Looking Back at Tolkein

It has been almost 60 years since the trilogy that was to define fantasy genre writing came into being. During that time The Lord of the Rings has so come to be identified with a specific style of fantasy writing that it is even listed in the Oxford English Dictionary: Tolkienesque. That Northern European background story with its load of elves, fairies, dwarves, magic rings and quests for fantastical objects of power and magic have become so commonplace that we forget that before Tolkein this kind of storytelling was never seen outside of old folk tales.

These days there are shelves filled with various versions of this kind of myth: the heroic tale of the little ordinary man who must go on a quest and along the way discover who he really is. I am no scholar on Tolkein, in fact when I first discovered the trilogy back in 1965 I couldn’t get through the books, and put them away for a few years. I wasn’t alone; it was a mean feat to say you had read the three books through at once when you bought them. None the less, it is still a fantastical story and if you have only seen the films, as magical as they were, you are missing out. There was a reason Jackson was so determined to make the film as true to the books as possible and wouldn’t compromise. The books were Tolkein’s life work, and it shows in every page.

Not surprisingly, there are plenty of books out there that owe their very existence to the work done before by Tolkein when he sent his plucky little Hobbits off on their first adventures. Here are just a few, each from a very different point of view, and all children of the old storyteller.

A Darkness Forged in Fire – First of the Iron Elves Series

In A Darkness Forged in Fire, Konowa Swiftdragon, once commander of the Calahrian Empire’s renowned Iron Elves, is now a disgraced ex-soldier. Though elvish, Konowa is more comfortable with metal and fire than with nature and, like all the Iron Elves, was marked at birth for an ill-omened destiny by the malevolent Shadow Monarch. When a prophetic Red Star falls, awakening lost magic, Konowa is recalled to find it with a new regiment of Iron Elves—except this bunch is the dregs of the military and not even elves.

Their journey is plagued by monsters and an unforeseen rebellion, but the worst is to come. The Shadow Monarch’s play for the Star is a ruse masking another intent that Konowa doesn’t see until too late. An earthy, sardonic antihero, Konowa stands uneasily at the crux of a complicated network of loyalties while flanked by a large, colorful cast. Though knotty political machinations confuse the beginning, they eventually add richness to Evans’ militaristic fantasy world, in which magic users mix with musket-wielding soldiers. 

Elric of Melnibone

Elric of Melnibone is the haunted, treacherous and doomed albino sorcerer-prince. An introspective weakling in thrall to his black-bladed, soul-eating sword, Stormbringer, he is yet a hero whose bloody adventures and wanderings through brooding, desolate lands leads inexorably to his decisive intervention in the war between the forces of Law and Chaos.

This volume brings together The Stealer of Souls and Stormbringer, the first two published books of Elric’s adventures, and confirms Michael Moorcock’s place as one of the most important fantasy writers of our time. 

A Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin’s Latest Masterpiece

Readers of epic fantasy series are: (1) patient–they are left in suspense between each volume, (2) persistent–they reread or at least review the previous book(s) when a new installment comes out, (3) strong–these 700-page doorstoppers are heavy, and (4) mentally agile–they follow a host of characters through a myriad of subplots. In A Game of Thrones, the first book of a projected six, George R.R. Martin rewards readers with a vividly real world, well-drawn characters, complex but coherent plotting, and beautifully constructed prose, which Locus called “well above the norms of the genre.”

Martin’s Seven Kingdoms resemble England during the Wars of the Roses, with the Stark and Lannister families standing in for the Yorks and Lancasters. The story of these two families and their struggle to control the Iron Throne dominates the foreground; in the background is a huge, ancient wall marking the northern border, beyond which barbarians, ice vampires, and direwolves menace the south as years-long winter advances. Abroad, a dragon princess lives among horse nomads and dreams of fiery reconquest.