent site is http://www.terrygoodkind.comProphets Inc.</a>

[ April 11, 2002: Message edited by: Nazgûl Queen ]

[Niphredil Baggins]

I too am a fantasy writer. In my texts are the following:
-the history of a world from creation
-seven magic sapphires
-a kingdom named Golden Rose surrounded by impenetrable mountains
-a group of adventurers of different races
The WEIRD thing is, I invented these all before I had read any fantasy at all!
Judge me.

[Nar]

Thanks, Birdland! I read the list, took down some names. I remember Lieber's Conjure Wife-- about an arms race between ambitious academic wives, who take up witchcraft to advance their husband's careers by canceling out the curses and counter-curses of rival wives. 'You don't really think you got tenure because of your research, do you? I left a chicken-bone charm on the doorstep of the Dept. Head.'

Amarinth-- don't worry about the ranking: the list is in chronological order.

[Birdland]

I just noticed Patricia McKillip "The Forgotten Beasts of Eld" was on the list!

Boy, if that book's out of print, heads should roll!

[Dwarin Thunderhammer]

A friend e-mailed me saying.

"I found the article on the Hobbiton site and have attached it for your reading enjoyment - word of warning don't eat or drink while reading this article, you may laugh it back out!"

Funny? I don't think so. When you read it you will see why I'm not laughing. Here goes the review in question...

Disappointing Middle-earth RPG tie-in novel

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is the second 'Middle-earth' novel to be published under license to GameQuest Inc., creators of the ever-popular Realms of Middle-earth fantasy role-playing game system. Enthusiasts of the game, many of whom were somewhat disappointed by the first novel, The Hobbit, have awaited this long-touted 'sequel' with some anticipation: but unfortunately, The Lord of the Rings proves not to have been worth the wait.

For one thing, someone should point out to Tolkien that in 'series' novels of this type, readers get to enjoy a particular cast of characters, and want to read more of their adventures. Those who enjoyed Bilbo Baggins in the first book will be disappointed early on: the titular hero of The Hobbit disappears out of the story about half-way through the first chapter, and while he does make the occasional appearance thereafter, he is in no way the hero of this one. Nor are any of his dwarf companions from The Hobbit much in evidence: Gloin does make a brief appearance, but also not for long, and in any case Gloin was never a particularly interesting character in the first novel (where the adventure party consisted of altogether too many dwarves, most of whom were indistinguishable from one another).

The only characters who do provide any continuity between the two novels are the slimy subterranean Gollum (whose character has here undergone a major transformation); the half-elven loremaster Elrond, as extraneous to this novel as he was to the first; and Gandalf, the wizard who was mostly absent throughout The Hobbit, and whose character is one of the major faults of The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien just doesn't seem to understand how characters generated by a role-playing game system work, particularly wizards. Gandalf has at his disposal precious few of the spells detailed in the Realms of Middle-earth 'Thaumaturge's Tome'. Count them: he has two First-Level Wizard spells - a Make Magic Fire spell, and a Strike Evil Forces With White Lightning spell (both of which he uses twice - the only time spells are used more than once); and two Second-Level Wizard spells: a Reveal Secret Doors spell, and a Bind Great Horses To Your Service spell. That's it: the sole sum of his magic, it would appear. In particular, just about anyone who's ever played a Realms of Middle-earth game will hope that Gandalf has an Immunity From Corruption By Evil Magic Items spell, particularly since that would make the plot so much simpler. The story-line concerns the discovery that the magic ring found by Bilbo in The Hobbit, and now belonging to his cousin Frodo, is actually incredibly corrupt, and that it must be destroyed before the Dark Lord Sauron gets hold of it. If only Tolkien had read through the list of spells contained in the 'Thaumaturge's Tome', he could have given the ring to Gandalf to destroy then and there, and thus spared us much of the interminable plot which follows.

