Did you like the LOTR trilogy? (Books)

[Jaxom 1974]

25 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

The point is that retrospectively claiming works for a genre can be a dangerous exercise in anachronism. Shelley's Frankenstein is a Gothic Horror novel - it only gets lumped into science-fiction because a recognised genre of science-fiction arose many decades later (courtesy of H.G. Wells). Though I do not consider Lucian of Samosata to be science-fiction in any sense, since at no point is it actually engaging with science (either Aristotle or Lucretius). It's basically a second-century Gullivers Travels, a social satire with copious silliness, and the inclusion of Sun and Moon people is neither here nor there.

(Another example of retrospective shoe-horning would be people who claim Voltaire's Zadig as a detective story, when the genre really got going with Poe).

In the case of fantasy, I personally consider Morris in the 1890s to constitute the birth of the modern genre - MacDonald is arguably closer to dream-fiction than a setting in a "real" secondary world. By the time you hit Dunsany, you're dealing with invented pantheons of gods, and Tolkien found himself getting compared to E.R. Eddison.  

A fair point, to be sure.  However, I do think there is enough material and story that pre-dates LOTR that fits the ideal of fantasy that it is possible to show a starting point for modern fantasy.  As Wert points out, there were enough influences on Tolkien's work, that you could say, due to his success he may have revolutionized the genre of modern fantastic fiction, but he isn't it's creator.  

 

(For the record, I know Frankenstein is specifically Gothic horror, but I am of the belief that with that story, there is enough to not just lump it in with Science Fiction, but enough to state that it is a proper starting point for the genre.  It is a case where retroactively attributing the tropes of the genre, one can only conclude that it all essentially began there.  Verne just revolutionized the idea later.)

[SeanF]

36 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

The point is that retrospectively claiming works for a genre can be a dangerous exercise in anachronism. Shelley's Frankenstein is a Gothic Horror novel - it only gets lumped into science-fiction because a recognised genre of science-fiction arose many decades later (courtesy of H.G. Wells). Though I do not consider Lucian of Samosata to be science-fiction in any sense, since at no point is it actually engaging with science (either Aristotle or Lucretius). It's basically a second-century Gullivers Travels, a social satire with copious silliness, and the inclusion of Sun and Moon people is neither here nor there.

(Another example of retrospective shoe-horning would be people who claim Voltaire's Zadig as a detective story, when the genre really got going with Poe).

In the case of fantasy, I personally consider Morris in the 1890s to constitute the birth of the modern genre - MacDonald is arguably closer to dream-fiction than a setting in a "real" secondary world. By the time you hit Dunsany, you're dealing with invented pantheons of gods, and Tolkien found himself getting compared to E.R. Eddison.  

At the time, I don’t even think War of the Worlds was considered science fiction.  It was one of the Invasion of Britain novels, hugely popular in the run up to WWI.

[The Marquis de Leech]

11 hours ago, SeanF said:

At the time, I don’t even think War of the Worlds was considered science fiction.  It was one of the Invasion of Britain novels, hugely popular in the run up to WWI.

True, but Wells' other Big Guns: The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, and The First Men in the Moon are recognisable science-fiction works. The War of the Worlds reinvented invasion fiction in such a way that it allowed the genre to exist in a modified form for decades to come.

(And because this was Wells, it wasn't about Germanophobic xenophobia, but rather a vicious comment on the British Empire).

[One-Winged Balrog]

Is there a book in Science Fiction with the same outsize influence as LOTR had on Fantasy? My impression is there isn't, and Sci-Fi had a more smooth development. But maybe I'm missing something?

This really calls for a quantitative research, but getting comprehensive sales figures across a century is probably impossible...

[The Marquis de Leech]

1 hour ago, One-Winged Balrog said:

Is there a book in Science Fiction with the same outsize influence as LOTR had on Fantasy? My impression is there isn't, and Sci-Fi had a more smooth development. But maybe I'm missing something?

This really calls for a quantitative research, but getting comprehensive sales figures across a century is probably impossible...

In terms of sales figures? Nothing in science-fiction approaches it (not even Dune). Literary influence is another matter, though I still don't think you find a Tolkien equivalent.

