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.
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.
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?
In a word: no.
In two words: hell no.
Martin is a novelist, Tolkien was not. Tolkien was a linguist and creator. The stories that we have are derivative of his lifetime of work and serious scholarship that recreated the entire field of “fairy tales”, as Tolkien described his own work.
Martin’s work, while very good, is derivative of Tolkien’s establishment of the modern Sword and Sorcery genre.
Martin is not the “American Tolkien” any more than Terry Brooks or Robert Jordan were. He is the hottest thing in the genre right now, but he doesn’t compare to man who created an entire genre of literature.
All without being a novelist.
Many of Martin’s ideas come from Druon’s historical fiction novel The Iron King.
Uhhh no. And I like Martin, written a lot of good stuff. But he’s never really had the vision of Tolkien, I don’t think anybody has actually. Asimov’s future history kind of comes close, but even his stuff you can sense that he’s gluing books together after the fact, Tolkien’s world was very well defined very early in his process.
No.
As soon as he brought in incest, I stopped reading. All I perceived was empty violence and sex.
I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy over thirty years ago, and have forgotten most of it. I only saw the first of the three movies, and wasn’t interested in seeing any more. I’ve been watching the Game of Thrones series, and am enjoying it, but have not been moved to read any of the books. About 10 years ago, I read an older novel of Martin’s titled “Fevre Dream.” It’s about vampires, and set on the antebellum Mississippi River. I thought it was a pretty good book, and plan to read it again once I get through all the other books on my shelves.
Five books in and I'm not even sure what the story is! A Song of Ice and Fire? Winter is finally coming (the title of the first chapter of the first book) and the fire is still half a world away, although it was revealed in the first book. And these two stories half a world apart have barely connected; instead, we get everything in between!
Yeah, I'm still reading them and watching the show. Why do you ask?
We stopped watching “Thrones” this season. Bloated, confusing, self-congratulatory, scenery-chewing, repetitious. Martin’s “Earth Abides” is his masterwork.
I LOVE Game of Thrones.....I hate the pornographic content though -fast forward through it. And I especially hate the gay stuff. yeccchhh!
As good as it it, he is NO J.R.Tolkien, can’t touch him with a 500 foot pole.