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

[Haramu]

Discuss? What are your opinion about this cause I've heard many people say 'Game of Thrones' is much better than Lord of the Rings . In my honest opinion I don't consider it so because the book contains too much profanity and adultery and other stuff that just churns my stomach

[Elf_NFB]

This is an easy one. No.

I have enjoyed reading GRR Martin's series, but it is in no way better. The story COULD be better had Martin written the entire series before it's release. As it is, Martin does not even seem to know the END of his tale. And because the first 5 books are already out there, he cannot change anything already written so that the story as a whole fits together better.

I have eminent respect for GRR Martin and his story, I look forward to see how it resolves, and I LOVE the HBO series. BUT, it is NOT better than The Lord of the Rings.

[Aiwendil]

I'm going to go way out on a limb and predict that the answer you'll get on this, a Tolkien discussion forum, will be a unanimous 'no'.

As for me, of Martin's series I've only read A Game of Thrones, and I found it quite disappointing. The prose was rather poor, I thought, and the practically pornographic material was off-putting.

[Galadriel55]

I must say that I enjoyed the first book very much, the second and third too, but the fourth was already getting a bit too spread out, and the fifth was completely dragged on and disappointing. Too many characters and too much stagnation. LOTR, on the other hand, combines in itself many plotlines from different time periods without dragging it on with unnecessary inaction.

I remember saying once that GOT has some of LOTR's maturity and HP's addictiveness, which makes it an interesting book to read. Unfortunately, A Dance With Dragons did not preserve this feeling. It brought more complications but did not move an inch forward. I have many favourite characters from the first three books, and, although new characters were brought in to replace the dead ones, I only had one favourite character alive by the end of the fifth book.

So, if the question was just about LOTR vs GOT, I would have said I like them both despite their differences. However, since the question is about the entire series, well, I found ADWD a tad too disappointing, so LOTR wins.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

On many points, I would basically second Galadriel55 here:

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I must say that I enjoyed the first book very much, the second and third too, but the fourth was already getting a bit too spread out, and the fifth was completely dragged on and disappointing. Too many characters and too much stagnation. LOTR, on the other hand, combines in itself many plotlines from different time periods without dragging it on with unnecessary inaction.

I remember saying once that GOT has some of LOTR's maturity and HP's addictiveness, which makes it an interesting book to read. Unfortunately, A Dance With Dragons did not preserve this feeling. It brought more complications but did not move an inch forward.

I would only disagree slightly about the Dance with Dragons, I still liked it more than the fourth book and I think it *did* contribute something to the storyline, but I think it's in many ways akin to the fourth book. The plotline spreads too far to too many ends.

I think ASOIAF is much better on second re-read than on the first, though, since now I am re-reading it and there is much more to focus on.

What I think is the problem with ASOIAF from the "enjoyability" perspective is that it fulfils the dream of most book-readers: you get to learn a lot in detail about various characters in various situations. The sort of thing you have when you finish reading LotR and you pity there isn't more about what Fatty Bolger did when Frodo was in Mordor, why there isn't more about Dáin and Brand's battle in Dale against the Easterlings, why there isn't more about some more random characters who we would have found interesting and more about their personal struggles and thoughts etc...

G.R.R. Martin did exactly that. But it waters down the general plot of the book as it is and makes it full of long sequences - on first reading especially - where you are like "hey, I don't want to read a chapter about what Forlong the Fat had for breakfast and about the fight Farmer Maggot had with his neighbor before learning whether or not Frodo's Ring is The One Ring". You have a ton of "random" stuff - the writer could have just cut it, made it, say, three books and focus only on several main characters and some main plot, but instead you have an equivalent to "what Dáin, Farmer Maggot, Haldir and Ufthak were doing while Frodo was on the way to Mordor". (On top of that, you aren't even sure which of the plots is more important, whether the one about Mordor or the one about Bag End, but that does not seem to be the point of the books.) But exactly this makes the books much more enjoyable on second reading, when you can focus on the gazillion of minor characters, or even the details about the main characters which have eluded you before.

