/arda/ - Tolkien's Legendarium

Tolkien's work doesn't need us to defend its superiority m8.

We've reached the first century since the first drafts and stories of the Legendarium were written, and it is still loved, discussed and analyzed by old scholars and little children alike.

Actually, I thank God that LotR didn't get that popular… the fucking fandoms ruin everything.

Let the fucking normies and plebs enjoy their shitty books, series and tumblr-tier pop culture bullshit like GoT and Hunger Games.

Of course they are, they're simple shit that can be easily consumed and written in a horrible manner.

Mind you, the world of Westeros isn't bad, but the books themselves are so fucking horribly written.

What is your take on Wheel of Time?

>>138

GoT is a fad, Tolkien's works have already stood the test of time.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8221820/20/The-House-of-Elendil

The only stuff I've found that even holds a candle to Tolkien is Sanderson's Stormlight Archives. Seriously great stuff. Really long though, and he's not finished it yet.

>>146

found the first book okay. Then it was downhill pretty fast

>>173

Seriously? It gets worse?

I couldn't finish the first book as it is.

>>141

>Actually, I thank God that LotR didn't get that popular… the fucking fandoms ruin everything

Just look at the Hobbit fandoms. I'm just glad they're such plebs that they can't be bothered reading the books.

that said, I didn't mind the GoT books too much, and the shows are ok if only for the visuals and excessive blood and tits. I'd still be hard-pressed to call myself a fan, though.

>>141

LotR was extremely popular.

You just don't remember the fandom because the internet moved on from Livejournal to Tumblr, and the same will happen to the GoT fandom and The Hobbit fandoms mentioned in >>201.

>>211

WAS, not is.

They moved on to the next hip thing, as they always do.

>>213

T-that's exactly what I said, anon.

>>277

Yes.

The movies played heavily on Tolkien as a whole rather than a self contained story to sell themselves.

Funny enough that means the story of the book itself was terribly adapted.

GRRM will die before he finishes asoiaf and LotR will continue to reign supreme.

>>162

Wheel of Time is my favourite series. Hard to believe that its story only takes place over the course of three years.

>>323

I'm starting the fifth book and Rand seriously gets on my nerve.

I would gladly put a collar on Moiraine, if you know what I mean

>>336

He gets a little better. Him turning into an asshole as he gains power is actually a plot point, and it gets rectified when he has this fact thrown in his face.

I know exactly what you mean Those books were how I found out that BDSM was a thing I regret nothing

>>141

>the fucking fandoms ruin everything.

this x1000000000

fandoms are the worst cancer of the modern world

gay of thrones doesn't deserve to be nominated in the same sentence with LotR

>>455

After Tolkien, everything else seems like watered down bullshit.

>>178

/stormlight/ when?

>>461

Do it and I'll add a mention in the announcements or something. It's just being used for legendarium quotes as is.

>>465

Well if there were to be one, it should be /cosmere/ as the stormlight archives are only one of his series, and the others including mistborn, elantris, etc are all set in the same overarching universe - the cosmere.

>GoT is the next LOTR omg!!!

I heard this shit 1000 times and when I finally go to fucking read it I get some truly interesting characters for a short bit followed by "but then everyone was actually like so bad and dark like wow realistic characters, so relateable, everyone who reads these books is obviously a fucking terrible person and can like totally relate XDDDDD"

Then the rest of the Kindle trial was just incest and petty political maneuverings because "they all want thing". No room for idealism or unforced loyalty because it wouldn't be relateable enough for anyone to ever not be a piece of shit. Nothing says "fantasy" like a half-realistic half-parody of European politics with no actual dragons or ice zombies throughout the series!

So much false advertising by the fans, I raged hard and wrote a 60,000-word low fantasy novel with plenty of magic, abrupt fast-paced episodic action, archetypal characters with simple flaws and strong capabilities, people making snap decisions to survive and save other people, people actually performing adequately under duress, and people who had reasons to be mad also still wanting the best for other people. It was fun but that was the only good thing that came out of that series for me.

>>211

The LOTR fandom did get pretty fucking bad I remember, but there were always cool redeeming qualities and just cheesy little things that made it okay…and that it was still mostly composed of people who actually read at least some of the books.

>what food you got?

At the time, it seemed so funny.

>>162

shit

>>479

Post your novel

>>479

In the last chapter of A Dance with Dragons, GRRM pulls a Deus ex machina on Kevan Lannister, because he might have patched stuff togrther.

>>493

But it's kind of shit tbh, I wrote most of it for nano (though I've revised it since). I wrote it off-the-cuff as a combination of a few scenes I imagined that I liked but not enough to want to "save them for when I'm older and better", memories of that episodic style of Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, simplistic characters whose personalities I let the events I came up with define (and then went and wrote backstory), and generic vidya/D&D magic elements since it's low fantasy.

