I know what you mean, Saraphim, I'm an aspiring author too, and it's hard to get away from Tolkien, even if it's just coincidental similarities! (For instance, wanting to avoid using the name High Elves (my Elves are getting too different now in many ways from "fantasy" Elves that it's odd for me to use the term tho) I went for Golden Elves, because I was stuck for a better term.
Any way, at one point a whole bunch of refugees move into a wood, cohabiting with the people there to form the Golden Wood. I realised I'd just named a wood the Golden Wood, and gave up trying to escape fro Tolkein's shadow. ;)
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Originally Posted by Keeper of Dol Goldur
What somebody needs to do, is set other genres in a fantasy setting, like a psychological thriller about a dragon-slayer, or a vigilante story about a band of werewolves . . . or the troubles of a some sociopaths who just happen to be vampire hunters . . . or even make a fantasy into a drastic allegorical satire of society (which Tolkien adamantly was not doing, but somebody really should go for it, with that in mind).
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Well Pratchett's got the last point covered, and covered well. :)
But why should they set out to be a "thriller" or any other genre, in a fantasy setting? If a fantasy story has vigilantes in them, or psychological thriller-like areas, (and they do) it's because that's how the plot and characters develop, not because the author said, "I'm going to take a stock-plot and just change the setting" - which generally is as bad as an imitation of LotR, because they're just imitating 2 things now. ;)
About the Dark Lord effect...yes, it is an extremely easy thing to imitate. And yet, was Tolkien the first to use it? I's just that it deosn't seem like the kind of thing that could have not been aroudn forever, yeet I can't think of any thing close, unless you take the archeenemy of a novel, scuh as Moriarty, as being a mslal version of a Dark Lord figure. Hoom hom.