Hope in fact does flicker that Gandalf will learn a few useful Third-Level spells when, a few chapters into the book, he sets off to meet with Saruman, head of the order of wizards: unfortunately, this turns out not to be the case. In fact, Gandalf discovers that Saruman has turned traitor, and is held captive by him; which raises another problem. Enthusiasts of the role-playing game would be forgiven for thinking that Gandalf was a Second-Level Wizard, just out of his apprenticeship, but no: with blatant disregard for the rules of the role-playing game, Tolkien expects us to believe that Gandalf is not only a member of the White Council, but ultimately a more powerful wizard than Saruman.

Unfortunately, this kind of silliness is compelled by Tolkien's plot, which has been plagiarised, almost incident by incident, from that masterpiece of modern fantasy, The Blade of Bannara by Jerry Crookes. In fact, the legions of Crookes fans throughout the world will quickly be able to predict what is going to happen on the next page of The Lord of the Rings, because they've read it all before. The courageous diminutive hero who flees his rustic home with his friends, pursued by the servants of the Dark Lord; the enigmatic man who helps them and who is revealed to be the heir to the long-deserted throne of a great kingdom; the battle between the wizard and an evil spirit of the underworld which ends in the wizard's death (Gandalf is later resurrected, more powerful than before - except, of course, in regard to the spells at his disposal); even the sub-plot of the traitorous Saruman and his downfall: all of these and many, many more are incidents in The Lord of the Rings which will provoke a feeling of deja vu in readers of The Blade of Bannara.

There's nothing wrong with this, of course, if one is a writer of the caliber of Jerry Crookes: unfortunately, Tolkien is not. It is not only the conventions of the series novel, or of the role-playing game tie-in, which Tolkien ignores: he writes in total ignorance of the kind of thing which readers throughout the world have come to expect from fantasy novels. There are no voluptuous sword-maidens, for example. The only two female characters of any note are an Elvish queen who struggles valiantly against her desire for the magic ring; and a gloomy mortal princess who falls chastely in love with the King-to-be mortal hero, and then disappointingly weds someone else. Though this latter character does get to trade blows with an evil Wraith in the service of the Dark Lord, she does so in drag, disguised as a male knight of Rohan: so there's no real scope for descriptions of her nubile limbs and heaving bosom during the battle. Adult fantasy fans will be profoundly disappointed.

Tolkien also violates the cardinal rule of role-playing games by dividing his adventure party, ultimately into three groups: there's one that sets about the main quest, and two which go off to sort out various complicated sets of business in the kingdoms of Gondor and Rohan. Even so, it's mostly talk, and not much sword-play: only three massed battles, and a couple of skirmishes between the adventure party and various foes. The shortage of magic has been noted already: how anyone could hope to win a battle or skirmish without magic is not explained. Instead of real excitement therefore we have a lot of minor characters, and a whole lot of talk about the events of a long-distant past; and lots of dull descriptions of landscapes and characters' thoughts and feelings. To make matters worse, Tolkien pads out the considerable length of the book with extensive appendices. These are not even appendices of the kind you could use to develop a good game scenario, such as weapons statistics or encounter charts. Tolkien supplies us with dull chronologies, and details of the 'languages' spoken by the different races of Middle-earth. The average Realms of Middle-earth ready-to-play scenario runs to about one-tenth the length of Tolkien's appendices, and has far more useful information.

