Skip to content

Huh? Michael Moorcock hates LOTR?

2»

Comments

  • NaveenNaveen Member Posts: 81
    edited September 2015
    Fardragon said:

    It's amazing how many students get totally stumped when trying to answer a descriptive writing question for GCSE English. Has description vanished from the modern novel?

    GCSE is some kind of exam, right? Well, a good description is one of the most difficult things to pull off well, since it has to be evocative and not just a list of objects and badly explained geographic coordinates, so I'm not surprised. In fact, in many novels, descriptions are so wrong that I'd rather they weren't there in the first place. For example, I was trying to read a Salvatore novel (one from the Cleric Quintet) and some of his snapshot descriptions are really irksome:

    "The sun was bright this day and warm, in contrast with the chilly breezes blowing down from the nearby Snowflake Mountains, gusting strong enough to float Cadderly’s silken blue cape out behind him as he walked, and strong enough to bend the wide brim of his similarly blue hat."

    I know nobody reads Salvatore for his prose, but come on, I'm surprised his editor or proofreader didn't trash that one.
  • the_spyderthe_spyder Member Posts: 5,018
    @atcDave - It more or less depends on what the writers are in the business for. If they are "True" writers and don't ever intend to make a buck, that's fine. But that doesn't put food on their mouths or roofs over their heads. So then anyone who isn't a flat out altruist (or rich beyond reasoning) does 'Eventually' have to bow to the publishers.

    Now, with a caveat here. I really have a HUGE amount of respect for Felicia Day and how she went about things. After failing to pitch her show to Hollywood, she went and made it a web show. She has eventually made it and something of a name for herself by throwing off the shackles of the Publishers, but she is probably the minority when considering the pool of people who have actually made money out of the deal.

    I agree that if you make a market for something and you can SHOW that you have a market, you have a much better case with publishers. And that more and more authors are making use of 'Free' web hosting to get their market niche out there. I just don't know if it has reached the point where the publishers are "Truly irrelevant". I'd like to think that is the case, but then I see loads and loads of generic material that IS published and quite often by notable writers who are looking to get their names/brands out there prior to releasing their own original works.
  • atcDaveatcDave Member Posts: 2,146
    edited September 2015
    Oh I don't think publishers are irrelevant, just that the business has changed. Like most other businesses!

    From a pure artistic perspective a writer can write whatever they want, and likely find an audience.
    If you actually want to make a living at writing, your going to have to please someone who's willing to PAY for your writing.
    No different from an Ancient Greek poet or play write finding a sponsor for their work. Making a living in any of the arts involves a certain amount of business sense. Some might call it compromise, but the conflict is timeless.
    If you're good enough you can have it both ways. But that's only a lucky few. People who can make enough money from their commercial work that they can write something just because they want to.

    I think where a lot of media has changed is there's a lot more opportunity, but the chances of making it "big" are far less. Look at what iTunes has done to music; there are many more one hit wonders, or even people who can get something sold for a VERY small market. But there are not as many very successful big name acts as there were 20 years ago.
  • the_spyderthe_spyder Member Posts: 5,018
    As a completely tangential point, I saw Scott Adams do a keynote speech one time where he talked about how HE got into the business. Apparently, he kept on submitting his cartoons and strips to publishers, who kept on rejecting the art as varying degrees of poor and amateurish. So he went into corporate business.

    Obviously someone eventually realized that his style was worth publishing, but he said he had been rejected by so many people, some of whom told him to 'go to art school' etc... that he had given up all hope of being a comic artist long before he finally got published in any real sense.

