Is a Song of Ice and Fire better than Lord of the Rings?

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

This seems to be a condition which afflicts so many Fantasy authors, terminally in the case of Robert Jordan, with his series finished by Brandon Sanderson

-and-

but it's something that puts me off most modern Fantasy, with authors churning out book after book, usually into an enormous series or two, to little apparent purpose

It does seem to have become more science than art in recent years.

It puts me in mind of this thread from the golden days of yore on this site.

Unfortunately, the commercialization of writing I think is something we will have to live with.

On the other hand, however, I'm not convinced that these things were necessary, and that the relative brevity of the book works in its favour especially in terms of overall subtlety and pacing, especially in comparison to your average modern-day Fantasy colossus.

I agree with you on that. There needs to be a balance between world building and advancing the story, and over all in the tale itself it is best to advance the story. I say this as somebody who loves world building. I think Tolkien did it right in putting much of his world building into the appendices.

Then of course there are volumes of his work that also do a lot of world building that were published after his death.