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As for me I am a GREAT fan of Dennis McKiernan’ Mythgar series as well as his ‘Faery Series’ series.

Now many claim that his first book ‘The Iron Tower’is to ‘much’ like Tolkien’s work, but it must be understood that this book was actually his second book. McKeirnan had written a previous book, which he ended up titling ‘The Silver Call’ which was written as a sequel to ‘The Lord of the Rings’. Doubleday thought enough of ‘the Silver Call’ to peruse talk’s with Tolkien’s estate.

Failing in those negotiations Doubleday then went back to McKiernan and asked him to re-write ‘The Silver Call’ as well as a prequel making the series completely his own. I think that Doubleday’s interest to the work of a person who up to then had never written a published work and was not at that time even a professional writer, but a engineer speaks for itself.

But isn’t most Fantasy more or less influenced on previous works, which which if you follow back far enough based on ancient myths and bards?

Once having established his world of Mythgar, McKiernan then continued to ‘flesh it out’ writing several very good books, which clearly stand on their own. Two of my favorites are ‘Eye of the Hunter’ and ‘Dragondoom’.

His ‘Faery Series’ is good reading as well and his retelling of familial childhood fairy tales make excellent reading.

Now many have see McKiernan’s ‘The Iron Tower’ as a ‘imitation’ of Tolkien’s work, but I myself found it to have more than enough differences to make it a good compelling tale own it’s own and it must be understood that McKiernan was in fact writing a ‘back Story’ for a book that was originally written as a sequel to ‘LOTR’ and so therefore some semblance was therefore unavoidable.

But isn’t most Fantasy more or less influenced on previous works, which which if you follow back far enough based on ancient myths and bards?

Writing commercially using the universe someone else created without their blessing and cooperation is tacky. There is derivative, and then there is slavish imitation.

Most modern fantasy is rooted in northern European traditions. Tolkien used many elements from such sources, and never pretended otherwise. It is one thing to use bits and pieces from an existing body of lore, and quite another to mine the works of another writer.

There are other writers who wrote lavish fantasy works before Tolkien. E R Eddison is a difficult read, but he was clearly original.

Much modern fantasy falls apart because the characters do not ring true to their universe--they don't think like pre-industrial people, they think like middle class Americans. Even worse are the fantasies written to appeal to bratty middle class teens (Lackey).