    It is about persistence, name recognition and basically getting to the right person on the right day and making it work. I've published some of my own work on a literary site, not that I ever plan on being a writer (if for no other reason than being a poor speller), so I see that you CAN get stuff out there. Making it big like Tolkien, Moorcock, Martin and so many others is a LOT of factors all working together.
    atcDaveNimran
  • atcDaveatcDave Member Posts: 2,146
    I agree with all of that Spyder. Congratulations on publishing your stuff, THAT's exactly what's exciting about the Internet. I can host my own site about my scale modeling, read fan fiction from my favorite shows, and find nerds from all over the world who share my various odd interests.
    Off course it's great when we can get PAID for being nerds! But for now I'll keep my day job and not mention how close I am to retirement!
    So does it count as getting paid to play computer games and build scale models if it's actually a pension?
    the_spyder
  • the_spyderthe_spyder Member Posts: 5,018
    LOL. I was at GEN CON this year (for anyone who doesn't know, that is THE card/board/role playing/miniature gaming convention and nerdvana here in the US) a few weeks ago. While there in the exhibition hall, one of the vendors made the following comment:

    "All day long I get to talk nerdy with Nerdy people about nerdy things. I have the best job in the universe."

    If you can get paid to do what you love, you never work a day in your life and that has to be the definition of the ultimate job. Not that I would ever go into retail (again), but man that must be awesome for that guy.
    NimranatcDave
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511
    Tying into a thread elsewhere, Moorcock it the person who invented the term "swords and sorcery" possibly to distinguish his work from Tolkien's "Epic Fantasy" and connect it more to the likes of Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber.
    Aerakar
  • ShapiroKeatsDarkMageShapiroKeatsDarkMage Member Posts: 2,428
    I love how Elric edgy fanboys rants about how Geralt is a Shameless ripoff of Elric and yet they Say nothing about Warhammer which has much more Moorcocky things than The Witcher.
  • ShapiroKeatsDarkMageShapiroKeatsDarkMage Member Posts: 2,428

    I love how Elric edgy fanboys rants about how Geralt is a Shameless ripoff of Elric and yet they Say nothing about Warhammer which has much more Moorcocky things than The Witcher.

    Also Anomander Rake from Malazan's Book of the Fallen is a bigger Elric expy than Geralt.
  • ShapiroKeatsDarkMageShapiroKeatsDarkMage Member Posts: 2,428

    I can't help but feel his entire argument can be boiled down too "CLASSICAL FANTASY SUCKS! UP WITH GRIM DARK SAD STORIES!"

    Thats pretty much the mindset of the average Warhammer fan. XD
  • ZaghoulZaghoul Member, Moderator Posts: 3,938
    I thought the Elric saga was ok, but it didn't stand out really. I read it mostly after I saw the pantheon show up in Deities & Demigods in the 80's. LOTR's was an ok read in middle school but it often got a bit boring TBH.
    As he was mentioned, Lovecraft kept me interested in every story he did. LOTR was just sooo detail oriented and going on and on, describing everything and leaving nothing to the imagination. That said, the films were nice. :)
    Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series was better than Moorcock I thought as well (another Deities inspired read as well).
    Between Elric and LOTR, hmm, at least LOTR inspired many a thing afterwards, so maybe he is a bit on the bitter side. But different reads for different folks (a much different main character as well).
    AerakarShapiroKeatsDarkMage
  • ShapiroKeatsDarkMageShapiroKeatsDarkMage Member Posts: 2,428
    Fardragon said:

    Tying into a thread elsewhere, Moorcock it the person who invented the term "swords and sorcery" possibly to distinguish his work from Tolkien's "Epic Fantasy" and connect it more to the likes of Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber.

    Actually, i think It was Leiber Who coined the term Sword & Sorcery.
  • FardragonFardragon Member Posts: 4,511

    Fardragon said:

    Tying into a thread elsewhere, Moorcock it the person who invented the term "swords and sorcery" possibly to distinguish his work from Tolkien's "Epic Fantasy" and connect it more to the likes of Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber.

    Actually, i think It was Leiber Who coined the term Sword & Sorcery.
    The term "sword and sorcery" was coined in 1961 by the British author Michael Moorcock, who published a letter in the fanzine Amra, demanding a name for the sort of fantasy-adventure story written by Robert E. Howard.[3] He had initially proposed the term "epic fantasy". However, the celebrated American sword-and-sorcery author Fritz Leiber replied in the journal Ancalagon (6 April 1961), suggesting "sword-and-sorcery as a good popular catchphrase for the field".
    -Wikipeadia.

    So, both of them.
    ShapiroKeatsDarkMageAerakar
Sign In or Register to comment.