[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

One thing I love about Erikson is that he went to the effort to create his own races for his books. Personally, if I read one more fantasy book with a gruff but loveable axe wielding dwarf, or an aloof elven archer, I might vomit. It seems to me that if an author has to recycle these tired stereotypes, and doesn't have the imagination to come up with their own races, they probably shouldn't be writing. Tolkein was the Godfather of fantasy, but I think it's time to move on. When I see these races pop up, I put the book down. It's lazy and automatically moves a fantasy novel into the young adult category, for me anyways.

[Illuyankas]

There was a thread in TBH forum where some posters "pointed out that the Andii are Erikson's elves!". I wish these people would understand that 'shares a few similarities' =/= 'new version of stereotype'. They were even debating who his dwarves were :eek:

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Yeah, there's a difference between inspired/gave a basis for and blatently ripped of. Of course there are similarities between Andii and elves, but they are not elves. That's good enough for me.

[Aneirin]

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Brilliant, and more in-depth than Tolkien or most every other author I've read.

Brilliant? Sure. More in-depth than Tolkien? Hardly! We're all fans of Erikson here, no need to go exaggerating his virtues.

As for the Andii/Elves they're obviously different, and enough so that comparison is perhaps unfair. But in some respects they do share a similar identity in terms of their melancholy/sadness, and in the sense (to my mind) that they are not long to remain in this world.

[Werthead]

This is a fairly common development now, though. Feist had elves and dwarves but seemed vaguely embarrassed about it and has barely used them since his first novel. George RR Martin, Robert Jordan, Scott Bakker, Scott Lynch and even David Eddings have also disdained their use.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Martin has the "forest people" and Bakker has the "No-Men". Although they don't get major screen time (in Martin's case none at all, being largely extinct) I kind of think of them both as elves.

[Brys]

I don't particularly like the Tolkienesque/D&D races but I don't mind authors coming up with their own unique races that are influenced by the more traditional ones. Erikson comes up with his own races, but they're still quite clearly influenced by some traditional fantasy (though fortunately not limited to Tolkien). The same is true with Bakker and Martin. And sometimes authors take a very interesting twist on a traditional race - eg Michael Swanwick on dragons, M John Harrison on dwarves, Matthew Stover and Swanwick (again) on elves. Which is fine - the problem is the lack of imagination these races represent (and the inherent racism behind them), so I have no problem with authors doing something new with them.
The Tiste Andii share much more with Moorcock's Melniboneans than with Tolkien's elves. I wouldn't go as far as saying Erikson's more in depth than Tolkien, but he does have a much larger scope. I doubt that any author in the near future will be more in depth than Tolkien - he even went to the extent of creating languages! But then the depth of the world is hardly the only measure of quality in a fantasy book.

[Aptorian]

potsherds said:

I don't think I was intending to exxagerate his virtues. I simply don't like Tolkien, and am not aware that Tolkien built his world from the beginning of the universe (in the beginning, there was Mother Dark, who created the Andii, and then in her lonliness...etc.) up until the time he is writing about.

My major reason for reading Erikson is my great respect for history and anthropology, so finding an author who has bothered to create a world with both a history and a line of evolutions until present day races is really exciting to me. I guess its just a matter of opinion.

Have you read or just skimmed Silmarillion(sp.)? The creation of LOTRs earliest. It gives an extensive coverage of middleearths history and many times deliver so much detail that it gets down right boring.

[fan_83]

tolkien created a whole universe in stunning enough detail that was unseen since then.. he created 3-4 languages.. has 2 histroy book on the history of middle earth..

and which other otehr can say the same thing.. how many other has created languages that are gramamtically correct in a sense that cna be spoken aloud in conversations...

also tolkien was the first of the kind in using elves and dwarves on a mass fantasy setting... elves and dwarves did exsit before tolkien but its his work taht made fantasy famous

its fair to say that you dislike tolkien but plese give credit where credit is due...

no author since tolkien has created a world with such detail as tolkein did for middle earth

[Sir Thursday]

Each author will have their own strong points: Tolkien was one of, if not the, foremost in the field of linguistics at his time - so he made up those languages for fun. Erikson is an anthropologist, so his strength is accurately depicting the rise and fall of civilisations and cultures.