So that is one thing. And the other big thing is, in my opinion, the sort of "lasting value". I am not sure, despite its brilliance in terms of really big complex plot, detailed characters etc, whether ASOIAF has that. I think LotR is the kind of thing that many people can relate to and we can sort of identify ourselves with the characters in LotR or the "underlying conflicts" and, as Tolkien says, it has the "eucatastrophe", and I agree with him that that is one of the big things that makes stores great and lasting, that they reflect something of our lives and also give us the hope for the future. Despite liking many of the main characters of ASOIAF, having pity for the more villainous ones and so on, I would not want to spend much time together with either of them, and the story itself is not really very, well, hopeful, is it? It makes a good spectacle, it has interesting plot twists and so on, but again, the lasting value - I didn't really see it so far. It does not try to play anything, it is a story with its own value, but LotR just has something else to offer, too. Somebody could possibly write more stories akin to ASOIAF, given enough time and so on, but LotR requires more depth.

[Zigûr]

As I've said elsewhere, I read A Game of Thrones a couple of years ago and had absolutely no desire to continue reading the series. I didn't hate it but I didn't especially enjoy it either. I found it incredibly middle-of-the-road. I also found that all the titillation (sex, violence, intrigue etc) got in the way of the more fantastic elements that I found somewhat interesting, but I guess that appeals to a broader audience more than a straight-up supernatural focus.
It was actually one of the novels which has largely contributed to my growing antipathy for non-Tolkien "high Fantasy" in general. There's so much fan hysteria around the series (and its television adaptation) that I think it was wildly oversold to me. There's so little room for moderate discourse surrounding all these modern, popular "geek franchises" that I've become rather wearied with them in general.

[Rhod the Red]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

and the practically pornographic material was off-putting.

So it's alright to describe someone being killed with a sword or axe, but not describe sex?

[Mithalwen]

I doubt that is what she meant. Writing about sex does not automatically equal pornography though some do think that way. Most people would distinguish between a medical text and Sade for example. Similarly violence can be written or portrayed differently. I haven't read enough Martin to comment on him particularly though I have read reviews which chime with Aganzir's comments. I am more bothered by violence personally. Both are subjects where suggestion rather than depiction can be more effective in fiction.

[Rhod the Red]

Well what would be better? Vague references like "I enjoyed our visit to my bed last night."?

[Galadriel]

Long time no see, fellow Downers.

Many people in answer to this question were saying 'no', but I find it difficult to answer. If it is a matter of preference, I easily prefer LotR. I think the atmosphere is better, the prose is better, and the world more evolved. When it comes to characterisation, though, I think Martin wins hands down. I love Tolkien's characters more than Martin's but I don't think they're, objectively, more well-rounded.

What makes matters more complicated is that I read LotR before ASOIAF and have a natural preference for the former. It might or might not have been the other way around if I had read Martin's story first.

I think both books/series are at a very high level, to the point where you can't really say which is better save by mere opinion. At least, this is the case for me. For some reason, though, I agree with Nogrod who said that Tolkien will be remembered as one of the greats while Martin will be squashed into footnotes, one of the reasons for this being that he took on a project that is perhaps too vast even for him, to the point where things get confusing instead of interesting.

[Kuruharan]

I can answer this question by pointing out that Tolkien never used the phrase "as useless as nipples on a breastplate." Case closed.

Now that is not to say that I don’t enjoy ASOIAF because I do very much and I also greatly enjoy the TV series.

The story COULD be better had Martin written the entire series before it's release. As it is, Martin does not even seem to know the END of his tale. And because the first 5 books are already out there, he cannot change anything already written so that the story as a whole fits together better.

I think there is much merit to this statement.

Martin claims to know the ending of the story in broad strokes and to have some sign posts between where he is now and the end but he doesn’t have the entire story mapped out in his head (and I think that is pretty much how he phrases it).

I think he is being honest when he says that he knows the ending he is working toward. However, I think the not knowing how he is going to get there is what is getting him into trouble.

