Fantasy which sounds like Tolkien rip-offs

[Inanna]

I was never a fantasy literature person till I started Tolkien. The rest, as they say, is history (who are these "they"??). Leaving aside mainstream fiction, I am now a fantasy geek. As JRRT, sadly, does not write anymore, I have been pushed to find my fantasy fixes in various myriad places. Show me a book which has Elves or dwarfs or elements of the "Faery", and I rush towards it.

However, I have to often stop myself from doing two things:
a) Wishing that the Elves were depicted like JRRT described them. (Specifically I have problems with descriptions of Elves/Faieries as other than the regal, just people)

b) Screaming - YOU TOLKIEN RIP-OFF!! YOU! YOU! YOU!!

Usually, I am able to control the delve deeper into the former, and control the latter. But today, on a used-book sale I picked up an epic fantasy book "The Wishsong of Shannara" by Terry Brooks. And if this isn't a Tolkien rip-off, then I don't know what is. I have read only the first chapter, but already there are the following

• Elven magic (thats fine, expected)
  Elfstones
  Mord Wraiths or "black walkers" (huh?)
  Allanon - a Druid, who is tall, old and whose presence usually signifies great trouble in the lands. He brought the races together in the age of "Man" and of course, travels everywhere.
  A man who has a sword, the "Sword of Leah", once carried by the heir to the kingdom of Leah (but now has no significance - yes, Terry Brooks, I can see the effort to be different here!!)

Now, am I reading too much into this?

Who else has these issues? Found any Tolkien rip-offs?

[yovargas]

The first one in the [Shannara] series is the most blatant Tolkien rip-off I can remember ever reading, though it was still fun enough.

Everybody in fantasy is influenced by Tolkien, but it's a thin line between "influenced" and "stole".

[Primula Baggins]

I just have trouble reading fantasy that isn't Tolkien, because about a hundred pages in when the Wise Adviser is giving the Call to Adventure but just before the Expendable Character has died, and I realize there are 500 pages to go in this volume alone and the Belly of the Beast is probably at least 400 pages off, the thought floats through my mind:

You know, I could be reading Tolkien again right now.

And that does it.

[Tyrhael]

Fantasy _without_ Elves, Dwarves, "the Quest", Ringwraith rip-offs? Try Janny Wurts' Wars of Light and Shadow series (starting with Curse of the Mistwraith). The only similarities I can think of is that one of the main characters is named Arithon. That's it. And the fact that she made her own language for the legendarium (though it doesn't steal from Tolkien's languages).

But as for Shannara? Bleh — it's such a major ripoff. Brooks' other fantasy series, like Landover, are much better. It's only the later series in the Shannara saga that are any good, being a bit different from the LotR imprint.

[Primula Baggins]

I think my problem is that I don't love LotR because it's fantasy; I love it because Tolkien wrote it and it has Frodo and Sam in it. That's two insurmountable strikes against any other fantasy book. They have to interest me all on their own, and ideally I want to find equivalents to Frodo and Sam to care about. Unfortunately, I haven't found any yet that really pull me in, enough that I want to read Volume 2. (Bujold's Curse of Chalion came close, and I've read all the Earthsea books of course, and John Bellairs' The Face in the Frost is a book I just helplessly love; oh, and there's The Once and Future King, of course, if that counts; but not much beyond that.)

I know a lot of people love Guy Gavriel Kay, and he is an excellent writer, but his books slide past me somehow. I can't get immersed.

Tyrhael, I've heard good things about Janny Wurts, but isn't that series about twenty books long? Is there one that more or less stands on its own that I could try?

[Teremia]

Bujold, again -- but I know you've read her! The Curse of Chalion and (perhaps especially) The Paladin of Souls are really pretty great.

Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books.

Garth Nix, Lirael, Sabriel, and Abhorsen.

I just read -- in a great gulp -- George R. R. Martin's series, and liked that, too, though eventually one is tired of all the butchery.

And I recall liking Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana.

[Holbytla]

I read the Sword of Shanara ages ago, and instantly realized the huge Tolkien influence.
Too much so.
At least Donaldson's books conceal their influences.
This dude made no pretense of doing any such thing.

