Terry Needs Your Votes.

[Straw Walker]

I've just added my vote - just the one!
Current top 3.
T.P. 37% 1446 votes
J.R.T 23% 898 votes
J.K.R 9% 350 votes

And re: Mz Rowling, I enjoyed the first, found the second tediously similar in plot so haven't bothered with any more. I do agree however, that anything that starts children reading is great.

[cols]

Terry 41% 1741 votes
Tolkien 22% 943 votes

[Batty]

I've voted. The list now stands at:

Who is (or will be) the greatest fantasy author of all time? (2 selections allowed)

Terry Pratchett (43%, 1,862 Votes)
JRR Tolkien (22%, 951 Votes)
Stephen Donaldson (9%, 401 Votes)
JK Rowling (9%, 385 Votes)
George RR Martin (6%, 283 Votes)
CS Lewis (6%, 266 Votes)
Robert Jordan (5%, 207 Votes)
David Gemmell (4%, 159 Votes)
Robin Hobb (3%, 136 Votes)
Philip Pullman (2%, 108 Votes)
Steven Erikson (2%, 97 Votes)
Ursula Le Guin (2%, 73 Votes)
Guy Gavriel Kay (1%, 64 Votes)
Total Votes: 4,368

[Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit]

Terry Pratchett... Number One with 48% with 3273 votes!!!!!

[feanor]

Ayup All...

I see Pterry STILL at no.1 at 48%, but is it from 'just' a 'Modern' perspective of being (slightly) less cerebral and more populist?

I think Tolkien was actually aiming for an epic tale that was MEANT to be read in his 'Elvish' language, highlighting its structure rather than english, as he was a language professor after all. Tolkien merely opened the door earlier than his religiously- inspired C S Lewis... trouble is, Cinema chops off the bits that don't drive the plot, and seems to rarely inspire people to read the books properly.

[Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit]

Tolkien opened the door for fantasy to be epic. I have to admit tho, that I really didn't like his other works, just The Hobbit and the trilogy. The rest was not as captivating. His trilogy helped me through some difficult times when I was a teenager locked away in a Christian School in the Dominican Republic.

Terry, however has entranced me and keeps me bouyed up in a way that is unmatched.

[Jan Van Quirm]

Don't ever try and read the 'other' Middle Earth books or only in small doses - they're not stories, they're reference material for the most part. It's like trying to read the Bible as an action thriller - it ain't gonna work

I disagree about the languages (of which Sindarin is but one, though the most finished) driving the Trilogy and the Hobbit - and even in the Silmarillion and History of Middle Earth. Languages were Tolkien's passion as well as his professional bread and butter and I think he worked on those for his own amusement which is why all the languages are incomplete and why he wrote the whole lot in English anyway, else they'd never have been read so widely would they? Rather a waste of effort otherwise.

Sindarin and Quenya - the main Elven languages are fairly well constructed and more than enough to write some of the songs and verse and to put into naming stuff, but Tolkien would never have seriously set out to publish any of the main books wholly in those 'created' languages - not with a wife (and 6 kids was it?) to support. What he was aiming for was a mythology that took aspects of existing legends and cultural aspects then rewove into a cohesive framework that read like history almost - and largely he achieved that. It's interesting looking at which bits of legend crop up in Middle Earth - Atlantean/Lyonesse themes are pretty obvious with him drowning not one but two countries, but some original stuff too and no silly hide and seek in wardrobes or falling down rabbit holes - the place stands on its own as a proper world.

As for Pterry - well so does his Discworld stand on its own (on top of Great-A'tuin and the Ellies) and although he's a commercial writer he's also an artist in that he's gone and 'invented' somewhere that 'works' properly and has powerfully drawn and plausible folk in there - and Ankh Morpork just rocks. It is modern yes, but so was Middle Earth once

[feanor]

Ayup Jan...

Having listened to Rayner Unwin speaking about pubishing the Hobbit, I actually realise that i was wrong...
With the Hobbit doing so well, being the 'Precursor', Tolkien seems to have decided to 'fill in' the back story to the tale, which was, of course, LOTR...

From Christopher Tolkiens arrangements of his fathers papers into 'The Book of Lost Tales' and their Ilk, he then used stand-alone stories like the 'Narn i hin Hurin' and the like to flesh out the rest of Middle Earth. resulting in The Silmarillion, to the end of the Third age.