Tolkien put extreme effort into developing the history of his world, creating unrivalled depth. However, I think Erikson and Tolkien did things slightly differently. Erikson's strength in my opinion is not just the history, but moreover the mythology of his world. While Tolkien wrote about what happened, Erikson wrote about what the historians/mythologians of Wu say happened. Here I think is a major difference, and this is the reason why I appreciate Erikson's worldbuilding more than Tolkien's. In the end, the part of the Silmarillion that deals with the creation of Ea is just another story that Tolkien has told and for lack of an alternate interpretation is true. On the other hand, does anyone categorically know what actually happened when Wu was created? Erikson's efforts in this department are thus more realistic than Tolkien's, IMO.

Sir Thursday

[Mane of Chaos]

Potsherds, there's also this "unimportant" series called HOME which consists of 12 books that contain the other versions of Tolkien's stories about Arda. And Tolkien did create his world from the beginning.
I am a great fan of Erikson, I adore his books, but even he cannot compare to Tolkien in terms of worldbuilding. In fact, no fantasy author I have read so far can compare to Tolkien in this aspect. Tolkien's world is perhaps the most detailed fantasy world. I don't think that Wu can match up to Arda and if it can't, I seriously doubt that Martin's or any other author's world could. No offense meant, but although you may not like Tolkien, do not make such absurd statements about his works...
Oh, by the way, I don't consider too much detail a bad thing. I personally love the detail in Tolkien's works. It's just a matter of taste, it seems.

[polishgenius]

Dolorous Menhir said:

Martin has the "forest people" and Bakker has the "No-Men". Although they don't get major screen time (in Martin's case none at all, being largely extinct) I kind of think of them both as elves.

I don't think that's really fair. I don't recall the exact details of the non-men, but I don't think they were too similiar to Tolkiens Elves (though Bakkers general set-up is very Tolkien-esque even if the execution is vastly different), and from the descriptions of the forest people about the only thing I recall in common with Tolkienesque elves is that they live in woods. They seemed more like traditional elf/driad things to me if anything.

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The thing that needs to be remembered is that Tolkien didn't invent elves or dwarves.

In fact, no fantasy author I have read so far can compare to Tolkien in this aspect. Tolkien's world is perhaps the most detailed fantasy world. I don't think that Wu can match up to Arda and if it can't, I seriously doubt that Martin's or any other author's world could. No offense meant, but although you may not like Tolkien, do not make such absurd statements about his works...

The main thing is that Tolkien is the only one who's plans and things for his world have been published so it's difficult to make that statement. Certainly within the main series, I'd put up Martin, Erikson, Bakker, and Mieville alongside Tolkien, and whether their further worlds are as detailed we can't know unless they prove it.
Certainly I have no reason to doubt Erikson and Mieville's claims that there's far more than we've seen so far, given the way things have worked to date (Mieville in particular, I love the way he drops parts of his worlds history into the story. And it never seems like tagged-on things, for example for anyone who's read it, the Khepri exodus is a perfect example, telling of why there are so many of them in New Crobuzon, and why they're in the position they're in, etcs.

[stone monkey]

This appears to be a fairly vexed question but my tuppence worth is:

Tolkien's world building is unrivalled that's a given. Every question you could hope to ask (and a few you wouldn't ever think of) about his world is answered somewhere. There is no contest.

That said, one of the areas in which Erickson is most effective (IMO obv.)is the portrayal of the of the culture's religions, rituals etc. the stuff his differing species and cultures believe has the feel of the kinds of stuff people actually do believe. Obviously this is because of his anthropological training.

As for the person who best deploys non-human fantasy species...There's no contest, it's China Mieville.

