G.R.R Martin vs J.R.R Tolkien
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Alright, who's read 'em all? How many times? Have you heard of him? What about the board game?
Martin vs Tolkien: Compare.
I haven't finished A Storm of Swords yet, but so far I'm taking Martin's side!
There's no real comparison between the two, besides the fact that George stole the R.R. initials from Tolkien so he wouldn't be confused with the Beatles' producer.
Tolkien is classic "high fantasy". Martin is gritty "low fantasy". Both are geniuses in their own right. Though if you're an adult new to the fantasy genre, I would have to say I'd recommend Martin.
Tolkien is classic "high fantasy". Martin is gritty "low fantasy". Both are geniuses in their own right. Though if you're an adult new to the fantasy genre, I would have to say I'd recommend Martin.
Tolkien, he acctually finished his series in three books, whereas martin has decided to milk his cash cow.
Quote:Original post by laeuchli
Tolkien, he acctually finished his series in three books, whereas martin has decided to milk his cash cow.
Meh. There were five years between ASoS and AFFC. Somehow, I don't think he was lying about having one plan, realizing it wouldn't work out, and scrapping a ton of work. The series has expanded from three to four to seven books, but you're going to have to provide some kind of evidence that it's due to greed rather than a desire to tell a complete story. Martin has a huge world, and a huge, complex story that he's telling in much more detail than Tolkien did.
Quote:Original post by laeuchli
Tolkien, he acctually finished his series in three books, whereas martin has decided to milk his cash cow.
Milking a cash cow? I believe he is telling a good story that just happens to take awhile. (Robert Jordan was the one doing the milking for some parts of his books)
Something I've never liked are people who say a book is bad because they take awhile to get to the point. But guess what, sometimes things take awhile!
How would you like to read stories that went like this.
A dark skined male with a hard life sets out to take a vacation and get away from home. On his way he meets some random people, gets involved with the wrong people, but in the end manages to save the world by sacrificing the thing he loves most.
Rather a crapy story isn't it? Can you guess what award winning novel that is ripped from? I'll give you a hint, it took more than 800 pages.
As a side note, I've never been a fan of the term "high" and "low" fantasy. I feel they're rather missleading. Personally, I would label both Lord of the Rings, and Song of Ice and Fire as "High Fantasy" because of their level of maturity and depth, where as most Dragon Lance novels or things along their line would be "Low Fantasy" because their writing, style, and plots simply aren't to the level of others.
Quote:Original post by Talroth
As a side note, I've never been a fan of the term "high" and "low" fantasy. I feel they're rather missleading. Personally, I would label both Lord of the Rings, and Song of Ice and Fire as "High Fantasy" because of their level of maturity and depth, where as most Dragon Lance novels or things along their line would be "Low Fantasy" because their writing, style, and plots simply aren't to the level of others.
The terms have specific meanings, and have nothing to do with the quality of the work. See here. They're subgenres, nothing more. Another example would be Angel (the Joss Whedon TV series). Still fantasy, but more properly "urban fantasy".
My point was simply that it's difficult or fruitless to compare the two. On the other hand, it's perfectly valid to compare Tolkien with bad ripoffs :)
I definitely like Martin's writing style better then Tolkien's. I found it hard to get through Tolkien's books. They bored me. I'm sure I just committed some sort of geek blasphemy though.
Quote:Original post by drakostarQuote:Original post by Talroth
As a side note, I've never been a fan of the term "high" and "low" fantasy. I feel they're rather missleading. Personally, I would label both Lord of the Rings, and Song of Ice and Fire as "High Fantasy" because of their level of maturity and depth, where as most Dragon Lance novels or things along their line would be "Low Fantasy" because their writing, style, and plots simply aren't to the level of others.
The terms have specific meanings, and have nothing to do with the quality of the work. See here. They're subgenres, nothing more. Another example would be Angel (the Joss Whedon TV series). Still fantasy, but more properly "urban fantasy".
My point was simply that it's difficult or fruitless to compare the two. On the other hand, it's perfectly valid to compare Tolkien with bad ripoffs :)
I know they have specific meanings with nothing to do with the quality of writing or anything, but still 'low fantasy' sounds rather negative, while 'high fantasy' sounds overly positive for a lot of the things that fall under them.
Quote:Original post by tstrimp
I definitely like Martin's writing style better then Tolkien's. I found it hard to get through Tolkien's books. They bored me. I'm sure I just committed some sort of geek blasphemy though.
Agreed. I finished the first two of Tolkein's books in the LoTR series, then got a little over half way through the last one before getting incredibly bored with it. They aren't particularly well written, and I didn't really enjoy them. The movies were fun to watch, though, especially all three extended versions if you have a weekend you want to lose.
The quality of Martin's writing, at least in my opinion, much better. I have only read the first book and a half so far, however. In all honesty I like the depth of Martin's world over the simplistic good vs. evil of Tolkien's.
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