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[palsch]

Exactly. Prior to the big fantasy boom of the 60's and 70's, it was very common to indicate that a more or less straight-up fantasy world was actually on some real-world other planet, because it was obligatory to make the story "real-ish".

Then you come full circle on the trope with something like Anne McCaffrey and the Pern series where

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

it looks like a pure fantasy story, only to turn out to be sci-fi with scientific explanations for everything

.

And then you have Stross's The Merchant Princes series, which he sold as fantasy to get around a contractual obligation as to where his next sci-fi book went, then converted to alternative history sci-fi over the course of the series.

[Shinotsa]

I've been following this thread for a bit because I love Tolkien and have read everything including the posthumous compilations of his works, but I'm not really being convinced by any of these. They sound pretty interesting, but I'm worried they'll lack the immense depth of Middle Earth. Tolkien literally lived in his worlds, crafting the languages as carefully as he crafted the landscape and the history. Is there anything else that has that sort of depth? Alternatively gentlemanly wizards or over-the-top dwarves would work, but for me hilarity comes as a close second to epic.

[lordcooper]

The Worm Ouroboros is the only book that I actually detest.  Like, bring back book burning detest.

Por que?

I'll try to avoid being too spoilery in case anyone reading this thread feels particularly sadistic.

It starts off on Earth with a man going to bed and then flying to Mercury on a hippogriff.  It then spends an ungodly number of pages detailing every scrap of fabric worn by pretty much everyone of consequence in the world.  Whereas most books aim to have well developed characters, this one settled for well developed garments.  The man at the start has no relevance to the plot whatsoever and is never even mentioned or alluded to after the third chapter.  Mercury has a climate similar to Earth and is populated by humanoids who keep quoting ancient Greek texts.  The races are called Ghosts, Witches, Goblins etc despite having nothing to do with any of those things.  The characters are ALL sadistic, two dimensional sociopaths and the moral of the story seems to be that chopping people's heads off is harmless fun.

If the book has a single redeeming factor, it has been hidden incredibly well.

True on all points. The "go to sleep, dream of things on Mercury" is a clumsy as hell segue, but it's an artefact of the times. Look at John Carter of Mars, or Lovecraft's works, or Lord Dunsany. The idea of writing high fantasy for its own sake and not even trying to connect it to the real world just wasn't around. So there always had to be some tenuous connection to allow suspension of disbelief.

I don't particularly remember the bit about clothes, but it wouldn't surprise me. Again, it's emulating the classic epics, like the Illiad or the Norse sagas. Which also spent a LOT of real estate talking about someone's clothes or weapon or all the various things they were called.

The bit about calling them Demons, Witches, Goblins, etc. is a bit peculiar but again -- this is before the real birth of high fantasy. And much of the core of the story came from bits Eddison wrote as a teenager, especially the naming. The alternative was to invent bizarre alien names like Lovecraft or delve deep into linguistics like Tolkien (and both of those approaches were breathtakingly novel for the period). Again, look at John Carter of Mars -- you have the less-than-imaginative races of White Martian, Red Martian, Green Martian, Black Martian, etc.

I wouldn't agree that all the characters are sadistic assholes. Yes, the "heroes" are mostly unlikeable. But I found the Witchland generals (Corund, Corinius, Corsus) to be fairly interesting. And then Lord Gro is the most complex character in the book (and in my opinion really the main protagonist). It compares to the Illiad in that respect. I remember reading the Illiad and thinking, "Wow, Achilles is an asshole."

I'm not saying that I wish fantasy novels were Eddison ripoffs rather than Tolkien ripoffs, but you have to admit it *is* different from the stock "elves, dwarfs and orcs" mishmash that constitutes sooooooo much of the fantasy genre.

I'm not a scholar, I'm a reader.  I judge books on their own merit, from the perspective of a 21st century human.  Maybe it would be fair to say that this is an important book rather than a good one (by modern standards)?  Kind of similar to how some games (Doom would be a good example) were absolutely ground breaking and incredibly important for the development of the medium, but simply aren't that fun to play these days.  Maybe I'd have enjoyed it if I'd been born a few decades earlier, but progress has rendered it entirely obsolete in a way that Tolkien was immune to (arguably Bullforg is the gaming equivalent).