Then, when I got almost to the final scene - which is a fight with a dragon, since GRRM cockteased dragons so hard and I realized relatively few games and stories actually have a dragon as the final boss because it had become a cliche in now-lost bardic stories before there were that many fantasy stories to begin with. Anyways, while stuck trying to write a somewhat engaging fight with a dragon, I ended up thinking about the events of the book so far and a few I had thought of for the next book, and making up a grand hidden overarching plot that fit perfectly into everything I'd written so far, so subtly that it would be hard to convince someone I hadn't planned it before writing the first book.

I went back and read through what I'd written one more time, ended up having to change one or two sentences to avoid contradictions with the underlying plot, and I wrote down the entire plot I'd thought of in its own document, but it requires me writing the next book in kind of a weird style that's difficult and maybe unnecessary and pretentious, very broken up, like the two books of the Two Towers mixed into each other, sort of.

I also read some article that talked about optimal lengths for books of different genres to hold reader interest, and it said that the only audience that tended to want and expect their books to exceed 60,000 or so words was fantasy readers, with new books being sometimes over 100,000 even. Of course quality tends to suffer, but I thought that my second book ideas wouldn't necessarily take quite as many words to write as the first book, which was sort of an episodic mishmash of adventures and misadventures, did.

So, my conclusion now is to write the second book as part of the first book and let the dragon be just the Part 1 boss before you finally get to see Eggman at the end of the zone. I originally meant to just write and sell it quickly for some money, not be a perfectionist at all, and figure with some proofreading it'd fall in the middle of the road by modern fantasy standards. That sort of cavalier approach led to me actually writing instead of agonizing over things, and now I've given it a lot of thought and slow reading and revision (by my standards anyways) and taken year gaps between writing at all, so I may get going on writing it again and maybe finish and edit the whole thing this time. If I find time, I have a lot of things I'm doing.

I have a really nice idea for the book cover too, so much so that early last year I was thinking if I finished it up I might use part of the book cover as an ad for 8chan if I published electronically.

8chan and Amazon both have gotten worse this last year or so, it's a shame, but no reason to stop writing I guess. I even have three or four people I know interested in proofreading whenever I finish it, last I knew.

>>505

I don't know if that's a book that's come out and you're trying to spoil something for me, or if it's the book that's going to come out and you're speculating. Remember, I read like half of the 10% of the first book that I got as a Kindle sample, and recoiled equally hard from the show because it's just softcore. Not that I have something specifically against pornographic broadcasting, it's just the same sense of disappointment when people go "omg next Tolkien" so they can pretend it's super deeeeeeep man that they're masturbating to incest stories in the books and dicks and tits in the show. I felt completely validated in my uninformed opinions when that actor went on her "there are all sorts of tits in this show and only an occasional dick", and the press gave her attention for it with no one being like "tits are not primary sexual organs". I don't like to lightly toss aside an old man's life's work, but it's as if grrrrrmmmm took a great mind for writing descriptive scenes and relatable characters and wasted it on a smutty parody of old European politics. But then, I rather think the same of Anna Karenina, despite very much enjoying most of War and Peace. I do somewhat wish that I'd read Tolkien and Tolstoy in the series they were intended as, rather than bound up in big colossal paperbacks which are just unwieldly to hold, crease their own backs regardless of how carefully they're held, and serve no apparent purpose beyond making the reader seem incredibly scholarly…or would if it weren't fiction. Look at that guy reading that big book like it's nothing, why I bet he reads three encyclopedias a week!

>>507

Forgot to mention, my book is not like Tolkien's stuff…first of all low fantasy, second of all trying not to be too derivative despite it being the granddaddy of the genre, thirdly I'm not a highly educated linguist.

I do remember I caved and made my dragon talk though, after wanting to do just a straight dragon fight too. I might go back and change that if it's still in there so it's not just Bilbo_distracts_Smaug_with_fasttalk.png

>>507

>only audience that tended to want and expect their books to exceed 60,000 or so words was fantasy readers

That doesn't seem right. Unless fantasy includes science fiction.

>>511

Well to be fair many science fiction authors and readers nowadays are those hipster douchbags who rather talk about "muh transhumanist nano-paste communit blob" and "muh android rape stories." It's actually quite sad that tumblr has infested the genre. Of course you still have your old history and physics professors who put out the time to talk about the stars, and galaxies. Of unknown worlds and new, exciting technology. It's just that they're drown out by all the bullshit in the mainstream right now.

>>511

It was based on an average of the lengths of best-selling books of each genre, if I remember correctly. I think scifi was a separate category and most of the best-sellers were under 50k.

>>516

DEAR GOD, really?

I didn't realize they had infested that as well as comics and games (and everything else).

