LOTR's decade attempt. lets do this!

Set Harth · Jul 6, 2013

Greg Cox said:
(And this was at a point when I was devouring every Michael Moorcock book I could get my hands on.)

Over the last few weeks I've been rereading a lot of my old Moorcock, which is pretty much just stuff written prior to 1976 or so, and trying to digest it in such a way that it all can be seen as logically coherent and water-tight, for lack of a better word. I'm not finding it especially easy. As someone once said, "timey wimey". :alienblush:

Greg Cox · Jul 6, 2013

Set Harth said:
Greg Cox said:

(And this was at a point when I was devouring every Michael Moorcock book I could get my hands on.)

Click to expand...

Over the last few weeks I've been rereading a lot of my old Moorcock, which is pretty much just stuff written prior to 1976 or so, and trying to digest it in such a way that it all can be seen as logically coherent and water-tight, for lack of a better word. I'm not finding it especially easy. As someone once said, "timey wimey".

I'll take your word for it. Like I said, I devoured that stuff in my teen years, which was a long time ago!

And, truth be told, I was always more into sword-and-sorcery than epic high fantasy. I preferred Howard and Leiber and Moorcock to Tolkien and his various imitators.

Allyn Gibson · Jul 6, 2013

Set Harth said:
Over the last few weeks I've been rereading a lot of my old Moorcock, which is pretty much just stuff written prior to 1976 or so, and trying to digest it in such a way that it all can be seen as logically coherent and water-tight, for lack of a better word. I'm not finding it especially easy. As someone once said, "timey wimey".

In college I tried reading the Elric series. I'd read Tolkien and Leiber by this point (but no Howard, oddly), and I went out and bought the series in the six Ace paperbacks, the ones that looked like this. I bogged down in the second book, and eventually I sold them off at the used book store for, I think, some of the Bard's Tale books.

Five years ago when Del Rey did their six volume reprint of the series in trade, I found the stories more enjoyable than I had a decade and more earlier. Maybe it was because they were in publication order. Maybe it was because I had diminished expectations from my first encounter with Moorcock. Maybe it was because I had read some of Moorcock's non-fantasy work, such as Behold the Man or his epic takedown of LOTR, "Epic Pooh," in the interim.

I appreciate Elric now. But I still prefer Leiber and Lankhmar.

propita · Jul 6, 2013

Find "the Tolkien professor" online and read along with his discussions. Very enjoyable.

Greylock Crescent · Jul 7, 2013

For a while there, I was reading LOTR and The Hobbit once per year. Haven't done that in a while though. For me, the story dragged the most in ROTK when Frodo and Sam traverse Mordor. But otherwise, I enjoy the attention to detail. I guess it all comes down to the specific reader's patience in terms of how fast the plot moves forward.

Normally I don't have that kind of patience. With Tolkien I did.

Set Harth · Jul 7, 2013

Allyn Gibson said:
I went out and bought the series in the six Ace paperbacks, the ones that looked like this.

Mine were just like that, except with a gray background color. After finishing those six I went right on to the later Hawkmoon books and The Silver Warriors ( which I now know should have been called Phoenix in Obsidian ). I didn't track down the original Hawkmoon books until the 90s because they weren't reprinted with those others.

If you look at Moorcock's web site it seems that a few years ago everyone thought an Elric movie would be coming out at some point. I wonder what happened there.

Allyn Gibson said:
Maybe it was because I had read some of Moorcock's non-fantasy work, such as Behold the Man

I only learned of the existence of that book a few years ago. Given that Gene Wolfe was apparently influenced by Moorcock, I'm pretty sure now that part of his The Urth of the New Sun was inspired by Behold the Man.

Turtletrekker · Jul 7, 2013

propita said:
Find "the Tolkien professor" online and read along with his discussions. Very enjoyable.

Link.

The Comedian · Jul 7, 2013

Khan Harrison said:
So for ten years I have been trying to read LOTR.

Going to accomplish that this summer, but I need some help
I hate the 2 book structure i get SO BORED JUST following Sam and Frodo for an entire book. What chapters should I read in order to intertwine the story the way the movies do?

If that gets to you, put down the Game of Thrones books and walk away from them real fast.

DalekJim · Jul 7, 2013

You should always read a book, on first read-through, as the author intended. JRRR Tolkien put a lot of thought in to how he structured his story and reading the chapters he wrote completely out of order strikes me as wrong.

Dunno how you could be bored of Sam and Frodo chapters. Shelob! Gollum! Sam the Ring-bearer!

LOTR's decade attempt. lets do this!

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