What Next To Read . . .?

Now that the LOTR has been so thoroughly discussed (& will continue to do so), what other books are there out there from other authors which can genuinely offer similar stimulation for imagination & debate? This is a harder question to answer than most, as the LOTR is already widely regarded as the greatest piece of literature of all time. Why do not other books come close to it for class?

I would particularly like to hear of novel suggestions on intellectually demanding novels from respected authors.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I'd be careful (very, very careful) with the words "of all the time", but I take it that you had in mind only current (or more or less current) books from current authors. But I won't be underrating them as well, because although I'm not sure if the discussion can be of the same quality I believe there are lots and lots of people who don't mind discussing anything from Harry Potter through Narnia and Conan to the works of H.P. Lovecraft. I am sure LotR is number one among these and only time will show whether for example Harry Potter is going to fall into nothing, but generally all the six million volume fantasy sagas definitely provide us with far much larger universe than LotR, with for example great possibilities for fan fiction etc. So why are they not the number one? Basically, they often lack the other things that Tolkien can offer: the language, the "vividness" (or how to say that) of the world, the complexity of the characters, who knows what else? And also the way how it's all put together. Other books that have this may lack for example the complexity of the world in which the stories take place. And so on.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I'd be careful (very, very careful) with the words "of all the time", but I take it that you had in mind only current (or more or less current) books from current authors. But I won't be underrating them as well, because although I'm not sure if the discussion can be of the same quality I believe there are lots and lots of people who don't mind discussing anything from Harry Potter through Narnia and Conan to the works of H.P. Lovecraft. I am sure LotR is number one among these and only time will show whether for example Harry Potter is going to fall into nothing, but generally all the six million volume fantasy sagas definitely provide us with far much larger universe than LotR, with for example great possibilities for fan fiction etc. So why are they not the number one? Basically, they often lack the other things that Tolkien can offer: the language, the "vividness" (or how to say that) of the world, the complexity of the characters, who knows what else? And also the way how it's all put together. Other books that have this may lack for example the complexity of the world in which the stories take place. And so on.

I have tried Narnia novels many years ago, & I felt they were even lower in quality than the Hobbit (which is itself a good novel). As for Harry Potter, these books are aimed at the younger generation who grew up watching Rugrats & Teletubbies. Both of these are simply not of the same standard I am looking for in view of a book that may rival the LOTR in terms of literacy vigour.

What other books are out there that can include imaginative creatures like the Nazgul, the Balrog, Hobbits, Gandalf etc. but from another author's perspective? Personally, I liked the Lone Wolf adventures by Joe Dever, which had some excellent characters within Good & Evil.

[radagastly]

There is, of course, the thread over in Novices and Newcomers, called What other Fantasy books do YOU read?:

http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=1338

It has many, many pages of people's recommendations. I enjoyed Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber series, which has some fairly good characterization, but does not, alas, have quite the literary breadth of Middle Earth. That's my favorite lately. Some of the older fantasies, written before Tolkien's popularity, are less bound by the archetypes he created. The Worm Ouroboros by (I believe his name was) Ellison (not Harlan Ellison, but someone much earlier), and Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy. If I were you, I'd check out the thread I linked. There must be something there that catches your attention.

Originally Posted by radagastly

There is, of course, the thread over in Novices and Newcomers, called What other Fantasy books do YOU read?:

http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=1338

It has many, many pages of people's recommendations. I enjoyed Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber series, which has some fairly good characterization, but does not, alas, have quite the literary breadth of Middle Earth. That's my favorite lately. Some of the older fantasies, written before Tolkien's popularity, are less bound by the archetypes he created. The Worm Ouroboros by (I believe his name was) Ellison (not Harlan Ellison, but someone much earlier), and Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy. If I were you, I'd check out the thread I linked. There must be something there that catches your attention.

The thread you speak of, What other Fantasy books do YOU read, just talks about fantasy novels people like. It does not distinguish between those novels which can genuinely be likened to the LOTR in terms of characters, literacy, intellect etc. This thread demands these to a far higher order.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

In terms of "moderns" with a high degree of intellect and literacy, E.R. Eddison's (not Harlan Ellison's!) The Worm Ouroboros (1922) rates very highly, as does David Lindsay's Voyage to Arcturus (1925; a challenge to read, in places nearly as dense as Joyce). Also, although IIRC also unknown to Tolkien, Peake's Gormenghast (1939). William Morris was a profound influence on Tolkien, especially The Roots of the Mountains, The House of the Wolfings, and his version of Sigurd; he also serves to demonstrate how elegant Tolkien's archaizing style really is compared to Morris' labored Victorian tushery!