Also he has been working on this series for decades now. Over the course of that time he has changed as a person and as a writer, and as a writer in my opinion he has gained skill in creating detail and lost greatly in plot advancement. I’ve read both of the preview chapters of The Winds of Winter that he has posted on his website and the Theon chapter I thought was pretty good. The Arianne Martell chapter he posted I thought was cringe-worthy and ghastly, to me it felt like it was summing up all the horrifying aspects of A Dance with Dragons and plopping them down into one chapter. It was very discouraging to me as to what Winds is ultimately going to be like.

There is a lot of speculation among his fandom that he needs to get a new and a more critical editor, a contention I agree with.

There is also a lot of speculation among his fandom that deep down inside he has lost interest in telling the Song of Ice and Fire and would rather spend his time telling shorter stories fleshing out the world he has created. I obviously cannot speak to what is going on in the nether reaches of his desires, but based upon the recent evidence which I can observe I can say that writing shorter stories of world building would certainly seem to suit his current skill set better.

As far as world building goes, Tolkien is vastly superior to Martin. Tolkien’s world building was superb or excellent in almost all aspects. Martin’s is pretty good in some places, mediocre in some, and horrible in others. Personally I can pretty much narrow down my greatest complaint against the world building in ASOIAF to one of scale. Martin’s sense of scale is ridiculously outsized in a number of aspects of his world…which is kind of odd in one particular aspect because I read an article that said based on what we know so far the world of ASOIAF is actually smaller than our own. However, being an incurable pedant with a firm historical grounding it sticks in my craw every time I think about how the Seven Kingdoms are supposed to be approximately the size of South America (if not a little larger) and are held together in a loose feudal structure. That structure didn’t work too well in France or the Holy Roman Empire which were much, much smaller. I’m willing to accept that with the aid of dragons one could quickly conquer the majority of a large continent in a medieval setting and level of technology (although the inability to conquer Dorne with those same dragons when you have conquered the rest of the Seven Kingdoms is just bizarre, and Martin knows that now because every time in the story that he tries to explain how in the world that happened he stumbles badly). However, once the dragons are dead there is no way a kingdom of that size could be held together under one dynasty and monarchy via the system described in the book. It’s just preposterous. And I’m not the only one who has noticed this. From a couple things in the TV show I think the show producers have noticed some of the problems as well.

Then we have Essos, which taken as a whole is cover-your-eyes awful and incoherent in so many ways that it would take too long to list them all. That being said, paradoxically I am pretty weird when cut against most ASOIAF fans in that I actually like a number of aspects of Essos much better than I like some aspects of Westeros. I think a lot of it is that I find the cultural and political diversity of Essos more plausible and appealing even with all its risible foundation and conceptualization than the great monolithic sameness of Westeros. For example, I actually enjoyed the descriptions in Dance of Braavos and I also enjoyed the Volantine Freehold (although maybe I just have a taste for the improbably exotic...let’s face it, it is probably that. I would probably just go all to pieces if we were ever taken to Asshai).

I think the reason why I enjoy that level of description and detail in the setting is because that is where Martin’s skills shine the brightest, even though it can stagnate the storyline. Martin excels at fleshing out the details of his world. However, the world as a whole collapses because much of its conceptual foundations are so absurd as to be laughable. Martin is, I think, at bottom a small scale writer and he has gotten himself out of his element with the scale of the world he is trying to write about and doesn’t have the skills (and possibly even the desire) to credibly get himself out of his mess.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Also he has been working on this series for decades now. Over the course of that time he has changed as a person and as a writer, and as a writer in my opinion he has gained skill in creating detail and lost greatly in plot advancement.

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 his massive The Way of Kings is meant to be the first in a ten-volume series! Why? Why do they have to be so long? I also think it has the unfortunate side effect of making Fantasy look less 'credible' because the long series' look more 'commercial', whether they are or not, but I confess to being skeptical that a lot of these series' really need to be longer than À la recherche du temps perdu or something of its ilk. At the risk of generalisation most modern genre fiction across various media seems in my mind to be concerned primarily with the two As, Action and Angst, and I'm rarely convinced that what they have to say cannot be expressed without a series of numerous thousand-page volumes.