Fair enough?

[GlyphGryph]

I've been following this thread for a bit because I love Tolkien and have read everything including the posthumous compilations of his works, but I'm not really being convinced by any of these. They sound pretty interesting, but I'm worried they'll lack the immense depth of Middle Earth. Tolkien literally lived in his worlds, crafting the languages as carefully as he crafted the landscape and the history. Is there anything else that has that sort of depth? Alternatively gentlemanly wizards or over-the-top dwarves would work, but for me hilarity comes as a close second to epic.

The extent of his world depth is relatively uncommon for fantasy - world-building on that level is more of a sci-fi thing in general.

But many, if not most, of the stories obtain at least the world-depth of LotR, if not the full set of his books. And others go even further, although it might be in areas other than linguistics, which isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea.

[RedKing]

The Worm Ouroboros is the only book that I actually detest.  Like, bring back book burning detest.

Por que?

I'll try to avoid being too spoilery in case anyone reading this thread feels particularly sadistic.

It starts off on Earth with a man going to bed and then flying to Mercury on a hippogriff.  It then spends an ungodly number of pages detailing every scrap of fabric worn by pretty much everyone of consequence in the world.  Whereas most books aim to have well developed characters, this one settled for well developed garments.  The man at the start has no relevance to the plot whatsoever and is never even mentioned or alluded to after the third chapter.  Mercury has a climate similar to Earth and is populated by humanoids who keep quoting ancient Greek texts.  The races are called Ghosts, Witches, Goblins etc despite having nothing to do with any of those things.  The characters are ALL sadistic, two dimensional sociopaths and the moral of the story seems to be that chopping people's heads off is harmless fun.

If the book has a single redeeming factor, it has been hidden incredibly well.

True on all points. The "go to sleep, dream of things on Mercury" is a clumsy as hell segue, but it's an artefact of the times. Look at John Carter of Mars, or Lovecraft's works, or Lord Dunsany. The idea of writing high fantasy for its own sake and not even trying to connect it to the real world just wasn't around. So there always had to be some tenuous connection to allow suspension of disbelief.

I don't particularly remember the bit about clothes, but it wouldn't surprise me. Again, it's emulating the classic epics, like the Illiad or the Norse sagas. Which also spent a LOT of real estate talking about someone's clothes or weapon or all the various things they were called.

The bit about calling them Demons, Witches, Goblins, etc. is a bit peculiar but again -- this is before the real birth of high fantasy. And much of the core of the story came from bits Eddison wrote as a teenager, especially the naming. The alternative was to invent bizarre alien names like Lovecraft or delve deep into linguistics like Tolkien (and both of those approaches were breathtakingly novel for the period). Again, look at John Carter of Mars -- you have the less-than-imaginative races of White Martian, Red Martian, Green Martian, Black Martian, etc.

I wouldn't agree that all the characters are sadistic assholes. Yes, the "heroes" are mostly unlikeable. But I found the Witchland generals (Corund, Corinius, Corsus) to be fairly interesting. And then Lord Gro is the most complex character in the book (and in my opinion really the main protagonist). It compares to the Illiad in that respect. I remember reading the Illiad and thinking, "Wow, Achilles is an asshole."

I'm not saying that I wish fantasy novels were Eddison ripoffs rather than Tolkien ripoffs, but you have to admit it *is* different from the stock "elves, dwarfs and orcs" mishmash that constitutes sooooooo much of the fantasy genre.

I'm not a scholar, I'm a reader.  I judge books on their own merit, from the perspective of a 21st century human.  Maybe it would be fair to say that this is an important book rather than a good one (by modern standards)?  Kind of similar to how some games (Doom would be a good example) were absolutely ground breaking and incredibly important for the development of the medium, but simply aren't that fun to play these days.  Maybe I'd have enjoyed it if I'd been born a few decades earlier, but progress has rendered it entirely obsolete in a way that Tolkien was immune to (arguably Bullforg is the gaming equivalent).