I have a few partly-written ideas for scifi too, one space-based and a few more psychological, new discoveries or inventions threaten current human perspectives on things, etc, etc. I also actually understand how software works so I wouldn't end up writing yet another Matrix-derivative thing like: "The computer became a person inside a computer by tech magic because accidental programmer didn't know what the code did omg a bug made it non-deterministic XDDDDDDDD treading in God's domain just like organic evolution omg it would totally happen we need to be luddites to save teh earths!11!!1111!!!11! metal bad!"

I suddenly feel a calling to Make Literature Great Again™, but I haven't read an entire book in five years or so, and fear I never had the talent to begin with. I guess I may as well write anyways, if I put some thought and work into it it should be better than half of the trash kicking around, so I can make some cash and it's not as if I'll be lowering the bar regardless.

I have a post-apocalyptic idea too, not a grand scale thing, just following mostly one person, and not about neo-tribalism so much as a book or series that starts immediately before a global disaster and continues in the early days/years/maybe decades following it. Post-apocalyptic has been done to death by both excellent creative teams and frankly uninspired amateurs though, so might not be the best time. I have some ideas for "virtual world" stuff too, but same problem. I'm having a hard time getting into Ready Player One because it's trying so hard to be "cyberpunk", even though it cleverly justifies it with the whole thing about the 80s. Even Snow Crash was entertaining and well-paced, but it's not like the author was a master linguist or storyteller. Then you have all of those manga and anime about being trapped in video games because the asians trendfag harder than we do, and most seem to be kind of crap but some are extremely good I'm told.

I guess the problem is that I have too many ideas and I don't know what I should be writing. What I really want to make is games with lots of written material inside of them, but the time factor is almost unsurmountable. New game industry workers are likely to be too pozzed to work with, and I'm not going to delude myself into pretending Carmack, American McGee or the like would drop whatever they're doing and come over when I whistle so I can handwave at them about my design for the great game I don't know how to make the engine for.

So I guess I should stick to books for now.

The question is: fantasy, sci-fi, or post-apoc?

>>522

>most of the best-sellers were under 50k

What the fuck? Could you post a link?

>>522

Given the nature of the board go fantasy but post the others on /tg/ or something.

>>507

for the record, the way you talk about GRRM slightly resembles some things JRRT said about Shakespeare and his works. JRRT was not a big fan of his, but he was (and still is) chique and fashionable to idolize.

>>522

most of that paragraph describes a lot of creative types I meet.

Actually, all the creative types I meet.

>>522

Personally I think fantasy in a sci-fi setting would be fun to write.

>>522

>but I haven't read an entire book in five years or so, and fear I never had the talent to begin with

This will kill you. Pick up a PDF of the latest ed of the Chicago Manual of Style and learn how to write properly. Read other fantasy writers to get concepts you'll be lacking in.

You don't have to change the world with your first fucking work. Just focus on getting something acceptable out first, and then when people give you feedback and criticism you can consider going for something more groundbreaking. Most major fantasy authors only achieved mainstream fame and success in their 30s or 40s and beyond. You have time to practice, to learn. Don't squander it.

>>516

Hey not all cyberpunk is pretentious garbage, just most of it.

>>738

I've done it. The key is explaining why some people have swords and others autocannons. It's do-able though.

>>784

I've thought of this exact problem. What was your solution?

>>788

Other people arguably had better ideas than me.

Frank Herbert's idea was that shields could block anything, and lasguns could cut anything and if they interacted it could cause a nuclear explosion, so everybody uses knives because that scares the shit out of them.

As it turns out people do use artillery and cannons and guns in Dune, but because of shields and lasguns they are seen as not terribly useful, because guns mean somebody breaks out a lasgun or a shield, and then you have to worry about a nuclear blast.

The Gor novels' solution was to have an alien overseer race actively monitoring for someone making gunpowder and assassinating them. So the aliens had very advanced tech but no one else did.

I had a few different tricks. The world-building in my stuff has spirits and the spiritual world as an integral component of effective combat. A well-trained swordsman in tune with spirit abilities would be able to demolish a conventional army. To be effective, guns need to be 'runed' or imbued with cosmic concepts, and the most effective ammo is bullets that have spirits within them.

In terms of tech my solution was based on the universes involved (because I had a multiverse with universes in it); every universe had a 'Poltergeist Quotient' which is free-floating spirits that more or less want to spin wheels and get in machines and make them move.

The higher the number of Poltergeists the less machinery you could have, to the point where suits of armor became a potential issue. You could get around this by putting spirits into your armor or machines, but this is a costly process. The extremely high up forces can insert powered armor troops with heavy weaponry just about anywhere, but its still very rare.

If you were Outside of the universes you were in a kind of esoteric abstract universe where swords and guns were representative of weapons in general.

>>138

>Shit-taste normies are ranking GoT above LOTR

Most have read neither books

>>962

I don't know what you mean by "fine", but just a political intrigue story of betrayal etc.. just lowers things down to more of a soap opera in my opinion.