[Cúdae]

Hmm... I have not read 1984 or anything written by LeGuin and probably will not be able to for a while judging by the pile books beside me. I cannot comment on those, but I can comment on some other things.

This thread is called, "The Tolkien Template- Carrying on the torch of mythology and folklore" and I am unsure of how to go about the idea presented there alone. But, in my opinion, Tolkien has carried on the torch and passed it on to the fantasy writers of today. But the vast majority of them have taken the torch and promptly dropped it and watched its flame die out in the sands of Time.

There are some who have taken the torch and nutured its flame and fed it with more and their are some who have done their absolute best to feed the flame and there are undoubtedly some who are waiting eagerly for the day when the torch will be in their hands and they too can keep the flame alive.

But all that is dampened when you look at the fantasy authors who have disgraced the name of the fantasy genre and ruined mythology and folklore and who have tried to blend Tolkien's style of writing with Ray Bradbury's use of figurative language and wrapped it all up in some stinking tortilla of something kind of like mystery. In other words, taking some good stuff, putting it all in one place and stirring up the wrong way. In my opinion, people see this as what fantasy is now. I see this as what fantasy has become.

So, how will the torch of mythology and folklore be passed on? How will its flame even be kept alive? A few authors can hold back the flood for a little while, but even they will fall to a strong tide of unoriginal, poorly written, and generally boring fantasy if it keeps coming. Good luck to us all, the authors who want to nuture the torch's flame and feed it with their own writings.