Brilliant but utterly un-Tolkienian is T.H. White's The Once and Future King (1954).

Then of course there is all the ancient material: especially Beowulf (personally I prefer Tinker to either Heaney or Clark Hall) and the Volsungasaga, as well as Snorri's Prose Edda.

Indispensable also is Malory: as a matter of personal taste I think Caxton's edition is an improvement on the Winchester MS text.

Post-Tolkien there isn't a whole lot. Ursula Leguin is a brilliant author, but her best stuff is scifi rather than fantasy. Gene Wolfe (who corresponded with Tolkien as a young man) is very good in a wierd, hallucinatory way; but his mytho-historical work like Soldier of Arete is to me better than his fantasy New Sun series.

Of contemporaries, George R. R. Martin is about the only one I have time for, and he's basically mind-candy: a sprawling soap-opera episode of Dallas or Dynasty, with bloodshed. (A separate case is Guy Kay, whose one foray into high fantasy, The Fionavar Tapestry, isn't all that good, but whose quasi-historical novels are very good indeed).

[Hammerhand]

Originally Posted by Mansun

I have tried Narnia novels many years ago, & I felt they were even lower in quality than the Hobbit (which is itself a good novel). As for Harry Potter, these books are aimed at the younger generation who grew up watching Rugrats & Teletubbies. Both of these are simply not of the same standard I am looking for in view of a book that may rival the LOTR in terms of literacy vigour.

What other books are out there that can include imaginative creatures like the Nazgul, the Balrog, Hobbits, Gandalf etc. but from another author's perspective? Personally, I liked the Lone Wolf adventures by Joe Dever, which had some excellent characters within Good & Evil.

I think you have a very narrow minded perspective on what fine literature is. It sounds to me like you want to read novels that are totally similar to the ones you are already comfortable with. Might i recommend broadening the horizons.

I'm fairly confident some people reading that post will think ill of you for comments such as 'these books are aimed at the younger generation who grew up watching Rugrats & Teletubbies' and 'I felt they were even lower in quality than the Hobbit'; both of which were unctuous, for want of a better word.

[Alfirin]

I'm afraid that personally I must disagree on both The Worm Oroborus and A Voyage to Arcturus as being good choices for the Tolkein buff. Neither is all that Tolkinesque except on the most fundamnetal level. In addtion I feel that both have signifcant proalbmes as works of thier own.

While I have heard people auomatically go for the worm trilogy as being an automatic for tolkein lovers (the paperback copy I had even went so far as saying that it was the only conteporary work that could be judges as equal to LOTR. However while it does indeed have a fairly good mideval romance type plot to it, it is completely obfuscated by the language used. Tolkein while himself a linguist wrote LOTR in a fairy modern in educated form of English so that an ordinary person is able to follow the plot with realive ease. In contrast Eddison writes in a very archaic pseudo-shakesperian form (lots of "spakes" and so on) as well as often reverting to medival spelling of words even when those spellings are not all that close to ones a modern person would recognize ("crocodile" become "cocadrill" for example) Add on his frequen use of ancient sounding metaphors and aphorisms and you wind up with a prose style which if you are not already fluent in achaic English becomes simply mind numbing and almost ipossible to get through. Oroborous might be tolerable if it was a movie or radio dramatization, but as a book it is just impossible. Likewise, Lindsay's Voyage is a bit incomprehensible if you are not well educated in modern philsophy and in particular have a deep understading of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein (at least I've been told that if you have and understanding of them Lindsay makes sense) otherwise Lindsay is very confusing and more than a little depressing (the supreme power in the universe is pain?)

As for what I would reccoment in the Tolkien Vein, you could do worse than Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time its not nearly as literate as Tolkein but it has a good fantasy epic storline and at 13 600+ page book and going will at least keep you busy

[Boromir88]

I would suggest some of George Orwell's books...Animal Farm and 1984 in particular. Even though he is not a 'modern writer,' he was around during Tolkien's day, his books are still a good read.

