J.R.R. Tolkien

 

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       Tolkein is best known for his stories set in Middle Earth, in particular The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Both have achieved incredible levels of acclaim and you will be hardpressed to find a Top 100 Novel list without LOTR on it. I personally adore his books and rank LOTR in my top 5 books of all time. But is Tolkein really the 5th bst author of all time.

       Make no mistake, he's brilliant but The Hobbit is overrated due to it being a prequel to LOTR and LOTR could do with some savage editing. I'm thinking of a large portion of the first part of The Fellowship of the Ring could be cut, as could the last part of The Return of the King. Sometimes the narrative gets bogged down with endless walk through forest, fields, etc.

       But getting past this, Tolkein has created a wonderfully vivid world, packed full of memorable characters and incredible battle scenes. Middle Earth will suck you in, with its own history and mythology. Certainly the greatest fantasy novel of all time. But some authors are better than Tolkein (Orwell, Dumas, Joyce and more)..

Review posted by: Ryan

       Tolkien is undisputably one of the finest fantasy writers of all time. many authors have followed his footsteps and borrowed from his works. Example is JK Rowling. Many of the themes in Harry Potter correspond with Lord Of The Rings. Its simple and easy to understand the many similarities. For example in both the stories a boy is entrusted with the onus of destroying the evil and both of them have mentors who are old, wise and are wizards. Frodo and Harry are both left with scars as an aftermath of the destruction of evil. another interesting thing is that they are both orphans. Another interesting thing in Harry Potter is that there are dementors who prey on human weakness and bring despair that is true with ringwraiths in LOTR too. There are many more similarities but one can't tell whether they are by design or just coincidence. However since LOTR was written decades before HP was, Tolkien is undoubtably the best fantasy author of all time. And Rowling is a wonderful author in her own right for she too has created a beautiful world for Harry.

Review posted by: Ryan

       You've all seen the movies.  Now its time to take the next step and read the books.  Tolkien truely had an imagination beyond any other.  Everyone knows about The Lord of the Rings, but few know about the huge collection of literature created by Tolkien in support of those books.  There is an entire world with a seperate history, religion, mythology, and even language that were all created by Tolkien.

       If you are a fan of the more commercial books I highly recommend that you delve deeper into the mind of Tolkien.  You won't be dissappointed..

Review posted by: Talky

 

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