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Originally Posted by Waylander
Hi, i was wondering whether you people had some ideas about this topic. My father is one of those old fashioned types (he's in his late fifties) who says that all fantasy is derivative of Tolkein, and by extension is poorly written, a waste of time and money etc etc. Is there an article/blog post whatever that I can show to him that argues the opposite? i have some titles in mind that will show him that fantasy has come a long way since Brooks et al, but would appreciate some help.
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Plainly fantasy written before Tolkien (eg Charles Kingsley's "The Water Babies") cannot be derivative of it. A single counter-example being sufficient to disprove a statement that "All something is true", we have disproven his statement. QED.
If you're asking "is all fantasy written after LOTR derivative of it", the answer again is "no". Clearly, modern fantasy writers are influenced by Tolkien - nobody can not be influenced by such a giant in the field - and clearly there is some fantasy which is indeed derivative of Tolkien (Terry Brooks' "The Sword of Shanara" being the most obvious example), but that certainly doesn't mean that subsequent fantasy is derivative. Authors like Stephen Donaldson, Ursula Le Guin and Raymond Feist have taken the genre down completely different paths to Tolkien.