Howard or Tolkien, Which of them Had The Greatest Impact On Modern Fantasy ?

[BAYLOR]

Happily, Baylor, some authors who write excellent description don't worry about readers who find it tedious!

If you make a book tedious. No one will read it. All it will do is sit on the shelf and attract dust , bookworms and silverfish.

 

[Cathbad]

What these modern writers don't seem to understand is that Tediousness descriptions can turn off readers to their stories.

Or, done well, might greatly enhance the reader's experience!

 

[BAYLOR]

Or, done well, might greatly enhance the reader's experience!

If you bog down the reader , they will stop reading .

 

[Extollager]

If you make a book tedious. No one will read it. All it will do is sit on the shelf and attract dust , bookworms and silverfish.

I don't know who you are referring to -- an author whom "no one" reads because of the tediousness of his or her work.

 

[Extollager]

Or, done well, might greatly enhance the reader's experience!

I agree with Baylor to the extent that he is decrying "worldbuilding" for the sake of "worldbuilding" as done by writers deficient in imagination and literary ability -- although I don't know who he is thinking of, if anyone. I suspect there are a number of writers of fantasy series out there, who, if fantasy were not a market niche, might write other things, and who roll out the stuff from their wordprocessors. But abusus non tollit usum. The inept use of something doesn't make the thing itself inept, bad, etc.

 

[Cathbad]

If you bog down the reader , they will stop reading .

Your point is moot - you can 'bog down' a reader in a poorly written action scene. You may be instilling your personal opinion about descriptions?

 

[Cathbad]

Is the point to write a story totally void of any information/description of the world it occurs in?

If so, I don't care to read it.

 

[Randy M.]

Just a thought: I've seen a lot of readers on-line say Tolkien (as an example) is long-winded, particularly his descriptions of the world, which I found surprising at first. Many of them were younger than I am, and I think not attuned to how language was used even less than a hundred years ago or outside most genre fiction. In other cases I think it was because they read for the action sequences, for someone doing something, and so miss much of the point behind Tolkien, that this lovely, various landscape is slowly disappearing along with the beings who inhabit it and he was trying to convey the sadness of that loss. What I recall most from LOTR and which I think the films mostly captured, was the nearly overwhelming melancholy of these end times, of a treasured era fading away.

I don't read a lot of that kind of fantasy, but what I've read hasn't really captured that feel as successfully.

Randy M.

 

[Extollager]

Randy, yes. I admit, when I read remarks of people who say Tolkien is long-winded, it seems to me they are saying more about themselves (without meaning to) than they are saying about Tolkien. I'm likely to find myself wondering if they have grown up online and haven't really developed the ability to focus their minds and experience the power of the written word. If that's the case, they are like me with regard to some authors such as Milton. I find Paradise Lost a demanding read. But if there's a fault it lies more with me than with Milton. I am not such an egotist as to say, if I find Milton slow going, that the problem is primarily with him -- with Milton, who has deeply involved readers for centuries, some of those readers people who themselves (like Coleridge) are great authors and great readers. Again, teachers hear students say Shakespeare is :flowery." Well, he made fun of pseuds who indulge in bogus, flowery stuff -- but you're supposed to be amused at their expense. As for a lot of the other "flowery" material, no, it's not mere verbal frills, but is intended to convey exact meaning to our minds and appeal to our imaginations and mental ear.

I received a probably deserved put-down from Lin carter in the early 1970s. I saw his address in a fanzine and wrote to him there about one of his Ballantine anthologies, objecting to a poem therein. Carter replied that, if I was turned off by this impressive work of fantasy, maybe I'd like Agatha Christie better. That was a zinger, but maybe that's what the 16-year-old or 17-year-old me deserved. Or maybe Carter was wrong and the poem really was indeed an overripe piece of verbiage. We'd have to get down to cases. That's what I'd request of people who whine about Tolkien: show me. Show me a passage -- better, several passages -- that seem to you to be over-written.

 

[Bick]

...when I read remarks of people who say Tolkien is long-winded, it seems to me they are saying more about themselves (without meaning to) than they are saying about Tolkien. I'm likely to find myself wondering if they have grown up online and haven't really developed the ability to focus their minds and experience the power of the written word.

This. Absolutely.

 

[Vince W]

Randy, yes. I admit, when I read remarks of people who say Tolkien is long-winded, it seems to me they are saying more about themselves (without meaning to) than they are saying about Tolkien. I'm likely to find myself wondering if they have grown up online and haven't really developed the ability to focus their minds and experience the power of the written word.

Very well said. I've never felt Tolkien was all that longwinded. His descriptions felt important to the overall feel and atmosphere of the world. If he had eliminated these then his world would have felt less mythic.

I received a probably deserved put-down from Lin carter in the early 1970s. I saw his address in a fanzine and wrote to him there about one of his Ballantine anthologies, objecting to a poem therein. Carter replied that, if I was turned off by this impressive work of fantasy, maybe I'd like Agatha Christie better.

Ooooh, snap.

 

[Randy M.]

I'm likely to find myself wondering if they have grown up online and haven't really developed the ability to focus their minds and experience the power of the written word. If that's the case, they are like me with regard to some authors such as Milton. I find Paradise Lost a demanding read. But if there's a fault it lies more with me than with Milton.