Fair enough?

I can accept that.

Although I have to say, Ouroboros Online could totally be a thing. Especially given the whole ending of "We won! Fuck, this is boring now. Let's pray to the gods for a respawn so we can kill shit again."

[Shinotsa]

I've been following this thread for a bit because I love Tolkien and have read everything including the posthumous compilations of his works, but I'm not really being convinced by any of these. They sound pretty interesting, but I'm worried they'll lack the immense depth of Middle Earth. Tolkien literally lived in his worlds, crafting the languages as carefully as he crafted the landscape and the history. Is there anything else that has that sort of depth? Alternatively gentlemanly wizards or over-the-top dwarves would work, but for me hilarity comes as a close second to epic.

The extent of his world depth is relatively uncommon for fantasy - world-building on that level is more of a sci-fi thing in general.

But many, if not most, of the stories obtain at least the world-depth of LotR, if not the full set of his books. And others go even further, although it might be in areas other than linguistics, which isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea.

Well the linguistics was more of an example of just how invested he was in his work. I suppose the only true way to see if any other fantasy realms strike my fancy is to hunker down and sift through a few. Granted it might just be a safer investment of time to finally tackle some Discworld.

[scriver]

I'd say the setting was more of an example of how invested he was in is linguistics-work

[Starver]

I'm not a scholar, I'm a reader.  I judge books on their own merit, from the perspective of a 21st century human.  Maybe it would be fair to say that this is an important book rather than a good one (by modern standards)?  Kind of similar to how some games (Doom would be a good example) were absolutely ground breaking and incredibly important for the development of the medium, but simply aren't that fun to play these days.  Maybe I'd have enjoyed it if I'd been born a few decades earlier, but progress has rendered it entirely obsolete in a way that Tolkien was immune to (arguably Bullforg is the gaming equivalent).

Fair enough?

Reminds me in a way of a discussion I had with a friend at the weekend regarding certain movies.  I tend to watch certain films with an attitude that lets me enjoy them despite obviously being flawed.  (There are exceptions.  "Death Becomes Her" was a notable one that I very nearly walked out of the cinema from. And once I've paid my monies[1], I don't like doing that at all.)  He, meanwhile, is far more critical.  He didn't like Prometheus, while I was "I see what they did there, *hur hur*" for a lot of it, and let the awkward stuff go by[2], even though we both knew that it wasn't an actual prequel to the Aliens series.

An interesting book to test out on (and back to "of an era", rather than merely different opinions of same-era works) is "Flatland" by Edwin A. (for Abbot) Abbot, from the 1880s.  (Or is it "Abott"?)  I never did quite work out at the time whether this was a book of its time giving 'of its time' assessments of the true worth of the two sexes and various classes, or whether it's a book written ahead of its time, deliberately parodying the less enlightened prevailing views of the contemporaneous culture.  (In hindsight, I err towards the latter.)  Mathematically, it's much more clear cut as being very interesting (if you like that kind of thing), and I'd direct you towards Ian Stewart's modern 'sequel' called "Flatterland" (published 2001-ish) if it's your thing.  (Erm, but neither of these "come after J R R Tolkien", so I'm definitely off-topic in this regard.)


[1] When it comes to free things, like stuff on the TV (not that I watch much TV, these days, too busy), I find that I give up most on obvious collisions of misunderstanding of and Comedies Of Error (although Shakespeare's own Comedy Of Errors, I can stand).  Like all those Connecticut Yankees In King Arthurs Court that keep getting rolled out where the guy is out of his own time...  While he's still imagining (and reacting as if) he's in a re-enactment pageant, I'm cringing. If I can get past that, then I'm usually fine and enjoying the deliberate anachronisms, on his part, while ignoring the unintended ones, by the supposed medieval locale.   Etc.

[2] Strangely, I thought (and watched it as if) it was a Christianity-based allegory (yeah, like I say C.S.Lewis does so much), but I've heard Far Right Christians claim that it's Atheist propaganda.  Go figure.