I apologise if this comes across as curmudgeonly, 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 - apart from making a living, of course, but I find it curious that readers are content with reading more and more of the same matter as well. I think verbal diarrhea is something which many Fantasy authors struggle with, and I do believe that one of the strengths of The Lord of the Rings is that despite the nature of its publication it is fundamentally one long book written across a decade (and then some). I think the tension between Professor Tolkien's prolixity and his perfectionism is an interesting one: without the former, there might be no Unfinished Tales or History of Middle-earth and without the latter there might be a truly definitive Silmarillion - but it wouldn't really be Tolkien without both elements, would it?

Having just read Volsungasaga, which has all that juicy incest and murder which Martin and his peers love, but is much more brief, I think there's a curious disparity between this idea that a Fantasy, in the vein of its traditional literary forebears (sagas, heroics, epics and the like), must be grandiose, and the fact that this was traditionally, in some cases at least, accomplished in a much more concise form.

I am, however, reminded of Professor Tolkien's own remark in the Foreweord to the Second Edition of The Lord of the Rings: that of any deficiencies in the text, he would "pass over these in silence, except one that has been noted by others: the book is too short."
On the one hand I feel as if I agree with him; I feel as if the momentous events surrounding the Fall of Sauron, diabolus of the later Ages, are far too significant to primarily take place over the brief six months in which the major action of the story takes place, that the War of the Rings has too few battles, and that events generally move too swiftly: this may be what he meant. If he meant that it needed more detail, or characterisation or what have you I can appreciate this as well. 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.

[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.

[Aganzir]

ASOIAF is for people who enjoy certain kind of literature, Tolkien for those who appreciate another kind. Still, if people who have read both had a vote, I'm pretty sure Tolkien would come out on top. GRRM is enjoyable, true, but Tolkien is the one you go back to time and again.

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

As for me, of Martin's series I've only read A Game of Thrones, and I found it quite disappointing. The prose was rather poor, I thought, and the practically pornographic material was off-putting.

I found A Game of Thrones disappointing too, enough so to put me off the series for a year until the HBO series came out and I picked up the second part. The latter books (with the exception of the last one) are much better.

I tend to enjoy profanity, adultery and porn, but Martin doesn't write sex well. It's sometimes so detailed and naturalistic that he sounds like a teenager who has just discovered there's something between his legs, if you excuse the metaphor, and it lacks style. Mith put it quite well already, though.

When it comes to moral ambiguity, Tolkien does it in fact better. I feel Martin needs to spell everything out, and although his characters may do conflicting things, there's more poise in Tolkien's characters. What allows Martin to have such morally ambiguous characters is that they fight each other so you can see both sides, unlike Tolkien who has an ultimate villain in the story. But there's little of Tolkien's internal struggle in Martin's characters.

Also, while Tolkien has few female characters, Martin's writing is at times plain sexist. Just sayin'.

[Eönwë]

For me, I think the main difference is that LOTR is story-driven, and the characters are expressed through that, while ASOIAF is the other way around. They can both be very good approaches, but the problem with ASOIAF is that it gets too big and starts to fall apart/spiral out of control in AFFC. Yes, it's fun to see each character's personal journey, but it gets too much by that book.

That said, sometimes his dialogue is quite entertaining, but comparing his general writing style to Tolkien's can only end in sadness, though it does get better as the books go on (it's almost inversely proportional to plot strength).

[blantyr]

Originally Posted by Haramu

Discuss? What are your opinion about this cause I've heard many people say 'Game of Thrones' is much better than Lord of the Rings . In my honest opinion I don't consider it so because the book contains too much profanity and adultery and other stuff that just churns my stomach

Entirely outside of the realm of literature, in role playing games, in my youth I always played heroic characters. These days, trying to join a game at the local game store, an awful lot of players go beyond 'shades of gray' into a values system where might makes right. A few nights ago, I first had to remind another character that the Sergeant was encouraging us to take prisoners, not to slay them all. After that first success, I then had to persuade him to let her walk back rather than dragging her back by the hair.

