TCOTC makes SFBC top 50

[burgs]

They do, most certainly.

Has SRD ever been asked about that? I've always wondered what he would say about the superficial similarities.

[Avatar]

I'm sure it's been brought up...maybe one of our GI wizards will remember.

I know I had to spend a while arguing with the GF how they were only superficial similarities.

--A

[wayfriend]

Every epic fantasy is derivative of Tolkien, in one way or another. Sometimes on the surface only, sometimes more profoundly. Look at the Iron Tower Trilogy - McKiernan practically put LOTR in a word processor changed all character names, and published it. (And admits to it quite frankly, too.)

No, people who dismiss a fantasy as derivative of Tolkien are people with nothing better to go with.

All of these top 50 are derivative of Tolkien in one way or another, IMO. Some obviously so (Shannara).

5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks

[Warmark]

I just tried a quick search in the GI, couldn't find anything. Although i'd be very suprised if noone had ever asked.

[Seareach]

The only thing I could find on the GI was this:

Of course, Tolkien had an enormous influence on me. As I like to say, he made the kind of work I do possible, in part by re-creating an entire genre (epic fantasy), and in part by demonstrating the existence of a market. And in fact LOTR first inspired in me the *desire* to write fantasy.

When I'm asked to compare what I do to LOTR, I like to say that I'm playing in the same ballpark Tolkien did, but he's playing softball and I'm playing hardball. By which I do not mean IN ANY WAY to diminish or minimize LOTR. I'm simply pointing out a difference in the themes and intensity of my work.

(04/18/2004)

Which really doesn't talk about similarities. I am sure somewhere I read something about the similarties of the two (eg: the rings, comparison of SRD's Forestals and Tolkien's Ents...). Maybe it was just a thread here I'm thinking of?

[burgs]

I remember that hardball/softball quote.

But what I remember about it is an audience member asking him what he thought of comparisons from "the media" saying that Tolkien played softball and he played hardball. In 1983.

[SothuTheUnfetterdOne.]

reading TCOTCTU crit really just
My little sister read the Eragone books and called It A star wars
Fantasy knock-off.

[burgs]

If you want more fun, head over to Amazon and read some of the reviews. They're a mixed bag, but mostly good.

Eragon sucks.

I want to create an Eragon Sucks Society - like THOOLAH, but more rational.

[SothuTheUnfetterdOne.]

if you have the misfortune to read Eragon you will find it is just like star wars.
Allow me to show you. Farm boy uncel gets killed by evil king.
Is chased by evil kins peeps goes with mentor. mentor is killed. finds out he is last of used to be great order. goes to faraway place to learn from washed up master. quits traning. finds one of the main bad guys is a relative.
saves rebel force from evil king. the list goes on and on.

[wayfriend]

One common element—at least between the "Covenant" books and Mirror—is your use of a character who goes from our world to the fantasy world and has to learn the rules from scratch.

• Yes. In fact I was very aware that I was doing the same thing, and I’m actually kind of embarrassed about it. But I battered my head against the wall trying to think of an alternative that would allow the story I wanted to tell to function, and I just couldn’t think of one. In a silly way, I had the same problem when I started writing the "First Chronicles". I knew I was writing about a ring, and I knew that Tolkien wrote about a ring, so I knew I was just begging for trouble. I’d just set myself up for all the people who could say, "This is just a Tolkien imitation". But I had to have it; that ring was essential to my story—on the plot level, the thematic level, and symbolic levels. I just had to take that chance. It was the same situation with The Mirror of Her Dreams. The story needs an outsider in order to function. As you know, the application is different. There’s never any doubt about the reality of the place she’s going to. This is not the same kind of story. The important point is that she is an outsider and everybody hopes, therefore, that she can be manipulated and maneuvered because she doesn’t know what’s going on.

[mikojb]

Interesting he thought that about the use of a ring, because when I think of Tolkien (whose LOTR belongs #1 on the list although I consider TC superior in almost every way), the first thing I think of is that he stole the ring idea from Wagner's operas. And Wagner stole it from German mythology. So I fail to see anything wrong with it.

[burgs]

That's why I've always argued that any similarities between the works are superficial.

[drew]

There are very few fantasy stories that don't have a magic item or two.

For some reason if you use a sword like everyone else...it's no big deal.

But heaven forbid you use a ring....

[Ur Dead]

A Canticle for Leibowitz. at 12th?

Oh My... How many have read this book?



I am suprise that Venus on a Half Shell by Kilgore Trout (FJF)
wasn't there.

And to a very farvorite author Roger Zelazny (RIP) . His Amber Series is a classic..

[Relayer]

A Canticle for Leibowitz. at 12th?

Oh My... How many have read this book?

I have.

[wayfriend]

Canticle wasn't the most exciting book in the world. But I can see that it may have inspired a lot of other post-nuclear-holocaust stories.

[Avatar]

Not exciting perhaps, but great nonetheless. But then I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic stories.

--A

[Caer Bombadil]

I read Canticle when I was in high school, & found it thought -provoking. It might have been one of the first real postapocalyptic novels I read. Sort of like Mad Max with a Church and monasteries instead of cars!

I'm gratified that Gene Wolfe and The Book of the New Sun got recognized, at #11 no less.

BTW, if this is a list of "volumes," why is tBotNS, a series or quadrilogy (quintrilogy if you count Urth of the New Sun) listed as such instead of particular volumes such as, say, The Shadow of the Torturer?

As to the antipathy of much of the general public toward Covenant due to its darkness and angsty bleak worldview, hey, to each his/her own. I've actually been told the Chrons aren't legit fantasy because they're so dark and aren't obvious happy 'escapism' for the reader. I have replied that fantasy isn't necessarily about warm fuzzies; whole subgenres of fantasy, e.g. horror, are devoted to the opposite of warm fuzzies and escapism. There are a goodly number of works on the list to which I am at best lukewarm, & a great many I haven't read yet. My understanding is it's not a popularity list, but someones' opinion re what fantasy works have been most influential.

In-depth comparisons of Covenant & LOTR probably belong in the Tolkien v. Donaldson threads, but IMCO no reasonable person who'd seriously read both books could conclude tCoTCtU is, in any more than a superficial sense, derivative of LOtR. The themes and worldview are totally different, and each are valid in their own right. I suspect that had JRRT lived to read at least the 1st Chrons, & been asked about the matter, he would have replied as he did to the theory that his Ruling Ring was derivative of the Ring of the Nibellungs (sp??): (IIRC) "Both rings are round, and there the resemblance ends."

[The Dark Overlord]

Yes, but pretty soon into reading you realize that's not the case.

[Farsailer]

Mists could have been dropped to make room for it...but then, it's the only one of the top ten I haven't read, so maybe I'm wrong. ;)

I don't understand why the Mists of Avalon is so significant. Is it significant because it was the first of the ten billion Arthur books out there?

Definitely not the first. Try reading Malory sometime. If you can get past the Olde English jargon, there's some decent writing and stories in it here and there.