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Haunting Spirit
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Re: Book of the Century?
Beleghuru said:
Does anybody like Zelazny, he is one of the few writers that wrote books that were as good or better then Tolkiens'.
I read the Amber chronicles , 1 to 10. They are heavily recommended by many. Although they have great politics within them, they just don't cut it for me. It lacks something, Zelazny should have done much, much more with the powers of his characters. I liked only a few things, like The Jewel of Judgement, the Trumps, Oberon and of course Corwin himself was ok. The story was pretty meager though. I know a lot of folks like it, but I found the worldbuilding dissapointing. The characters are too flat as well. Still, the idea is great.
Moorcock's Eternal Champion books, at least some, are much better.
Pengolodh -- can you describe Moorcock's writings a little more? I've never heard of him, but that's not surprising since the only "fantasy"/sci fi books I've ever other than LotR are the Dune books (which I enjoyed -- at least the first 2 or 3).
I'm reading Dune right now <img src=smile.gif ALT="
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As for Moorcock, he is best known for the Eternal Champion saga. It features the wars of several heroes against the Lords of Chaos. The fight is generally between Law and Chaos and even though the protagonists are incredibly powerful in their own (above human or half-human race) they become pawns in the Eternal battle between Law and Chaos. Elric, Corum and Dorian Hawkmoon are the three top Champions. The books are sometimes even interlinked, for instance, Corum, appears in "Elric of Melnibone". Aside from this, it is Dark Fantasy which means that the characters have some real heavy stuff they have to deal with. For instance, Elric would punish a rival who tried to slay him, by having him eat the flesh of one of his traiterous commanders, in front of the whole of Melnibone. and Incest is far from inconceivable. Important to note is that his style is more direct than Tolkien, he is fas paced. Tolkien tends to be over -descriptive for me. Tolkien is still a better writer of course.
this link is informative, at least, a bit more info:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...779458-0324621www.amazon.com/exec/obido...58-0324621</a>
and this one for Zelazny's Amber stuff:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...779458-0324621www.amazon.com/exec/obido...58-0324621</a>
Mister Underhill
The first of Moorcock's Elric stories were published, unless I'm mistaken, in the mid-60's. Stormbringer was published in 1965.
Yes, it was indeed published in 65, you are well informed. Elric of Melnibone was in fact only published in 1972. The first of the Elric tales was published in 1961 already. Point is that Moorcock himself states in the forword of Elric of Melnibone that he wrote the Elric stores in the fifties (most of them) and could only get them published 5 to 15 years later. Anyway, he certainly didn't steel from teh Prof, although there are many resemblances between Elric and Turin <img src=wink.gif ALT="
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Tolkien didn't decide not to publish the Sil with LotR -- he just couldn't convince any publishers to do it (despite impassioned arguments and long letters -- see Letters for more details).
I've read Letters twice myself and found it an incredibly good source of information on Middle-earth. Lots of cool details in them. I think I do recall Tolkien mentioning that he either wanted the Silmarillion published first or wanted to have them published at the same time. I am interested as to where Gilthalion got this from,it may point me to the quote as well. The SIlmarillion of course, was rebuked.
"In those days the Noldor still roamed the Hither Lands, Mightiest among the Children of Iluvatar, fair and tall and their beautiful voices were still heard by mere mortals"</p>