Your statement above reflects subjectivity. A lot of younger readers are going to like Game of Thrones better. Many of them might perceive the values and themes of Game of Thrones as being more relevant and meaningful than LoTR. The Truths behind the magic and the conflict might speak stronger to one generation than another.

I'm an LoTR guy still, but I'm not going to try to persuade another who feels strongly otherwise.

[skip spence]

I've read the first book of SoIaF series and started on the second, but soon gave up on it, maybe for good. The series has many qualities that I enjoy, like the intrigues and the unpredictable plot. My main problem with it, and what made me finally put the book back in the shelf, is that it drags. There are just too many characters, with too many descriptions of every minute detail of their life, or rather, there are too many characters that I don't really care much about. It gets boring getting through those passages. Also, much of it strikes me as rather juvenile, like it was written by a teenage boy, such as the numerous graphic descriptions of sex and violence. I don't mind graphic descriptions of sex and violence per se, it's just that they're usually not very well written or conceived. Maybe my opinion has been influenced by the HBO series too. I mean, I enjoy looking at naked pretty girls as much as any other guy, but it gets a bit sad when there's no narrative purpose at all in showing at least a few pair of tits in every episode; when it's obviously just a marketing ploy.

LOTR certainly is a better book-series in my humbe opinion, but HBO wins the adaptation accolade.

[Rhod the Red]

Originally Posted by skip spence

I've read the first book of SoIaF series and started on the second, but soon gave up on it, maybe for good. The series has many qualities that I enjoy, like the intrigues and the unpredictable plot. My main problem with it, and what made me finally put the book back in the shelf, is that it drags. There are just too many characters, with too many descriptions of every minute detail of their life, or rather, there are too many characters that I don't really care much about. It gets boring getting through those passages. Also, much of it strikes me as rather juvenile, like it was written by a teenage boy, such as the numerous graphic descriptions of sex and violence. I don't mind graphic descriptions of sex and violence per se, it's just that they're usually not very well written or conceived. Maybe my opinion has been influenced by the HBO series too. I mean, I enjoy looking at naked pretty girls as much as any other guy, but it gets a bit sad when there's no narrative purpose at all in showing at least a few pair of tits in every episode; when it's obviously just a marketing ploy.

LOTR certainly is a better book-series in my humbe opinion, but HBO wins the adaptation accolade.

I agree it oes tend to drag on in sometimes irrelevant story angles. I for one have skipped the Dorne arc.

[lev]

I think the deeper question here is: What are the important factors for a great artful story/novel/epic fantasy? To me, what's most important is to have a carefully crafted story that the reader can relate to (i.e. a message about the human condition or something, a unique universe can provide a backdrop to tell unique messages, as Ursula Le Guin has emphasized before). I think the fact that Martin first said there were going to be 5 books, and now there will be 7+, is testament to the fact that ASOIAF simply is not as well crafted a story, it's not tight with precise moments of tension and resolve and that sort of thing.

However, on a different aspect, I don't think great fantasy has to necessarily copy Tolkien's PG/PG-13 tone. Tolkien's tone lends itself very nicely to metaphor and archetypal characters (like Bombadil), but I don't think that's essential to great epic fantasy. People enjoy tightly crafted non-fantasy novels at all "ratings" so to speak, and the same goes for fantasy I think. So it's cool that Martin's universe is rated R. It's convincing as a universe that way. Also, I think there are characters and situations in Martin's universe that people can relate to, so that's cool. However, ASOIAF is not tightly crafted, it "drags" as others have said. And because of that, the story gets reduced to simply a series of events rather than a great story/epic fantasy, in my opinion.