[Primula Baggins]

I'm going to try Gormenghast sometime, but probably from the library at first.

I never was able to finish Tigana and finally sold it.

I will look into Garth Nix!

[Frelga]

Yes rip-off: Eddins. Hidden line of kings cared for by a gruff wizard - check. A powerful, spherical artifact, which only the innocent may touch and which scorches an evil god who stole it - check. A mismatched pair who come from cultures hostile to each other, one of whom is a blond archer and the other an armored knight, who overcome an ancestral enmity to become best friends - check. To give him credit, not everything in his books is stolen from Tolkien, but there are better books out there.

Not rip-off - Rodia turned me on to Robin Hobbs, and Assasin's Apprentice was engrossing.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I've never had any interest at all in reading any fantasy novels, whether or not they appear to rip-off Tolkien's books (which I don't consider to be fantasy novels) or not.

[Inanna]

Ah, so Terry Brooks is famous for it. I had no idea. I have not read much of fantasy literature, as you folks can guess. But I will try to find all these names which you have mentioned here.

So V, if you don't consider Tolkien fantasy....??

[Primula Baggins]

It's history.

[WampusCat]

I read the first Shannara book when it came out, hoping the Tolkien lightning would strike again. Bleh. Hugely derivative on the surface but without the magic. And I don't mean elfmagic.

I never bothered with any of his other books. Or with most fantasy after that.

[Tyrhael]

Primula Baggins, there are currently 7 books out in Janny Wurts' "Wars of Light and Shadow" series, with the later books being the better and more complex ones. She does have an unrelated trilogy called Cycle of Fire — it's not as good as her other series, but it's okay.

A good standalone fantasy book is Brandon Sanderson's Elantris.

Tad William's Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series is very good as well — that's 3 (well, 4, as one is split into 2) books.

[elfshadow]

I don't often read much fantasy, other than Guy Gavriel Kay, but one that I have read that certainly was a rip-off of Tolkien was Eragon, the one written by the 15-year-old. It was also a rip-off of Star Wars and a couple of other fantasy authors. Now I know it's an admirable thing to write a book (well I guess it will eventually be a trilogy) that young, but just because it's a big accomplishment doesn't make it a good book. And in my opinion, the author would have done well to wait a bit before he published it.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

So V, if you don't consider Tolkien fantasy....??

History, myth, Romance (in the traditional sense, not the modern sense), Faerie, legendarium, secondary universe, philosophy, and (not the least) a basis for his invented languages.

But not fantasy.


edited to add missing open parentheses

[axordil]

The thing with JRRT is that he was less (and I think perhaps he saw himself this way) a writer than a maker of a world in which stories happened...stories which he then related. Thus, he wasn't a fantasist in the sense of those who came before him, but a mythmaker. The problem with most of those who have tried to follow in his footsteps is that, while they may be fine writers and fantasists, they don't have the academic chops or the attitude to do what he did in the myth department. Thus the feeling of being derivative, since there is no feeling of there being much THERE there, to abuse Gertrude Stein. Behind LOTR and the Sil there is a world. Behind whatever it is Brooks et al do, there is...a map.

The best fantasy after JRRT has been that which doesn't attempt to compete with it, but finds its own path, whether it's more Gothic or more postmodern or both. Thus Gaiman.

[yovargas]

*seconds the Gaiman love*

[Primula Baggins]

Behind LOTR and the Sil there is a world. Behind whatever it is Brooks et al do, there is...a map.

Yes. Yes, exactly.

This may explain, too, why I've met so many science fiction readers who make room for LotR but nothing else from the "fantasy" side. It's world-building. That's central in SF, and the better you are at it, the better: you need to be able to give the impression of a complicated, functional world that has details and a history that are there but only hinted at or touched on—a place that's much bigger and older than the corners where the story happens. Ideally, the writer knows a lot more about the setting than ever gets onto the page—exactly as Tolkien did.

The fantasy writers who have only a map and the Hero's Journey outline can't give that feeling of an inhabited place. It feels small, bland, and ephemeral, and I don't buy it (literally).

[Alatar]

That said, there are some Fantasy writers who do just that. Robin Hobb has been mentioned. There are others also.