I also disagree with Rowling's Harry Potter as being 'too childish.' Rowling delved into many of the old myths that Tolkien loved doing. One can have just as many 'intellectual debate' about Rowling's books as they can about Tolkien. She mostly sticks to Roman and Greek myth, as well as French influence, but her knowledge in those areas is quite impressive. Particularly (like Tolkien) with her use of names, and the meanings of names...Albus Dumbledore, Sybil Trelawney, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Draco and Lucius Malfoy, Hermione Granger, Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick, Severus Snape, Voldemort, Nicolas Flamel, and the list goes on...all have interesting translations (or are historical figures) that fit with the personality of the character.

As an example, Severus Snape. Severus was the name of 2 Roman empires, and 'snape' means "to be hard upon" to "rebuke" or "snub." Hmm...I say that describes the potions master quite well. Of course, it doesn't just stop with the names either, there are places and creatures that all have mythological ties...Hippogriffs, Centaurs, Boggarts...etc

[radagastly]

Originally posted by Mansun:

The thread you speak of, What other Fantasy books do YOU read, just talks about fantasy novels people like. It does not distinguish between those novels which can genuinely be likened to the LOTR in terms of characters, literacy, intellect etc. This thread demands these to a far higher order.

And then you said this:

Personally, I liked the Lone Wolf adventures by Joe Dever, which had some excellent characters within Good & Evil.

I guess I'm not sure what you're asking for. You have eschewed a tested and (somewhat) respected novelist (Zelazny) in favor of a gaming manual? Maybe if you made more clear exactly what kind of literature you prefer. If you want a repeat of Tolkien, The Sword of Shannara did that two decades before the LOTR movies. Or you could try Spencers The Faerie Queene:
http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/fqintro.html
It's loaded with incredible imagery, but it is very allegorical, virtually a literary morality play. Maybe this is more your taste? I'd actually like to know. Are you after something more contemporary? Or more difficult? I'm up for both, but I'm a little confused where you want this thread to go.

Originally Posted by Hammerhand

I think you have a very narrow minded perspective on what fine literature is. It sounds to me like you want to read novels that are totally similar to the ones you are already comfortable with. Might i recommend broadening the horizons.

I'm fairly confident some people reading that post will think ill of you for comments such as 'these books are aimed at the younger generation who grew up watching Rugrats & Teletubbies' and 'I felt they were even lower in quality than the Hobbit'; both of which were unctuous, for want of a better word.

The point I am making is, there must be other great literature out there that can rival the LOTR in every sense of the word. Harry Potter hardly sounds like it.

Originally Posted by radagastly

Originally posted by Mansun:


I'd actually like to know. Are you after something more contemporary? Or more difficult? I'm up for both, but I'm a little confused where you want this thread to go.

I would want to concentrate on the intellect side of a fantasy novel here most of all, besides having great characters & ideas. The Lone Wolf books I mentioned were not novels, but they maintained a reasonable amount of intellect within them, whilst offering an excellent display of characters & ideas

[Boromir88]

Harry Potter hardly sounds like it.~Mansun

And as I said in my last post, I wouldn't be too quick to judge Harry Potter as being 'devoid of intellect' simply because the target audience is young adults. I know people much older than me who not only love Rowling's writings, but also learn a great deal about languages, history, mythology and much more.

I noted the meaning of 'Severus Snape,' but surely it doesn't end there. How about Voldemort? 'mort' from the french 'mourir' = death...'vol de' has several translations...either 'flight of,' 'wings of,' something along those lines. So Voldemort = 'flight/wings of death'

Or how about Argus Filch? Argus was a greek monster with 100s of eyes...hmm Filch seems to see everything that goes on in Hogwartz.

Basically, I'm saying, just because the target audience was 'young adult,' that in no way means the Harry Potter books have no 'intellect' quality. Rowling drew from many of the same myths as Tolkien, as well as using some different references in her own specialized area (French influence...which was her major and I believe she taught in Scotland).

Or perhaps you would enjoy Isaac Asimov...as Tolkien said in a footnote in Letter 294: I enjoy the S.F.of Isaac Asimov

[davem]

I'd forget looking for any fantasy novels that are as good as Tolkien's work - there aren't any.

