Trampling the legacy, remaking the myth: Re: Re: Building a better Fantasy story

» proudfoot - Re: Re: Building a better Fantasy story

In response to message posted by Qin:

No, I won't flame you, Qin. If LOTR wasn't your favorite thing, I can deal with it. Blame Tolkien for second-rate Heroic Fantasy and its commercialization in the last couple of decades? Hell, no. The dear old man was in his grave before Terry Brooks decided to become a writer. What are you gonna do? I dunno, maybe...read something else. ^_^

Actually Tolkien himself defied his own pigeon-holing, now that I think of it. The Hobbit, LOTR, and The Silmarillion all have some stylistic differences in them, they are not cut from the same piece of creative cloth. Some of the stories from Unfinished Tales stand apart from the stereotype as well. ("The Tale of Eldarion and Erendis" is considerably different from the bulk of Tolkien's writings. It is still a good tale, though.)

I like George R. Martin's new Fantasy series too. It pays some tribute to Tolkien, but there is equal tribute to Froissart's Chronicles and the Arthurian Cycle too. Martin is ultimately telling his own story and having a good time with it. Tad Williams is pretty good too, although I haven't finished his trilogy yet...some day, I guess.

There is a good Tolkien-derived short story out there, which only came to mind today. It is "When the Last Elf Is Dead", by Harry Turtledove. (He tweaks enough details to avoid plaigarism, but his inspiration is very obvious.) It departs from the usual track by seeing the action from the eyes of a captain in the Dark Lord's army. Turtledove does a good job of imagining the unimaginable, Evil triumphant, with a last pointed judgement on those who think they can do good service for a bad master and be blessed for it.

-- posted by proudfoot