From: Tim.ONeill@english.utas.edu.au (Tim O'Neill)
Subject: Re: Tolkien, Eddings, Donaldson
Organization: University of Tasmania (Australia)
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 05:44:05 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.215044.416@cis.ohio-state.edu>, cantor@iguana.cis.ohio-state.edu (scott eric cantor) writes:

> 	Tolkien was my first exposure to fantasy, (big surprise), and I was
> impressed until I read just about anybody else I've ever read.  Yes his world
> was big and detailed, but I'd settle for interesting any day.  Maybe it is
> heresy, but I'm no literary expert, and I honestly couldn't care less what
> is "supposed" to be deep and meaningful and what is supposed to be shallow
> trash.
> 
> 	I much prefer Eddings (my favorite), as well as Donaldson (whose
> Covenant books strike me as much more impressive than Tolkien) or Kurtz or
> even a few others.

Well, I'm probably going to get flamed to cinders for saying this in this
newsgroup, but what the heck

Tolkien was my first exposure to fantasy fiction also, and since I read
LOTR at a young and impressionable age I thought it was the greatest book
in the world. Many years and a couple of degrees in literature later I
haven't read any fantasy for many years. This is because about ten years
ago a friend of mine loaned me the Belgariad series and asked
me to read them and tell him what I thought. By that stage I wasn't reading
much fantasy at all, as I was getting into medieval literature (ie the REAL
stuff:-)) but I took them home and read them.

When I had finished, I decided that I wasn't going to bother with fantasy
ever again. I'm very sorry Eddings-fans, but this stuff was the most 
puerile, pre-packaged, ill-concieved, poorly written, meandering and
completely unconvincing collection of rushed, hack-writing I have ever
had the displeasure of reading.
Someone mentioned Eddings' characterisation earlier in this thread. I'm
sorry? What characterisation? I remember there was a thief-character, who
came from a country in the north where *everyone* was a thief character.
Good lord! How very believable! And it was the same for all the other
characters, they were all cliches who represented nations of carbon-copy
cliches. There was even the plucky-but-slightly-bewildered-hero-who-is-
destined-for-great-things who is, of course, guided by the wise-old-wizard-
who-will-show-him-his-true-destiny. And who else do we have? The Strong-
fighter-who-is-very-tough-and-brave and of course the prophecy-of-the-king-
who-shall-come-again. The obscene thing is that Mr D. Eddings made a f-cking
mint out of this literary gruel!

I no longer think Tolkien is the greatest writer in the world (though he was
an influential scholar of Old English poetry), but old JRRT had more knowledge
of history, folklore, mythology, language and the way ancient stories worked
than Mr Eddings could ever dream of, and boy, does it show. Donaldson is also
a hack, but he's worse than Eddings in that he's a pretentious hack. It's
bad enough that he writes with a thesaurus next to him so that he can use
obscure-sounding archaic words, but unfortunately he didn't use a
dictionary as well, so his mis-use of those words is often very amusing.

And before you write me off as an intellectual snob, there is some fantasy
which I *do* like. Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea books, while aimed at a
juvenile market, are more mature, carefully crafted, quietly but competently
written and psychologically substantiated than anything else which weighs d
down the groaning shelves of fantasy fiction. The difference between Le Guin
and Tolkien and the other hacks is that the former were drawing on backgrounds
of great richness and actuality ( anthopology  and medieval literature 
respectively) while the latter were cashing in on a cliche-ridden but lucrative
corner of the popular market. 
Flame away!
Tim O'Neill