If you're looking for something to move onto I'd suggest the Icelandic Sagas. The greatest is Njal's Saga, & that's probably the best place to start, but Egil's Saga or Grettir's Saga are also incredible works. If you liked CoH you'll definitely enjoy them. Be warned though, if you're not a fan of gallows humour:

One morning when Thorgeir was preparing to row out with two other men, one of whom was named Brand, Thorgeir was walking ahead with a leather skin on his back containing some drink. It was very dark, and as he passed the boat-house Thorfinn sprang out upon him and dealt him a blow with an axe between his shoulders. The axe went into something and made a squeaking noise. Thorfinn let go his axe, feeling quite sure that no bandages would be needed, and being very anxious to escape as fast as he could. He ran North, and reaching Arnes before the day had quite broken, said that he had killed Thorgeir and that Flosi must protect him....

(There follows a dispute over a beached whale)

Thorgeir Bottleback was the first to get on to the whale where Flosi's men were. Thorfinn, who was spoken of before, was cutting it up, standing near the head on the place where he had been carving. "I'm returning your axe!" said Thorgeir. Then he struck at Thorfinn's neck and cut off his head. (Grettir's Saga)

& graphic violence:

Then Thorolf became so furious that he cast his shield on his back, and, grasping his halberd with both hands, bounded forward dealing cut and thrust on either side. Men sprang away from him both ways, but he slew many. Thus he cleared the way forward to earl Hring's standard, and then nothing could stop him. He slew the man who bore the earl's standard, and cut down the standard-pole. After that he lunged with his halberd at the earl's breast, driving it right through mail-coat and body, so that it came out at the shoulders; and he lifted him up on the halberd over his head, and planted the butt-end in the ground. There on the weapon the earl breathed out his life in sight of all, both friends and foes. Then Thorolf drew his sword and dealt blows on either side, his men also charging. Many Britons and Scots fell, but some turned and fled. (Egil's Saga)

you may not get on with them...

[Mithalwen]

Given that you clearly mean fantasy and I don't feel such need to disagree that it is the greatest piece of literature of all time .... much as I love it .

There are many non-fantasy works that I love and revisit but on the Fantasy side I am afraid returning to Narnia was a crashing disappointment. I loved the books so much as a child and bought a boxed set of hardbacks on sale thinking I might give them to my godson if I could bear to part.

I read the first three and I couldn't believe I used to like them so ..I didn't even think I liked them enough to give them to GS. It was even slightly horrific. I will try to reread the silver chair which I liked best as a child but....

More positively, if you want an intelligent contemporary writer in the fantasy genre - what about Terry Pratchett? There is a lot of humour but he uses discworld to make some shrewd observations about our own. Like Rowling he is a devotee of the one book that would challenge LOTR as my desert island choice, Brewers' Phrase and Fable. If you don't own a copy put it on your christmas list!

It is the most delightful reference book and the source of many of JK's names. And on the subject of JK - while her level of creation is not of the same nature as Tolkien, and she is not a don but she is a graduate linguist and more of a classicist than most of her generation and younger. He interest and feel for language is evident and she shares Tolkien's annoyance concerning the wrong translation of names.

Also worth a mention is Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Triology- not easy but neither is Tolkien.

[Snowdog]

About the only fantasy series that caught my interest after Tolkien was Morecock's Elric series and Glen Cook's Black Company series, and I think its because they were different than Tolkien that caugt my interest. Couldn't get into G.R.R. Martin, Robert Jordan, or Terry Brooks.

[Alonna]

One of my other favorite fantasy authors besides Tolkien is Marion Zimmer Bradley, particularly The Mists of Avalon which is an amazing work, though it is extremely long. I've also found Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising series to be extremely well done. Like others have mentioned, T.H White's The Once and Future King is brilliant, even though it isn't exactly like Tolkien.

[Mithalwen]

Not exactly fantasy as such - and alas that I can read the only in translation, but for erudition and intellectual stimulation combined with imagination, I would recommend both Jostein Gaarder - who in additon to the very famous "Sophie's World" has written some wonderful books which are perhaps more approachable if like me you don't have the best grasp of philosophy. It is a good time of year to read "The Christmas Mystery" but "The Solitaire Mystery is great as well, and there is another one with an angel but I forget the name-"Through a glass darkly" maybe- and Umberto Eco. Eco with the caveat that his work is less suitable for younger readers however bright...