People like to measure any fantasy literature against The Lord of the Rings. Do you see this as motivation or pressure within the genre? Do you think it’s still possible to write really good High Fantasy without it being called a bad rip-off or it being criticized for breaking with too many of the conventions?
Oh boy. This is something I have talked about quite a bit from time to time. I wrote a whole essay on it here: http://www.brandonsanderson.com/article/22/
Recently, the New York Times had a review of Martin’s A Dance with Dragons which declared that it was far better than the Lord of the Rings and that Tolkien was dead. Tolkien is the measuring stick that everyone uses. In some ways he shouldn’t be, because the fantasy genre has so much potential beyond just being like what Tolkien did. And in other ways, fantasy as we know it today would not exist without Tolkien. He is a giant, and we all stand on his shoulders. In that respect, comparing everyone to Tolkien is not really fair.
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