To me, great epic fantasy creates a unique universe FOR THE PURPOSE of telling a story with a message. The universe isn't an end to itself. I have read ASOIAF books, and WoT books, and have enjoyed most of them very much. But I now see that my enjoyment wasn't because the stories were enriching my life with messages to take to heart. Instead, they were simply a means to relax. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, but I read ASOIAF and WoT books excessively, because the universes were more exciting with less at stake than it was to fully engage in the real world with all its disappointments and failures, etc.. It was more predictable in it's excitement and lack of dread to follow the characters than it was to fully live my "character", my life. I used to play Diablo2 for the same reason. Most TV shows I have watched in recent years have been for the same reason, although granted not as excessively as I played Diablo 2. I see most people that live on my urban street come home every day after work, and watch more episodes from a TV show, then go to bed and start all over again. Those tv shows, like ASOIAF, are not art, not a means to enrich their lives, but a means to escape it. Again, I don' think it's necessarily a terrible thing to being excited to come home and simply follow the next series of events in Don Draper's story, or Tyrion's, or whoever. I just don't want to kid myself, I don't engage those stories in order to glean messages from them. They don't enrich my life as art. I engage them to escape.

When I see people reading ASOIAF on the train commuting to work in my city, I doubt if any are reading it to enjoy a great work of high fantasy, a great story that enriches their lives with a message about the human condition or whatever. I think they are reading instead it simply relax. Not a bad thing to relax, just not a great story like LotR.

Perhaps a great and tight story cannot exceed 1,000 pages ish. Lord of the Rings is just short enough I think that the story stays very tight. But with these newer epic fantasy's like Martin's, the total story is going to be many thousands of pages long, and there's no way that can be tight. Don't get me wrong, I agree with that other person that it would be cool to learn more about the extra details, like about Fatty in the Fellowship, for example. But I also agree with that person that more on Fatty in the Fellowship story would have made it drag.

I think story premises like ASOIAF's could actually make "great" stories, if they are done in certain ways. Some of my ideas are next.

If the ideas are written as multiple 1,000ish page stories, instead of one mother story. That way, each story could be tight (a standalone story of Lord of the Rings scale), and the presence of all the stories would make up one fascinating universe (the stories could even overlap!) There could even be novellas and short stories within the universe too! And perhaps even some stories written in a "nonfiction" style, like some of the bland (I think) but cool historical stories that Tolkien tells in some of his other books. How cool would that be?!

Sadly, I don't think this exists. So back to the Lord of the Rings I go. There's just so much that rings true to me in that story about what it means to be human in this world, I can just read it over and over, a great story...

[Mithalwen]

I am not sure that the fact that the Martin series will be longer than projected is a stick to beat him with on its own. Tolkien himself said that his tale grew in the telling and if you look at the material briefly referred to in the appendices or worked up post publication in Unfinished tales to see that had Tolkien been a follower rather than a fore runner writing professionally for an established market with secretarial support he might have produced many many volumes of third age histoey alone. Of course you would lose the richness of the unexplored vistas though maybe new ones would have been revealed. But Tolkien was writing one novel not a series so you do get that concentration or perhaps distillation of a long process the difference perhaps between a michelin starred meal with premier cru vintage wines to a good homecooked meal.

However sometimes a writer becomes so successful that perhaps the editing process gets less robust and the work suffers. I always feel that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix could have lost a couple of hundred pages but by that stage nopne dared tell JK R that it was baggy ...maybe that is what happened with the Hobbit films too.

However I cant say which is the case here until I have read Martin.... i have been tempted but I am waiting for it to be completed ... if I like it I know the waiting will drive me nuts..

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by lev

And because of that, the story gets reduced to simply a series of events rather than a great story/epic fantasy, in my opinion.
(...)
To me, great epic fantasy creates a unique universe FOR THE PURPOSE of telling a story with a message. The universe isn't an end to itself. I have read ASOIAF books, and WoT books, and have enjoyed most of them very much. But I now see that my enjoyment wasn't because the stories were enriching my life with messages to take to heart. Instead, they were simply a means to relax. (...) I don't engage those stories in order to glean messages from them. They don't enrich my life as art. I engage them to escape.

Agreed, very much agreed. That's very much my impression as well. And welcome to the 'Downs, by the way!

