Fantasy epics rated on how much they rip off Tolkien

[jack]

There are several supposedly high fantasy epics series that I remembered as vaguely Tolkien-esque, but always used to get muddled and forever put off reading because I

couldn't remember which ones were supposed to be any good. Now I've a fair idea, and will now rate them on how much they rip off Tolkien.

In no particular order:

(1) George Martin: "Song of Ice and Fire: Game of Thrones" 3/10. I recently read the first two of these after really loving his Stories/Novels Armageddon Rag, Aces Wild, and Hedge Knight. (He also wrote Windhaven and the Havilan Tuff series.) I thought they were really good, and like Tolkien only in being (a) good (b) epic world changing events (c) the list of twenty previous kings being relevant to the country (d) long (e) having "R R" as his middle initials. However, it is (α) not a quest novel (β) doesn't have an implacable opaque Force of Evil as the antagonist (γ) has actual characters who make decisions based on actual emotions.

(2) David Eddings. "Belgariad: Pawn of Prophecy" 7/10. I've not read these, so I'm kind of guessing at the score. However, I have the impression (which may or may not be correct) that they're coming-of-age quest narratives which are endlessly recycled into each book, and a good introduction to fantasy, but not worth it if you've read a lot of fantasy before.

(3) Terry Brooks. "Sword of Shannara". 8/10. Elves. Magic swords. Despoiled home village of protagonist. Blah-de-blah-de-blah. I've not read it, but at least one person when I said "You know, that book that's ACTUALLY a Tolkien rip-off" said, "oh, you mean Brooks?"

(4) Raymond E. Feist. "Magician". 10/10. Dude, this is only saved from scoring 11 because you very sensibly, after ripping off half of it from Tolkien, ripped the other half off the less-well-known The empire of the petal throne. (And seriously, what exactly is NOT less well known than Tolkien? Harry Potter?) I thought the other half was quite original, until I discovered, on wikipedia, it was also ripped off. That doesn't mean the book is bad, some friends definitely enjoyed it (and I still have a mild curiousity to know what happened in-story to cause these universes to bud). But seriously, if you name your ripped off elvish races in Sindarin that is not subtle.

(5) David Gemmel. ?/10. Don't know anything but the name.

(6) Robert Jordan. (2/10) Endless endless endless endless series with more and more and more and more and more characters who whine and whine and whine about gender relations. About half is quite good. The first bit is a Tolkien-rip off, but quite well done, and most of the rest's flaws are not that.

(7) Stephen R. Donaldson. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. (0/10) As far as I can tell, these don't have anything to do with Tolkien at all, they're just not any good. Based on the first thirty pages of the first one, I will over-generalise the experience into "ten books of Thomas Covenant whining about having leprosy, or not having leprosy, or no-one liking him". I can be depressed on my own, thanks. I didn't find reading this added measurably to the experience. The other duology Mordant's Need has some interesting ideas, but suffers similarly from whining. His short stories are very good, you should read those. They are a bit grim read back-to-back, but many are very good individually.

And now, I'll include a very brief reminder for a variety of other fantasy series which mostly don't rip off Tolkien appreciably more than any other member of the fantasy genre, but at one time or another I had trouble remembering which they were. (This is not a very hard criterion, and excludes many notably good and bad books. Eg. whether you like Asimov or not, most people know he's "the one with the prolific 60s sci-fi" or "the one with the robots and pschohistory" without me telling you.)

(1) Mercedes Lackey. The one with the telepathic horse familiars.
(2) Anne Rice. Interview with a vampire. The original (and probably best) urban-vampires-and-sex novel. (Good.)
(3) Laurell K. Hamilton. Anita Blake novels. The second-best vampires-and-sex novels I've read.
(4) Anne Rice, book #2 onwards, Laurell K Hamilton book 8 onwards, everything else in the genre. I've not yet found any of this that's readable.
(5) Anne McCaffrey. Telepathic dragon familiars. (Good, at least to start with.)
(6) Jacqueline Carey. Kushiel's Noun-phrase. Politics and bondage. (Good.)
(6a) Jacqueline Carey. Banewreaker: the Sundering. No no no no.
(7) Robin Hobb. Assassin's apprentice. Thick-headed but realistic and lovable protagonist in non-quest coming-of-age. Good.
(8) Robin Hobb. Liveship traders. So-so.
(9) Robin Hobb. The one with the tree spirits. Bad. Forget they exist.
(10) Naomi Novik. Temeraire. Hornblower with Dragons.
(11) Jo Walton. Tooth and Claw. Anthony Trollope with dragons instead of people. Good.
(12) Jo Walton. Farthing. This shouldn't be on the list as it's quite distinctive, except that having mentioned Tooth and Claw, I didn't want to leave this one out. Read it instantly.
(13) Guy Gavriel Kay. The one with the Byzantine Empire (I think. Generally recommended, but I've not read any yet.)
(14) Piers Anthony. Panties.
(15) Tanith Lee. Blood and sex.
(16) Robert Asprin. "Myth-Inc". Comic fantasy. The first one is good. The rest try too hard on the comedy and not enough on anything else.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I was expecting to see you review Tolkien in the body, giving him zero. Disappointed now.