Finally, there's little or no whacky humour, Jerry Cratchitt-style. In fact, the novel is far too grim for anyone's taste, and it ends on a depressingly down-beat note. The forces of evil having been vanquished for the time being, readers have come to expect their heroes to return to their homes to await the next call to defend the world from the shadow of darkness in the next book in the series. Instead of this venerable convention, we have the hobbits returning to their native land of the Shire, only to find that evil has sprouted there in their absence. Absurdly enough, this evil resembles some of the evils of our world (a nascent secret police, a remote and autocratic bureaucracy, centralised and collectivised control of the economy, a concentration camp system in its infancy) - as if anyone wanted serious 'social commentary' in a fantasy novel! And even though they defeat this manifestation of evil in a far-too-sombre penultimate chapter, Frodo is too enervated by his struggle to be able to settle down and await the next call to save the world. He and Gandalf (and the Elves, whose powers are rather pointlessly 'waning') depart for some kind of Avalon across the seas where they can find healing and rest from their labours. The only consolation in any of this might be that we can expect no more dreary sequels, but (judging by the end-papers of the book), Tolkien has already got together a whole volume of 'background mythology' - expanding on those interminable appendices, no doubt - which he's called The Silmarillion. Judging by that title alone, I suspect a carbon copy of David Meddings' The Melgariad is coming our way.

A final note: the book is too long. There's so much good fantasy out there that no-one's really going to want to wade through a thousand-odd pages of this kind of second-rate derivative stuff. It's hard to know who GameQuest Inc., thought would shell out money for this waste of good paper. Fans of the Realms of Middle-earth game will find The Lord of the Rings too inconsistent with the role-playing system they know and love, while those who don't know the game won't be inspired to buy the rule-books. GameQuest Inc., if they want this series to continue, should dump this Tolkien guy and get one of the people who write for WyvernSpear to do the job instead.

Craig Clark

I got this off a site called theGrey Havens. . Here is a link to the article. It might prove of great interest to got o the article because there was some stuff I couldn't post.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Dwarin, while reading that article, I thought: "This has to be a satire!" I checked out the link, and down below the article they do say it is satirical! So reading it once again, realizing that, makes it funny after all! [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

[Nazgûl Queen]

<center><font color="red">LOL!!!!!!!!

It's so obviously a joke that its absolutely hilarious!
*laughs at the silliness of the article*

[KingCarlton]

I have one question about the writer of that article -

[img]smilies/mad.gif[/img] " WHO MOVED THE ROCK ? "

Oh, by the way I find Terry Brooks good escapist reading.

Know Peace !

[img]smilies/redface.gif[/img] [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img]

[ April 12, 2002: Message edited by: KingCarlton ]

[Nevtalathiel]

If you're still looking for fantasy books, I highly recommend His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillp Pullman. I'm not sure whether you'd really call it fantasy, but it realy make you think about good, evil, redemption, right, wrong, God and religion.

[Starbreeze]

Nephredil, are your books published? If so, what are the titles?

[Little_My*]

I'm new here! hip hip hurray!
Anyway..I did read some of the books in the serie of "The Sword of Shannara" and thought they was rellay good, of cource I hadn't read Lord of the rings then and didn't realize how The Sword of Shannara just was a bad copy.
Anyway...just wanted to say that Tolkien didnt own all of the things that he wrote about...for example "Middle earth" is just borrowed from the nordic mythologi, I dont think that I need to talk about all the other things...I think you understand.
I'm not saying that he didn't make a amazingly good job, because I know he did, but the things he writes about is not just his...

[Niphredil Baggins]

Starbreeze: Nope, I'm not published yet... and when I will be, it will probably be in Finnish... then again, maybe the market would be wider in English... as we have seen, the popularity is such they can publish anything, even the Sword of Shannara... [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

[VanimaEdhel]

Little_My*: Creosa (Welcome)!

And, I agree that many authors pay homage to Lord of the Rings (not all copy Lord of the Rings, some just make similar parts). I found that, when I read the Belgariad, that many characters reminded me of LotR characters. Lelldoran reminded me of Legolas, Belgarath (or Garath) reminded me of Gandalf, the main character (Garion) was Frodo and Aragorn combined: a meek character who had been on no adventures, but proved to be really the King of the World. C'Nedra actually reminded me of a more haughty Eowyn (even though she was meant for Garion instead of a Faramir character): she disobeyed the rules in her court (for she was princess of a lesser area), and was always showing up to battles in full armor, sometimes even dressed as a boy, I think I remember. And Barak turned into a bear (sound familiar? Think Beorn...not exactly the same, but similar). Polgara, sister of Belgareth and a sorceress, was a lot like Galadriel in personality, just...stricter. And, like the Arwen-Aragorn Elf-Human conflict, she, an immortal sorceress, marries a human man.