[SomeStupidGuy]

I've been reading the Fencer Trilogy by K.J. Parker, assuming it doesn't turn really really shitty towards the end, I'd recommend it.

[Lee72]

I've been following this thread for a bit because I love Tolkien and have read everything including the posthumous compilations of his works, but I'm not really being convinced by any of these. They sound pretty interesting, but I'm worried they'll lack the immense depth of Middle Earth. Tolkien literally lived in his worlds, crafting the languages as carefully as he crafted the landscape and the history. Is there anything else that has that sort of depth? Alternatively gentlemanly wizards or over-the-top dwarves would work, but for me hilarity comes as a close second to epic.

The extent of his world depth is relatively uncommon for fantasy - world-building on that level is more of a sci-fi thing in general.

But many, if not most, of the stories obtain at least the world-depth of LotR, if not the full set of his books. And others go even further, although it might be in areas other than linguistics, which isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea.

Granted it might just be a safer investment of time to finally tackle some Discworld.

I tried reading Pratchet from the beginning and got bored quickly!
If you like Tolkien like I do, then you won't be satisfied with the Discworld novels IMO.
With Tolkien you can smell the flowers in the fields and the shit in Mordor!
The Malazan books gave me the same in-depth feeling, with more shit than flowers.

I have decided to give Raymond E Feist's Riftwar Saga a go from the beginning.

[Starver]

I tried reading Pratchet from the beginning and got bored quickly!

Tastes differ, but I've already said how "from the beginning" involves a bit of prototype.  Did you get up to Guards! Guards!?  If so, maybe you'd prefer Going Postal as a new starting point.

However, that's just an idea.

If you like Tolkien like I do, then you won't be satisfied with the Discworld novels IMO.
With Tolkien you can smell the flowers in the fields and the shit in Mordor!

I like Tolkien (whether like you do, or not, I don't know) but by now you know my feelings on Discworld.  I won't press that home, save that there's now an awful lot of 'flavour' in Discworld.  And even more if you go non-canon (see the Discworld Mud).

[GlyphGryph]

You might also want to seriously consider branching into science fiction for what you're looking for. Most authors that want to go to the depths you desire ultimately decide they might as well put the same amount of work into the way magic works and then boom, it's not fantasy any more.

Tolkien's world is actually amazingly shallow in countless ways. The depth that was crafted all served the purpose not of realism (his world certainly doesn't even begin to approach realistic) but of approaching mythological. This requires a certain level of shallowness, and Tolkien is more than happy to provide this.

Personally, I enjoy a bit more depth to my characters and motivation for their antagonists than Tolkien provides. I'm not sure if all the language stuff actually makes up for that, but I can also see why it's necessary for the story he was trying to tell. But the point is, there's plenty of stuff just as deep as token, if not deeper, but it probably won't be as deep in the same ways.

[ChairmanPoo]

I found Erikson's Malazan novels to be readable, but confusing and ultimatedly a shaggy dog story. His co-writer's are pretty much the same,  cept not readable

[Zrk2]

I've been following this thread for a bit because I love Tolkien and have read everything including the posthumous compilations of his works, but I'm not really being convinced by any of these. They sound pretty interesting, but I'm worried they'll lack the immense depth of Middle Earth. Tolkien literally lived in his worlds, crafting the languages as carefully as he crafted the landscape and the history. Is there anything else that has that sort of depth? Alternatively gentlemanly wizards or over-the-top dwarves would work, but for me hilarity comes as a close second to epic.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen. Just fucking do it, you will not be disappoint.

[Hubris Incalculable]

I tried reading Pratchet from the beginning and got bored quickly!

Tastes differ, but I've already said how "from the beginning" involves a bit of prototype.  Did you get up to Guards! Guards!?  If so, maybe you'd prefer Going Postal as a new starting point.

Yes - I've always recommended starting from the middle with Pratchett. It's much less random and easier to follow, and the jokes are funnier, too.