Who can I consider the Next Tolkien?

[RBerman]

This thread, like many, sort of wandered from its purpose. To answer the original question: I could never say that no one will be on a par with Tolkien. But no one has come even close, so far. No one has the erudition that came from decades of teaching classic literature, combined with the creativity that came from decades of refining the technique of writing his own "fairy-stories" in conscious homage to the epics of medieval literature. Now, there are always the modern pulp fantasy writers, who can be fun:

Robert Jordan started out as a fun series with a zillion in-jokes for his D&D-playing target audience. But he got way bogged down and refused to commit to the direction of his story, as evidenced by the inconclusive ways in which characters exit the story.

George R.R. Martin, taking his cues from Renaissance British history, has no such compunctions about moving things along through the deaths of apparently central characters. He runs a refreshingly low-magic world.

David Eddings' Belgariad series is a pleasant update on the happy parts of the Arthurian saga. His other series didn't add much to it, though.

I thought Terry Brooks was great until I went back and re-read Tolkien and saw how much Brooks had ripped off, poorly. He hits the action beats without the underlying philosophical substance.

These guys and their peers will be thought of in 50 years the way we think of Edgar Rice Burroughs now: craftsmen capable of churning out diverting potboilers. Not innovators or deep thinkers whose works inform the way we understand the world around us.

[One Bad Pig]

Stephen Donaldson is quite a good writer and all of his books are good, both fantasy and scifi but he suffers from lack of imagination or world building. You get none of the great feeling of depth that Tolkien manages to impart into his work. With Tolkien you know you are participating in a very small part of his imaginary world while Donaldson feels like he only thought up enough of his world to move the story along.

Steven Erikson does this well. His world is HUGE, and all we get are relative glimpses here and there.

[mostlyharmless]

Steven Erikson does this well. His world is HUGE, and all we get are relative glimpses here and there.

Yes I know, Steven Erikson is someone who does world building on a scale at least equal to Tolkien. Erikson has an awesome world, amazing characters, and a very good story but he is still lacking one thing that Tolkien had in my opinion.

Tolkien was writing a story that connects with mythic tales that are deeply embedded in the consciousness of western Europeans. This gives the tales a kind of mythic hold on us beyond what we could expect from just the writing alone. This gave his writing impact even on those who don't appreciate the fantasy genre. Erikson, for all the grand world building simply does not connect with people in the same way. I don't think his world is connected to our real world mythic tales like Tolkien was.

Blessings

[Rational Gaze]

You guys should check out The Way, well, if you like obscure RPGs. There is a story mode where battles are turned off, so it is pretty much a story. There is tons of vaguely alluded to extraneous information about the world of The Way, which is pretty vast for any RPG game let alone an Indy RPG.