Originally Posted by lev

If the ideas are written as multiple 1,000ish page stories, instead of one mother story. That way, each story could be tight (a standalone story of Lord of the Rings scale), and the presence of all the stories would make up one fascinating universe (the stories could even overlap!) There could even be novellas and short stories within the universe too! And perhaps even some stories written in a "nonfiction" style, like some of the bland (I think) but cool historical stories that Tolkien tells in some of his other books. How cool would that be?!

In fact, I think that's actually what happens all the time. Many, and I would even dare say most, "big" fantasy authors are suffering from something which e.g. the Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski called "falling too much in love with one's world" syndrom. He said that was the reason he never wanted to draw a map for his own books, because he would then feel tempted to set more stories into the same world, and just draining it of all the originality of the stories set in it. The premise being - authors can easily fall in love with their created universes or characters and then they can't leave them, so they publish more and more novels about the world, about the main characters, about their children and grandchildren, and while it enrichens the world (and many fans would be exactly happy to learn what Aragorn's son did, what lay beyond Lake Rhun to the east, or what did the daily life of the Lossoth look like), it also mostly "imprisons" the author and shuffles the priorities: the story is not (often) based on an original plot idea, but on the idea to exactly explore a culture which was interesting but played only a minor role in the original big story arc etc.

I said many fantasy authors do that - and I am sure you can find which ones if you look at some bookshelf in a fantasy bookshop. When you see a row of books from the same author, some of which are titled "The Sixth Volume of the Epic Wizardwar Octalogy" and "The Fourth Volume of the Adventures of the Survivors of the Wizardwar Saga", you know that it is the case. I don't usually read that stuff, exactly because I don't think it's often very good. One example I am familiar with being R.E. Feist. I have read his Riftwar Saga, but then there was exactly like thousand other books about the main characters' descendants, about some Serpent Priests who are normally playing quite minor role in the story, and so on. You can learn a lot of details about the world, but often (even if the world is interesting in the first place) it loses its charm, or ridicules things you knew from before. (If the author does not want to just write first an epic story with a great plot, and then lots of subsequent stories without much plot, but referring to different cultures in the same world, but instead wants to e.g. have some new equally epic plot featuring this time not a Hobbit, but a Wood Elf as the main hero, he might easily end up devising New World War which totally diminishes the point of the original story, since now we learn that the Dark Lord defeated in the original book was in fact only one of the twenty Dark Lords who serve the Darkest Lord who has to be defeated by the new main hero. And so forth.)

Martin, I believe, avoided some of this by stuffing the "extra info" already in his original series of ASOIAF. So, instead of having three volumes of Adventures of the Stark Family in the South, and later three volumes of The Return of the Dragon Rulers, and even later the Adventures of Jon Snow, we have everything in one place, and I think that's fine. But it is still only another manifestation of the same "problem".

...

Let me also remark, in conclusion, that I am actually glad we have only Tolkien's notes and drafts regarding all the other cultures in Middle-Earth, all the minor or major historical figures like Isildur or Glorfindel, because that may very well be the optimal course. We still have something to satisfy our curiosity about the "large world", but it does not conflict with the main story, it does not try to present itself as a story on the equal level with LotR, and it leaves still a lot to our imagination within the world itself.

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

However sometimes a writer becomes so successful that perhaps the editing process gets less robust and the work suffers. I always feel that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix could have lost a couple of hundred pages but by that stage nopne dared tell JK R that it was baggy

Interesting remark. In fact, my brother stopped reading Harry Potter exactly because of the Order of the Phoenix dragging too much, he said. I haven't met anyone else who would have complained in the same way, but now there's at least you (and therefore I assume more people thinking that), so I start seeing that there might be something to that idea.

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

However I cant say which is the case here until I have read Martin.... i have been tempted but I am waiting for it to be completed ... if I like it I know the waiting will drive me nuts..

I can totally understand that approach. It may be very "safe". Then again, given GRRM's progress, it could mean you're going to read it in, like, ten years... But it isn't as if there weren't other books to read meanwhile.

