[MUD-Dev] OT: Books

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

Matt Chatterley <root at mpc.dyn.ml.org> wrote:
>On Fri, 12 Dec 1997 s001gmu at nova.wright.edu wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 12 Dec 1997, Adam Wiggins wrote:
>> 
>> >  <snip quotings>
>> 
>> > <Off Topic:>
>
>[Snip]
>
>> > Tolkien's stuff (of course), especially the Silmarilion.  A lavishly
>> > detailed, complex, and beautiful world.
>> 
>> It's hard NOT to use Tolkien for Fantasy based Muds.  It's so very 
>> difficult to break away from the inertia a well defined, well accepted 
>> genre carries with it.  you have to simultaneously add new symbols and 
>> objects while maintianing enough familiarity that people have something 
>> to identify with, and a reason to continue reading.
>
>I am not a real fan of Tolkiens writing (I just don't really like his
>style, its a personal-level thing, although I will admit I like the hobbit
>in preference to LoTR - it had a lot more class). However, the degree to
>which he has influenced what is conceived as 'modern fantasy' is really
>quite astonishing. His works are very, very often (even subconciously)
>used as the basis for things. I have very deliberately kept his ideas in
>mind and tried to side-step them where possible (not entirely
>successfully).

Yeah, well.  The trouble is of course that Tolkien is heavily inspired
by (or based on) old european culture...

Someone wrote that Tolkien based his world on maps, but I think that
came in later.  AFAIK Tolkien started working on his world by creating
heroic stories while enrolled in the army during the first world war?
They are published by his son as "the book of lost tales", the
foreword provides a lot of information about the Tolkien's works.

Ola.