[One-Winged Balrog]

I wonder if Tolkien's influence did more harm than good to the genre, by wrapping it around itself like a supermassive black hole. Regardless of LOTR literary qualities (which are exquisite, IMO), we now have an entire list of tropes that stem from one book. A whole category of fantasy is dedicated just to taking the "standard fantasy races" (what a concept!) of LOTR and subverting them. Surely it's a bit too much?

[The Marquis de Leech]

49 minutes ago, One-Winged Balrog said:

I wonder if Tolkien's influence did more harm than good to the genre, by wrapping it around itself like a supermassive black hole. Regardless of LOTR literary qualities (which are exquisite, IMO), we now have an entire list of tropes that stem from one book. A whole category of fantasy is dedicated just to taking the "standard fantasy races" (what a concept!) of LOTR and subverting them. Surely it's a bit too much?

I think that's a fair comment. The analogy I would give is how Vampire fiction wound up getting warped by Dracula. 

[Werthead]

5 hours ago, One-Winged Balrog said:

Is there a book in Science Fiction with the same outsize influence as LOTR had on Fantasy? My impression is there isn't, and Sci-Fi had a more smooth development. But maybe I'm missing something?

This really calls for a quantitative research, but getting comprehensive sales figures across a century is probably impossible...

War of the Worlds and The Time Machine both had a huge impact on the genre during its foundational phase, and almost every work of space opera can trace its lineage back to EE "Doc" Smith's Lensmen Saga. Most "hard SF" working on a timescale of millions or billions of years was developed in the shadow of Olaf Stapledon's First and Last Men and Star Maker. Anything about AI obviously tips its hat to Frankenstein.

Probably the closest dominant series in the same way was The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. However, Foundation never sold anything close to LotR's numbers (whilst still being a huge seller in SF terms). Amusingly when the Hugo Awards introduced a one-off category in 1966 to reward Tolkien for The Lord of the Rings, the purist SF clique was so outraged that they block-voted to ensure that the Foundation Trilogy won instead (and LotR actually came last, behind Barsoom, Heinlein's Future History and Lensmen). Ironically, 1966 was LotR's biggest-ever breakout year (apart maybe from 2001/02) in terms of sales, so if the award had been held just a year later, Tolkien may have won.

But Foundation for years had a similar respect and reverence in SF comparable to LotR in fantasy. It was mostly undone by competition (from the Dune saga, mostly, which Asimov purists sneeringly decried was ripping off Foundation, but Herbert fans pointed out was much better-written) and also by Asimov revisiting the setting for decidedly iffy sequels in the 1980s.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

27 minutes ago, Werthead said:

War of the Worlds and The Time Machine both had a huge impact on the genre during its foundational phase, and almost every work of space opera can trace its lineage back to EE "Doc" Smith's Lensmen Saga. Most "hard SF" working on a timescale of millions or billions of years was developed in the shadow of Olaf Stapledon's First and Last Men and Star Maker. Anything about AI obviously tips its hat to Frankenstein.

Probably the closest dominant series in the same way was The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. However, Foundation never sold anything close to LotR's numbers (whilst still being a huge seller in SF terms). Amusingly when the Hugo Awards introduced a one-off category in 1966 to reward Tolkien for The Lord of the Rings, the purist SF clique was so outraged that they block-voted to ensure that the Foundation Trilogy won instead (and LotR actually came last, behind Barsoom, Heinlein's Future History and Lensmen). Ironically, 1966 was LotR's biggest-ever breakout year (apart maybe from 2001/02) in terms of sales, so if the award had been held just a year later, Tolkien may have won.

But Foundation for years had a similar respect and reverence in SF comparable to LotR in fantasy. It was mostly undone by competition (from the Dune saga, mostly, which Asimov purists sneeringly decried was ripping off Foundation, but Herbert fans pointed out was much better-written) and also by Asimov revisiting the setting for decidedly iffy sequels in the 1980s.

Frank Herbert was a thousand times the writer Issac Asimov was and he didn’t pinch women’s asses in elevators like Asimov did…

[The Marquis de Leech]

59 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Frank Herbert was a thousand times the writer Issac Asimov was and he didn’t pinch women’s asses in elevators like Asimov did…

Creative people very often are profoundly screwed up. I actually prefer the ideas of Foundation over Dune, though I'll admit that Herbert was the better writer.

[One-Winged Balrog]

4 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Creative people very often are profoundly screwed up.