Well...even though it reminded me of that, I still loved that series and would recommend it to all, because there are still many differences (and it's by David Eddings: good author), and it's fairly old (without the sexual "smut" you were speaking of...the "Arrows of the Queen" series on the other hand...1st book was good...others were mainly porn).

[Fingolas]

Just to keep those who haven’t read any Shannara, up to date. (See first post).

Our hero Shea and side kick Flick, (read Frodo and Sam), have been attacked by a large spider like creature and have been stung. They were both unconscious and near death before being saved by the rest of the gang. Now that they have been nursed back to health, the group has been arguing about how to get past a range of mountains without being caught by the bad guys. Guess which route they’re going to take. Yup. Under/through them.

Evil awaits, I just know it. The suspense is killing me. *Yawn* [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

[ElanorGamgee]

I'll bet that someone will fall down a very deep hole somewhere along the way, possible while being attacked by a large, fiery monster...

[Nazgûl Queen]

<center><font color="red">One of my favourite authors, Raymond E Feist, borrowed some stuff from Tolkien.

His dwarves were almost identical, and their mines curiously resembled Moria, including the evil creature from the ancient caverns...

And the elves were similar as well... not only did they have the same characteristics, and live in a place almost identical to Lothlorien, but the four kindreds were NAMED IN TOLKIEN'S ELVISH: Eledhel (Star Elves), Moredhel (Dark elves), Glamredhel (Mad? Elves) and the Eldar.

And some of the characters were similar as well... the elf queen Aglaranna (Which incidentally means "Brilliant Gift" in elvish): Galadriel... Dolgan the Dwarf: Gimli... Kulgan:Gandalf... Martin the huntsman:Aragorn... Tom & Pug (Small boys destined for greatness): Frodo... the list continues...


However, his story was mostly different, with a rift joining lands, creating a war in which neither side is evil; a new world full of strange creatures and races; the attack of the mysterious dragon lords (the enemy)...

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Fingolas, lol, this is hilarious.

I'm not impressed with the Wheel of Time, either, though I admit I read them all. The characters aren't developing.

Good fantasy? Depends on what you want.

I look for good writing, uniqueness, interesting believable characters, a world I find interesting. I don't mind sex, so long as it's relevant. But for those of you who've complained, I've rated my favorites [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

None of the following have a Dark Lord, deadly spiders, or any apparent LotR themes:

Like open-ended adventure, Odyssey-style, and poetic writing? Try Ursula K. LeGuin "Earthsea." Rated G.

Like richly detailed cultures, believable and unique magic, fine ironic humor? Patricia A. McKillip "Riddlemaster." Rated PG (sorry, there's a relationship, but it is chaste).

Like idealism, magic and a fine fast-paced writing style? Try Mercedes Lackey "Valdemar" series. Rated R for sexual situations.

Like bloody cynical medieval politics, richly portrayed, complicated plots? George R. R. Martin "Game of Thrones." Depite the name, this is no Tolkien rip-off. Rated R, mostly for brutal violence.

If you don't care about quality of writing, but are sick to death of every fantasy novel being about war, try Anne McCaffrey "Dragonriders." This is teenie bopper crap, but you gotta love her dragons, and the idea of fighting an ongoing natural enemy. Rated B, until the "White Dragon" which is PG-13.

Love sci-fi intelligence, brilliant writing and fine ethical dilemmas (despite one stupid name that happens to be the title)? C. J. Cherryh "Cyteen." This is a twisted psychological thriller that leaves you wondering if the ends justifies the means. Rated R for psychological abuse and some sexual situations.

[ April 14, 2002: Message edited by: Marileangorifurnimaluim ]