Post #2814944

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• @mhd@tilde.zone 2026-04-04 14:41

  @randomwizard@social.vivaldi.net I haven't read that, but a quite a few of the books on that list. ;) And to be fair, as much as there were quite a few ones that hewed a bit close to Tolkiens example, there's also the trend of doing this a bit too much. I mean, Tolkien himself took a lot from previous myths. The ring from the Völsunga saga served as source for both the One Ring and the Arkenstone (plus some slices from the Forbidden Fruit, of course). If I remember correctly, that saga also had plenty of dwarves, a dragon and a re-forged sword… Between Norse myth and the Grail as the Mother of All Quests, superficially we could also go with a huge Wagnerian influence–and I'm sure Tolkien himself would be the first to get angry about that. Re-telling stories in fantasy is okay, I think, as long as you add something good to your re-telling. I'd much rather see a good take on "EDO fantasy with a quest" than a mere mechanical innovation. Which, I think, you see a lot now, after every author played GURPS and/or D&D and thus wants to show us their world-building and magic system. The equivalent of military sci-fi… Now, did the (original) DL novels add something to the story? I'm not that sure. The Draconians are superficially more colorful (literally), work pretty much the same as the orcs/uruk-hai/half-orcs in the plot. I'd consider gully dwarves a net negative. I think the different characters are a bit less myth-based, as the writing style is more modern and it's coming from a friggin' RPG party. Then again, that's usually a part where many quasi-Tolkiens score their points. For me, if it didn't have the bonus of being tied to a RPG ("Look, he's casting feather fall!"), I'd rank it a lot lower. (But still better than the second trilogy, which is basically "High level D&D sucks" in novel form.

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