Whether anyone would be brave enough to continue with tales concerning Eldarion, Aragorns son, and Arwen, is another matter. Trouble is, 'The Adventures of Young Eldarion' sounds like a bad TV Miniseries... and i can't remember if we have the obligatory 'Big Battle' at the end of all days either...

Pterry I guess is well read in Mythology and the like too. After all, who would think of basing a series of implausible ( ) stories on the back of a (probable) Indian or polynesian Legend...

[Jan Van Quirm]

Feanor!. He was quite a guy the Prof - certainly the sort of chap you could have a quiet laugh with down the pub... (unlike CS Lewis who seems to have a tad hyperactiuve and intense )

Just so we don't confuse the uniniated though (as they will soon be here to tease and make merry) better state for clarity that 'Narn i hin Hurin' is The Children of Hurin which was the last of the 'reconstructions' to be published. Not everyone's cup of tea as light bedtime reading but it is rather Arthurian/Robin Hood in nature and so lots of gory, if wordy,violence
There's another one not long out but not on Middle Earth re-telling the tale of Sigurd and Gudrun - which I'm told is pretty good...

Better shut up now!

[feanor]

Ayup Jan...

I don't see why...

Maybe eventually we'll get our own unofficial corner here where we can chat to our hearts content !

I think it all stems from where you come from regarding 'Elves'. are they the 'Flower Fairies' of the nineteen thirties, or the 'Faerie' who are quite brutal, and are the stuff of Irish Legend... I think Tolkien has his own take. and anyways, at the time of LOTR they're a shadow of what they were. And on the Disc they're the cold haughty Antithesis of how they're seen usually in Fantastical writing ...

But back to the Lighter side as you said...

[Jan Van Quirm]

Tolkien breaks out all over in here as it is Feanor! And it's not always me who does the breaking

We could have a thread in the non-Discworld forum but, as I have a whole Tolkien forum site elsewhere, I think it's bit greedy of me to create one just for Tolkien on here - although Anne McCaffrey and some other authors do have their own threads in there - not that I'm suggesting anyone does make a Tolkien thread *whistles*

[feanor]

Ayup Jan...

He rather does, doesn't he? but no, i'll keep him in his box as much as i can !

[Who's Wee Dug]

Jan, I was in Waterstones today and thought I spied a new one by JRR,''Tales from the Perilous Realm'' but it's a collection and I have or have read mostly everything in it apart form the leaf one,nice artwork on the cover though by Alan Lee.

[Jan Van Quirm]

Thanks WWD Like I said above - aside from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and a couple of books published in Tolk's lifetime the other books, of which the Silmarillion's the most famous, are all regurgitated and reassembled notes - very good ones mind you - that Christopher Tolkien compiled for his father to fill in the background of the LotR - the Children of Hurin and Tales from the Perilous Realms are the latest of those and they're basically rehashed into a slightly more presentable format that just about make it into a literary 'read' - novels they are not!

Certainly not at £60 a go for the de luxe versions even if they do come with drool-making Alan Lee illustrations

So I always wait for the paperback unless I'm really mad at my housemate I treated myself to the CoH Xmas before last and still haven't read it... looked at it a lot - it's a work of art but I've still not made it past Turin as a lad - as an action hero/rebel/warrior of the Conan variety he sucketh mightily and I'd rather watch American Football to be very honest, although as an insomnia cure it does a great job

[Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit]

Having discovered that I packed most of my very important... as in ANY T.P. book, in my moving experience and *Horrors* cleaning. I am ordering them from online booksellers so I can reread them and present the extra copies to my baby sister and her betrothed.

I found the dedication in Sourcery, printed in 1989 about the Birth of the Luggage.

"Many years ago I saw, in Bath, a very large American lady towing a huge tartan suitcase very fast on little rattly wheels which caught in the pavement cracks and generally gave it a life of its own. At that moment, the Luggage was born. Many thanks to that lady and everyone else in places like Power Cable, Neb., who don't get nearly enough encouragement."

I was 19 when she was born and got the privilege of driving Mom, (and her) to the hospital, letting Nurses know in no uncertain terms that after 5 children my mother DID damn well know when she was in labor, AND got to tell the guards at the Belvidere Chrysler assembly plant that they had Better find my Step-Da (Chop Chop!) or there would be Hell to pay. All in all twas in interesting day.

P.S. Baby Sis is a Fair Skinned, Red haired, Almost completely Irish Vixen with Blue eyes and we have to frequently dip her in complete sunblock kept in a 55 gallon drum. She has a temper to match.. LOL