Can we actually support this statement? A lot of people are screwed up, and some of them are creative, but I don't think there's a correlation. I think it's just a cliché.

[polishgenius]

The thing about SF is that for whatever reason the really dominant pieces tend to be on screen, rather than written (but, obviously, then come back to influence the written genre too). Star Trek and Star Wars may not have invented space opera in the same way as LotR can be credited with epic fantasy as we know it, but they certainly codified and popularised many of the tropes and are just as a big presence on the scene. 2001 the movie is a titan in a way that the book, as good and as important as it is, just wasn't. Blade Runner might not be strictly cyberpunk itself, but I doubt cyberpunk would look as it does without it- and while Neuromancer and Snow Crash are foundational texts for the genre proper, it's the Matrix (via Ghost in the Shell) that punted the genre into true public consciousness. 


I would say Star Wars is the most obvious genre-distorting, pop-culture dominating comparison to LotR.

[Hoffa]

On 7/19/2022 at 10:31 AM, One-Winged Balrog said:

Wait, are you serious?

I find it hard to believe that someone could dislike LOTR and like Silmarillion.

I'm serious. And i didn't really dislike it, just thought some parts were a bit tedious.

I love lore and world building so The Silmarillion was more my cup of tea. 

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 hours ago, polishgenius said:

The thing about SF is that for whatever reason the really dominant pieces tend to be on screen, rather than written (but, obviously, then come back to influence the written genre too). Star Trek and Star Wars may not have invented space opera in the same way as LotR can be credited with epic fantasy as we know it, but they certainly codified and popularised many of the tropes and are just as a big presence on the scene. 2001 the movie is a titan in a way that the book, as good and as important as it is, just wasn't. Blade Runner might not be strictly cyberpunk itself, but I doubt cyberpunk would look as it does without it- and while Neuromancer and Snow Crash are foundational texts for the genre proper, it's the Matrix (via Ghost in the Shell) that punted the genre into true public consciousness. 


I would say Star Wars is the most obvious genre-distorting, pop-culture dominating comparison to LotR.

Yeah stuff like Star Trek has some unusual reach back into genre fiction- pretty sure Patrick O'Brian based Maturin and Aubrey partly in Bones/Spock and Kirk.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Been a while since I read LOTR. 

Overall I did enjoy, with a few exceptions here and there, namely Tom Bombadil. I found him such a waste of space. Otherwise, I found Tolkien's anticipation of Ty and DMC (Pippin and Merry for those who haven't read the books) to be a bit bothersome. 

[TormundsWoman]

10 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Frank Herbert was a thousand times the writer Issac Asimov was and he didn’t pinch women’s asses in elevators like Asimov did…

Oh wow, that’s something I’ve never heard of when people are generally comparing these  two writers  

Of course, maybe I’m reading all the wrong comments.

[Hoffa]

7 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Been a while since I read LOTR. 

Overall I did enjoy, with a few exceptions here and there, namely Tom Bombadil. I found him such a waste of space. Otherwise, I found Tolkien's anticipation of Ty and DMC (Pippin and Merry for those who haven't read the books) to be a bit bothersome. 

Really? I liked Tom! Loved the mystic he brought. Was a nice relief from the serious tone and the unnecessary nature description.

Who is he? Eru? Or Tolkien himself?

 

 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

41 minutes ago, Hoffa said:

Really? I liked Tom! Loved the mystic he brought. Was a nice relief from the serious tone and the unnecessary nature description.

Who is he? Eru? Or Tolkien himself?

 

 

 

I think he was sort of the embodied spirit of Arda itself…

[SeanF]

3 hours ago, Hoffa said:

Really? I liked Tom! Loved the mystic he brought. Was a nice relief from the serious tone and the unnecessary nature description.

Who is he? Eru? Or Tolkien himself?

 

 

 

Tom is very much a marmite character.  People either love him or think his inclusion a waste of space.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

On 7/22/2022 at 2:53 AM, SeanF said:

Tom is very much a marmite character.  People either love him or think his inclusion a waste of space.

This discussion of Bombadil makes me wonder if Amazon might use Bombadil in… unusual ways… since they feel so free with the story.  

Why not a “Punisher” style Bombadil story set in the future of some distant age.  The tag line could be “Bombadil… when you push Arda… Arda pushes back…”