[Mithalwen]

I suppose I should reread it...since I was under pressure and pass my copy on towhichever of my cousins hadn't got first dibs on their family copy. But I felt that she introduced characters and didn't really use them and then the denouement despite the many pages was rushed and unclear. I think her main concern was getting pieces in place for the culmination of the series and so it was relatively weak and least able to stand on its own merits independent of the main story arc. But with millions of people having waited years and Rowling richer than the Queen who would actually tell her to rework it? I did start rereading the series and rattled through the first four quickly but the bulk of phoenix and the negative memory put me off. Anyway more than somewhatboff topic.

[Zigûr]

I'm fairly sure I read somewhere that JK Rowling herself considers The Order of the Phoenix to be too long.

Last time I re-read it (2010 I think) I thought so too.

I think I might have observed in another thread that, in contrast to modern series' like A Song of Ice and Fire, Professor Tolkien's work tends to leave the back-story to supplementary material, which is certainly where Sauron, for instance, gets much of his characterisation.

I don't think one approach is necessarily better than the other. Professor Tolkien's makes for a more focused narrative, I might argue.

I read an article recently that was compared science-fiction and fantasy to what the article-writer called "geekery", ie spec-fic writing that's more concerned about constant world-building, exploring how characters might behave in different situations within that world and generally self-indulgence of content at the expense of form and function, I suppose. It's sort of like the difference between asking "What does The Lord of the Rings argue about the human desire for permanence?" and asking "Would an Elf turn invisible if it wore one of the Nine or Seven?" "Who would win if Aragorn fought Eorl the Young?" etc.

Professor Tolkien didn't mind a bit of the latter himself I think, his letters and other writings are full of speculation on how things might have gone in Middle-earth as if it was a real, living place (as it more or less was to him) "What if Gandalf with the Ring fought Sauron without it?" "What would have happened if the War of the Ring was more like World War Two?" But he wisely kept those things speculative and didn't make them part of the plot. When they do appear, they serve to embellish the sense of realism without dominating the narrative.

I'm not saying that George RR Martin does these things, mind you, what I read of his work was certainly above that. I do believe, however, that it's one of the ways in which the logorrhea of authors can manifest.

The films are rife with this sort of thing incidentally, in deleted scenes and elsewhere. "What if Aragorn fought Sauron at the Black Gate?" "What if Thorin fought Azog?" "What if Radagast fought the Lord of the Nazgûl?"

[Lotrelf]

As someone said on Tolkien's forum you're not going to get "yes," and I agree with him/her. I haven't read the books, but I myself Cannot see GOT books better than LotR. Tolkien was a perfectionist and his experience in life also affected his work greatly. I can't say much right now, but I do not think Song of Ice and Fire is better than our LotR.

[Luinëaglariel]

They (LotR and ASOFAI) are good stories. They are invented histories. They have fascinating characters, plots, and places that you get caught up in and have strong reactions to. They are epic in scope. They are both well written, and . . . this is where it just starts to diverge. ALL of LotR is well written--even brilliantly and "geniusly" (gosh, he might really take me to task for making up that word, or, he may like it--?? ;o)). ASOIAF is well written in parts, but you can easily detect a formula--especially if you burn through the books as I did last summer. Introduce a character, set a situation, sex/degradation, butchery/bloodshed, introduce/revisit a character, set a situation, sex/degradation, etc. Martin piques the prurient; Tolkien piques the soul. Martin gets carried away and overwrites ("overwroughts"?) certain scenes--especially the sex scenes; Tolkien--well he just doesn't do those things.

ASOIAF is a bodice-ripper, epic and captivating, yes. But compared to LotR, Silmarillion, Hobbit, etc., they are romance novels. I would never go to Martin with life & death questions or for inspiration. I would not re-read them every 2-3 years.

;o) Dininziliel (I think my username is different, but my "real" Barrowdowns name is Dininziliel!

[cellurdur]

No it is significantly inferior in terms of character development, realism, world building and even pacing.

ASOIAF is good entertainment, but lacks the realism, the depth and philosophy behind Tolkien's world. The characters in Tolkien's world are very real. In ASOIAF you constantly have suspend you sense of belief and ignore the cheap tactics the author uses to make you like a character.