Quote:
Originally Posted by Morthoron
So...ummm...Forlong. I take it you didn't care for the book then? Or am I reading too much into your statements?
I will say that I have seen "fuzzy clusters" and "prickly icy crumbs" previously. Unfortunately, I was under the effects of hallucinogenics at the time.
*blinks*
Ummm...what were we talking about again?
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No. I'm not overly fond of it. But I wouldn't ordinarily feel compelled to demonstrate in detail that terrible writing is terrible. What bothers me is how many people, including a reviewer on Salon, suggest that this is an acceptable execution of an intriguing idea. It is not. And I think the reviewers know very well that it's not (how could anyone read that first paragraph and think this is anything but very bad amateur writing?) but they pretend it has some merit to feed a perception that there is something wrong, sociologically or otherwise, with LOTR that should be redressed by a responsive text. The Salon reviewer actually compared it with a work that apparently responds to Gone With the Wind, showing the distortion of the portrayal of slave relations in that work. That is a valid point I'm sure (though one wonders how many people who aren't aware that Gone With the Wind is a less than accurate portrayal of American history are like to read that or any other book). But telling the "other side" of a story that is entirely made up and takes place in an invented world, and portrays a conflict with a magical being who is essentially the right hand man of lucifer, aided by the inventions of lucifer, is hardly comparable.