[polishgenius]

That's an attitude I really dislike, about Tolkien. I'm a huge fan of Tolkien and that it's brilliant I can't deny, but refusing to accept that he has rivals in aspects is frustrating.
My main problem with his worldbuilding is that his attempt to archive each and every thing that goes on means that the spaces in between the words are somewhat sketchy. For example to me Gondor does not appear to be a fully fledged city, where things happen outside the story - like Ankh-Morpork or New Crobuzon, or even to a lesser extent something like King's Landing, or Buckkeep for example.

[Wry]

I have to agree that Tolkien fanaticism irritates me. Tolkien is considered the"father" of modern fantasy simply because he was the first writer to bring the genre into the mainstream (or as close to mainstream as we are now). Before him there literally was no fantasy section. Also for a whole generation he was the gateway author, the first fantasy writer most people read.

He was not, and is not, the best practitioner of his craft. yes he was big into world building, but remember that building took place over decades - and is still pretty weak in certain areas. As regards the nuts-and-bolts of writing he was not great at all, his characters are mostly one dimensional and stories are amazingly unsophisticated.

Any one who has read any of the better fantasy writers out there (erikson being one) should realise all this. Liking an auther does not mean being blind to their faults.

[Aneirin]

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For example to me Gondor does not appear to be a fully fledged city, where things happen outside the story - like Ankh-Morpork or New Crobuzon, or even to a lesser extent something like King's Landing, or Buckkeep for example.

I'm not sure that this serves as a counter-example to anything that anyone's been saying though. Certainly there are many fictional cities of which we are given more minutiae than Gondor, but very little of the story in LOTR actually took place there. Then too, he wasn't trying to give the reader any sense of what life in Gondor was like. His scope was much larger than that. A better comparison of Gondor would perhaps be Homer's Troy.

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The main thing is that Tolkien is the only one who's plans and things for his world have been published so it's difficult to make that statement. Certainly within the main series, I'd put up Martin, Erikson, Bakker, and Mieville alongside Tolkien, and whether their further worlds are as detailed we can't know unless they prove it.

The difference is that Tolkien created the world and the history almost for its own sake, and then chose parts of it to write about in more detail. That's not the same as having an idea for a story and then tacking on a background, however detailed and complex that background may turn out to be. Does one way make for better books than the other? That's not for me to say, as it depends on the criteria you judge by. But what Tolkien did makes for better world-building, better history, and better mythology, and is a large part of why he is unrivalled in that.

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That's an attitude I really dislike, about Tolkien. I'm a huge fan of Tolkien and that it's brilliant I can't deny, but refusing to accept that he has rivals in aspects is frustrating.

What irks me is something similar, when people who happen to prefer a given series over LOTR feel the need to assert that the author is as good as or better than Tolkien in every respect. You see it on forums for Erikson, Martin, Jordan... hell, I did a quick search and found this little gem on the Terry Goodkind boards "...the world Terry built rivals Tolkien's universe in it's sheer creativity and scope." Everybody seems to like comparing their favourite author to Tolkien, but the fact remains that nobody has created anything with the scope and historical integrity of Middle Earth. Nor is anyone likely to, and nor perhaps should they - the genre has moved on from that.

[Wry]

Aneirin said:

What irks me is something similar, when people who happen to prefer a given series over LOTR feel the need to assert that the author is as good as or better than Tolkien in every respect. You see it on forums for Erikson, Martin, Jordan... hell, I did a quick search and found this little gem on the Terry Goodkind boards "...the world Terry built rivals Tolkien's universe in it's sheer creativity and scope."

Actually, i really agree with that... what especially turns me off is when the little blurb or review on the back of he book always says "move over tolkien" or "second only to tolkien" etc.

[Arkmam]

Wry said:

As regards the nuts-and-bolts of writing he was not great at all, his characters are mostly one dimensional and stories are amazingly unsophisticated.

Very true. When it came to world building, Tolkien was incredibly good, but the rest... meh.

And on the actual topics, I hate dwarves and elves with a passion. We've seen it a hundred times before, it's not fun anymore.