I'm reminded that in the '80s, in a class on rhetoric, I conversed with another student who was majoring in journalism and he expressed distaste for Hemingway as too wordy. I was gobsmacked even though I understood that from a journalistic standpoint Hemingway's more poetic passages and use of repetition might be off-putting.

Times change and with them language changes. And then there's the individual's perspective on language use, and some readers will work toward a broader understanding, and some will be content with usage localized in time, and Wordsworth's The Prelude just goes on and on as though he never knew how to end it and I was thankful his Prelude didn't lead into a Chapter One.

(Well, that's not exactly where I was going when I started typing, but let it stand, let it stand ...)

Randy M.

 

[copper]

I do know some people who skip the poems and songs in Tolkien. Tolkien's poetry has always been among of my favorite bits of his writing, so I have trouble understanding the desire to skip it.
All I can think is people want action not the dwelling within the world of the story that songs and poetry bring in.

 

[BAYLOR]

One thing you don't see anymore is new Conan Pastiche novels.

 

[olive]

Conan the Barbarian is the story of one hero. He lives in a world with certain traditional characteristics where there is no room for development or change for the characters or the events. His power is the physical power and strength and it is only wielded in man, because that's the making and the unmaking of that world. He is the power itself. He doesn't change, he just gets old. I believe that's how Howard saw the world. It was that simple for him and the rest was just fuss. Conan could take everything by force if he wanted, but he never does. He is a hero in the most basic, ancient sense. He is also the basic het male and female fantasy. Which is perfectly fine. I loved him as a kid, a life time ago. I still do in a way. What's not to love. A big, strong, 'philosopher' barbarian with incredible strength, who will protect the world no matter what. He is the best barbarian ever created. As an adult I find the whole thing misandrist. Belit was my first online name, lol.

But Conan is also the ultimate servant. Everything is on him. It makes sense to think that he is a big impact from the point of 'the ultimate tank' we all need in the end, may be the basic reason a lot of us will always be annoyed by nosiy, arrogant mages, but these charateristics are too simplistic and universally inherent to the typology of those characters in a collective way. Hyborian Age can be changed and embellished in many different ways, Conan will be the same pillar of that world. And through history the barbarian characteristics are the same from Huns to Vikings.

The concept of power in The Lord of the Rings is far more abstract. It's not in some man. It's not about man at all. You can take Tolkien's concept of power, send it millions of light years away, in hands of an intelligent being, small or big, the result will be the same. The diversity of the races, the world building is not ornamental, you can't change it without changing the plot or the story. Characters dramatically change, develop and change the events and the world along with themselves and they pay incredible prices. It's an entire mythological system of its own. It's a rich and original world, doesn't matter how old the material itself is. You can make new The Lord of the Rings stories from The Lord of the Rings. Thanks to Gandalf's beard, nobody dares.

How do you expect the impacts of these two worlds to compete? Comparing Conan the Barbarian with The Lord of the Rings is not fair to the Barbarian. He is expected to fight an impossible battle, yet again, but outside of Hyboria, he can't win.

 

[Vince W]

One thing you don't see anymore is new Conan Pastiche novels.

There are or were supposed to be some new ones coming with the Marvel Conan series. I don't think the sales of the comic have been that great and maybe they decided against it. I know I was disappointed in them and stopped reading them after a couple of issues.

 

[KGeo777]

Conan = toxic masculinity.
Ironically he was probably considered by Marvel because he was set in ancient times so was deemed something of a caricature compared to other Marvel characters who had angst or science-enhanced powers. The old pulp illustrations of Conan was not a Frazetta muscle-bound type--I think he looked kind of skinny in some covers
I read What If Conan Walked The Earth Today? Very refreshing. Amusing when he goes into a modern art gallery and uses an abstract sculpture to clobber some thieves. That comic would not be acceptable publishing for Marvel now, especially the scene where he takes on some looters.

 

[Grimward]

Minor side bar.

The old pulp illustrations of Conan was not a Frazetta muscle-bound type--I think he looked kind of skinny in some covers.

The Barry Windsor Smith artwork in issues 1 thru 9 of the first Marvel Conan comic book volume (as opposed to Savage Tales, the Savage Sword of Conan pulp titles or the much-later volume 2 comic book series from Marvel) depict Conan closer to his teenager self, but even Windsor Smith started bulking him up with issue 10). Some of the best covers ever!

 

[KGeo777]

Minor side bar.



The Barry Windsor Smith artwork in issues 1 thru 9 of the first Marvel Conan comic book volume (as opposed to Savage Tales, the Savage Sword of Conan pulp titles or the much-later volume 2 comic book series from Marvel) depict Conan closer to his teenager self, but even Windsor Smith started bulking him up with issue 10). Some of the best covers ever!

I preferred Buscema art to his but BWS's version of Tower of the Elephant is much better. He drew the alien much more effectively--Buscema's was really static.

 

[BAYLOR]

I preferred Buscema art to his but BWS's version of Tower of the Elephant is much better. He drew the alien much more effectively--Buscema's was really static.

Ive seen comic adaptations of this one , not sure which artist. The story itself is easily one Howard's best stories.