Winter King vs Tolkien

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The Winter King trilogy followed by the Enemy of God and Excalibur have been such a good bash to read that I reckon it has even shaken my Tolkienish foundations!

It was so well written and so gripping in the telling that I couldn't stop. It is very earthy and sometimes plain gross, but still the style and the semi history of it makes it really good read. I would say it does in some ways excell Tolkien's writing and that says a lot for me since I consider Tolkien almost a deity of authorship.

Get it and read it, you'll love it. It's not corny at all!

The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell.

 

I will find it, I will read it, I will tell you that you're wrong

 

In my opinion there are many many writers who have surpassed Tolkien. Tolkien is horribly overrated (that doesnt mean that I think he sucks, just that I think he is overrated).

 

If you like Bernard Cornwell, read his Sharpe's series or the Grail Quest Trilogy.

 

Aikanaro. Do you mean wrong that you'll like it? guess that I assumed too much; or that it can't be "better" than Tolkien? which is not actually what I mean.

Erebus. Thanks for the advice! I'll check them out. Have you read the Winter King Series? That's just so I can judge ahead what to expect.

 

I just mean that I doubt it'll pass The Silmarillion in my overlarge opinion

 

The Warlord Trilogy is one of my favourite series of books I've ever read, and IMO is Bernard Cornwell's best work. Derfel is such an interesting main character, but I especially like his depiction of Lancelot .

 

Aik. I think that your right. I haven't finished reading Silmarillion yet. Perhaps there are major differences between the works (obviously) that make me like both for different reasons.

Tolkien's writings are truly epic, but also loosely an attempt at Teutonic Sagas. I like the stories more than the style.

Cornwell's works are based loosely on history and I like that too. Here since the style is more modern, the books being from 1997, I think that I find the style more attractive than the story though I love the story still. There is no poetry, no songs or lays, no Saga or Epic style, just modern story telling of an old time.

Maybe because I'm modern I found Cornwell a tad better? I dunno...I just...I dunno (Magda Szubanski).

Morningstar. I agree wholeheartedly. As a Scot, how "accurate" do you think it is of pre-English Briton? I don't overly care if it isn't, I'm just curious.

 

I daresay i agree Joacqin, many authors actually have surpassed Tolkien. He is just a lot more "public" because of the movies. Not to deny, i am a grand fan of the books, but still, i actually must say that the books by R.A Salvatore are better.

I havent read that much, but as of now, R.A salvatore rules!
But i think i will follow your advice Khazraj, and read the winter king, if i am able to find it anyplace. Witch may be quite difficult, since i live in norway, in the most remote place ever.. you have any advice to where i might find it to a quite cheap price??

 

Thor. Sorry, I don't have much idea about where you could get it since I got it off a friend. Perhaps Amazon has it? Personally I'm such a cheapskate that I just go to the library, but then Norwegian library may not have English fantasy novels...

 

Humm well, Salvatore is most definately not a writer I would put above good ole Ronald Ruel. However, everyones taste is different. Nor do I think Tolkien's status is due to the movies, it is more due to him being the starting shot of the revival of the ancient fantasy genre.

 

Salvatore better than Tolkien? Hardly. I too think that ol' JRR is a bit overrated because while LOTR was good it wasn't *that* good and I've read a lot of fantasy series over the years (A Song of Ice and Fire being the latest) that have been much better.

But Salvatore? He wrote one decent book - The Crystal Shard - and then followed it with two dozen books in a very similar vein where the standard of writing steadily got worse and worse. Dialogue and believable characters seems to be beyond him for the most part and he appears incapable of writing two pages in a row in which at least one of them doesn't have a major fight. Sorry, but not by any stretch of the imagination could Salvatore be considered a great writer.

 

I finished the trilogy today and I must say it was a great bash up till the end. I want to go and get Cornwell's work on Stonehenge. And even dabble in some Welsh perhaps...

 

I think I'll have to give a neutral outlook to this.

Firstly, I really enjoyed The Silmarillion. And what more, I find it hard for any other writer to come up with a good work that could surpase this working masterpiece! But I have to admit that there are probably other writers out there that may have done this.

I think that Timothy Zahn is one of them, he and Micheal. A. Stackpole.
Though they do not write any fantasy, there is certainly a kind of flare in their Science Fiction works.
Try reading a book by MA Stackpole, the Jade Pheonix Trilogy.
And Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy.

But the Winter king? I will have to check it up later... then, I will give my assesment!

 

The Winter King? Better than Tolkien? hmm... I'll have to look into this.

 

Perhaps you say salvtore is less good than tolkien, but i would disagree. I find his way of writing the writings of a genious! I cant drop the books he has written, but on the other hand, i haven't read that many fantasy novels as i said. Still new to the genre, with the way too much public LOTR being the first book i read.
But everyone has their own taste i assume!

 

Khazraj, I honestly can't tell if it's accurate or not, but considering that Cornwell must have put a lot of history work in for his Sharpe novels, I would think he would do the same for this.

 

Well Tolkien was an amateur basically, as far as I've understood at least. He might've been extremely talented and knowledgeable as a linguist, but he had really no experience at all as a storywriter.

Of the three stories in LoTR, FoTR was the most boring one, TTT the best, and RoTK in the middle. Still, every one of these would lose to R.A.Salvatore's Dark Elf Trilogy in terms of appealing and gripping story. But LoTR was never meant to be read as casual light entertainment. It's a reality with a full history of its own, with a million times more accurrate description of the entire world as a whole, than any of the other average fantasy settings.

Even though I knew this after reading LoTR, I didn't understand it until after reading Silmarillion. There's so much information that's useless to a casual reader that I don't wonder people end up reading these books over and over again, compared to the 2-3 times you read a normal good fantasy book. Now while I'm young in the genre (I've now read somewhere around 60+ books), I have to agree that Tolkien has created so much more than mere one passing story, that you can't compare that with anyone today. Even if you could, Tolkien was there first.

 

I dislike the Drizzt saga, because Drizzt is such a horrible unbelievable character, and every 2-3 pages involves the word parry, slash, and scimitars.

Tolkien might not have the gripping story many other writers have, he might be overrated, but he was the forefather of serious fantasyfiction, and did more research in his world than any other..

Khazraj, Cornwell might be better than Tolkien, but we'll see if he can defeat Martin or Hobb.

 

Morgoth. I like your advice. Gimme your favourites on a PM and let it rip baby!

I am not overly enjoying Cornwell's Stonehenge. It is also Britain, but 2000BC. Maybe I emjoyed the Winter King because of the semi-historical nature of the story.