Posted on 05/31/2013 12:43:32 PM PDT by nickcarraway
With the end of the third season of Game of Thrones in sight (June 9th), a global audience of over 5 million is debating whether or not George R.R. Martin is the rightful “American Tolkien.” I argue that while The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones have striking similarities, Martin is actually pioneering a distinct genre—a new kind of fantasy novel informed by historical fiction and politics. Martin admits that he was influenced a great deal by Tolkien, and mirrored the structure of his novels off of Tolkien’s work:
“Tolkien begins his story in the Shire with one group of inhabitants, hobbits, but eventually expands the tale in ever-widening orbits to cover many races and huge tracts of land. That’s what I wanted to do too. I wanted to start with a tight focus on a few characters and one place in the world, and as the story is told, the world will continue to get bigger and bigger and more people get drawn into the conflict,” Martin told the Detroit Free Press.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
I have not read the books mentioned here but I really like this author. The fellow has been writing for decades.
Yes, although I will say that I found “A Song of Fire and Ice” to be more interesting that “The Lord of the Rings”, and the characters to be far deeper and more compelling.
I have not read “The Lord of the Rings” twice, and I don’t think I have will. I just started book 3 of “A song of Fire and Ice” for the second time, and I’m loving it again.
have = ever*
oops!
I looked it up on Wiki to see what it was. The plot was underwhelming, but maybe it reads better.
No!
I read a bit of that first “Fire and Ice” book to see what it was, since my son had it out of the library. It’s workmanlike narrative, sequential and all that.
One re-reads Tolkien less for complex plotting than for the beauty of his language. His writing is like being in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception: something exquisite with perfectly-wrought detail everywhere you look. If unashamedly gorgeous composition isn’t your thing, then he would probably not be a favored author.
No, he's no J.R.R. Tolkien. He just has a pretentious double middle initial like J.R.R. Tolkien originated in the fantasy fiction genre. What a copycat.
Not NEARLY as much sodomy in the Tolkien Books./s
I guess I’m just an old-fashioned fuddy-duddy about things like that.
Why would you call Martin a dirty perv?
I haven’t seen the show or read his books. How do they compare to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series?
Explain, please. His bio on Wikipedia lists him as being a demonicRAT and supporter of the 0bmanation ... is there more to it than that?
Well, they do both have 4 names with the middle two starting with R... Both combined the legend of Atlantis into their stories. Tolkein added what seemed to be a level of depth in his books, however, especially The Silmarilian. Probably because he spent half his life working on it and never really finished.
ping
I don’t know...are really long boring poems inserted into the text involved?
My kids really like Tolkien’s poems, especially if I sing.
I loved books 1,2,3 of game of thrones. It took him it seemed a decade to complete book 4, while throwing excuse after excuse on his web page, then when the announcement finally came that book 4 would come out soon, he explained how it would be written where half the characters would be in book 4, and a simultaneous timeline of the other half of the characters would be in book 5, I was already pissed. After book 4 finally came out, and I read it, I was ready to find George RR Martin and strangle him personally (plus it doesn’t help that he is a big big big lib)....I was livid at the suckiness of book 4.
When book 5 came out, I read it (because I had to), and was pleasantly surprised, and feel he has at least somewhat redeemed himself for the travesty of book 4. We will see if he can finish off what started as an incredible series well.
While I somewhat like the “Song of Ice and Fire” series (the first book being “A Game of Thrones”) Martin isn’t the writer that Tolkien was, and certainly not the scholar. I can easily imagine even Martin laughing off this comparison.
Stop, stop...no singing!
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