[jack]

As opposed to 10? Yeah, that would be good.

[andrewducker]

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant pretty much act as commentary on Tolkein, so you can happily whack them in at 10/10. I've read all 6 multiple times, and I plan to re-read them when the final series is complete before starting in on that.

Also - you've left out Pratchett.

[(Anonymous)]

Muhc though I like Song of Ice and Fire, which is a lot, I think in some ways it is more of a commentary on/reaction to Tolkien than you say. There every much is an implacable inhuman enemy, north of the Wall; in some ways thwey are an essay in what if instead of having the Watchful peace, what you have outside the Gates of Mordor is the Wars of the Roses.

[rysmiel]

that was me, not logged in.

[simont]

As I vaguely mumbled last night: the Belgariad rips off chunks of Tolkien's plot (wandering scion of line of long-lost kings of a nation that's now ruled by interim steward types, rogue second-level god as big baddie, top sorcerer casts an enemy down into the earth and then comes back at least metaphorically glowing white, etc) but not his setting (no elves, dwarves, orcs etc). Whereas Feist rips off the setting very obviously, but the plot is not really all that similar.

I am surprised that the Tsurani are ripped off from Empire of the Petal Throne, but not because I previously thought they were original – I had mentally pegged them as generic-fictionalised-feudal-Japan with the serial numbers filed off and some magic added. In particular, some parts of Daughter of the Empire put me very much in mind of Shogun, even down to similarities of names.

And just for completeness, the other thing I've been mentioning to people recently: the geography of Feist's continent Novindus (which appears in the later books, The King's Buccaneer and the following Serpentwar series) has some suspicious similarities to the geography in Zelazny's Lord of Light: a mountain range called the Ratn'gary mountains (Zelazny has them as the Ratnagaris) and five cities called Maharta, Lanada, Khaipur, Kilbar and Hamsa strung out along a river (Zelazny has the same cities appearing on a river in the same order, except for trivial spelling differences: Mahartha and Lananda). I presume that somebody pilfered the geography when dreaming up the world for their roleplaying campaigns, and then it got shovelled wholesale into novels without anyone stopping to check for things like that...

[fhtagn.livejournal.com]

This is actually the case. Feist has freely admitted that the books are novelisations of his D&D campaign and, as such, steal freely from everything he was reading at the time.

[naath]

GGK has an Earth that isn't-quite-ours with a lot of different places that are not-quite our places. He does Byzantium (Justinian, with a different name), Spain, Wales (and Jomsborg! you must read this book!) and probably some other places.

[simont]

Also France (A Song for Arbonne) and Italy (Tigana), although those two aren't set in the same not-quite-Earth as the ones you mention.

But he can't be exempted entirely: he also wrote The Fionavar Tapestry, which I'm afraid does have a certain Tolkienosity about it, along with pillaging at least one other well-known canon...

[rysmiel]

Yes, but needing to get that out of one's system after having spent the last n years working with Christopher Tolkien on the many volumes of notes left by JRRT is I think understandable.

[simont]

Sure. And in fact I like the Fionavar Tapestry. I'm just sayin', if you're going to list fantasy authors by how much they've ripped off Tolkien, you can't file GGK under "never"; you have to file him under "once, under extreme provocation".

[sunflowerinrain]

Excellent reviews, pithy and amusing and to the point! Where I've read the books, they chime well with my opinions; they also encourage me to read some I haven't yet sampled.

"Piers Anthony. Panties." Laughed out loud.