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It doesn't help that when Hollywood depicts the 1920s it almost invariably depicts the 1930s - and quite often the late 1930s - in terms of dress, cars, planes, and styles. There is a pretty dramatic cultural shift that goes on during the later 1920s and early 1930s that is the period we think...

White Box OD&D "Of Men and Magic". You could call that a prototype I suppose. The 1st printing is a valuable collectible if in good condition, though its far more likely you have a later printing (4th most likely).

That may well be my mistake, but "Wellsian" and "Vernian" don't commonly mean optimistic or pessimistic, even when you google the contrast. In fact, when I Google it, Google's AI does suggest that it means optimistic or pessimistic, but as it's source for that claim it cites this conversation...

What I use... ALTER SELF Transmutation Level: Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 2 Components: V, S Casting Time: 1 standard action Range: Personal Target: You Duration: 10 min./level (D) You assume the outward appearance of a creature of the same type as your normal form. The new form must be within one size...

No. Maybe someone has but it is not at all obvious to me that the words are commonly used as you use them here. For example, this is a quote using the term Wellsian from SF literary criticism of 1935. "How much more courageous realistic and honest to say ‘the dark ages before us’...than to...

I don't think I would characterize either writer so simply. The quintessential Wells story for me is, "The Food of the Gods". And while the food is the cause of enormous problems, try reading the end of that story and telling me that Wells is critical of the idea of progress. Heck, not even...

I try but I'm not particularly good at it. When I read "Harry Potter" to the kids I was able to give a distinctive voice to each main character, but that was accomplished by repetition and practice and because I had a strong sense of how they should sound. I can't do the 'Critical Role' thing...

Yes, and that happens because The Ring itself, frustrated by Gollum's small minded lack of ambition and determined to reunited with its truly diabolical master, cursed Gollum to fall off a high place should he ever touch the ring again. So evil in its triumph had undone itself, causing its own...

This is actually a major subtheme of Tolkien's work, showing up in both the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. It's most humorous (and tragic) when Sam does this trope, advancing to stand between Faramir and Frodo and saying, "I'm not one to put myself forward, but...". Tolkien very much...

Both my description and Umbran's counter take are true and I think Tolkien would agree with both. Tolkien addresses this tension in the intellectual climax of the story when Sam and Frodo discuss the meaning of stories generally (and this story that they are in particularly), while resting on...

"Empathy" is a very slippery term because it's a feeling and not an action. Altruism is generally a better measure because you can actually measure it somewhat objectively. "Empathy" or "Pro-Social" studies are all over the map in their conclusions with respect to how income and status effects...

Maybe because you offered no definition then of what the common theme in all SF actually was. "Questions the norms" is for example not the same as " exploration of free will in the face of prescience".

That's a rather particular definition of SF and not one I've encountered before in any discussion of what it means to be SF including discussions that define SF by theme. And I'm not sure you can convince me of it, because I'm not sure you can convince me the theme of "The Alien Way" is that we...

All three of those things are false. You are just showing you stopped reading fantasy mostly with Tolkien and his imitators. Fantasy isn't inherently set in the past - Star Wars, Dune, and Tales of the Ketty Jay for example. It's not inherently nostalgic - read Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence...

So while I agree that Tolkien is very much the trope setter (or at least trope spreader) for all of fantasy, not all of fantasy has those tropes. Terry Pratchett tends to have fantasy where things are slowly getting better. Larry Niven's "The Magic Goes Away" actually gives voice to your...

There is only so much I can say.

Tolkien however viewed it even more starkly. While evil's victory could be postponed, even the world that followed the defeat of Sauron was only given a reprieve, like cancer that has gone into remission. Some blush of health might return, but the body would still be weakened compared to...

Tolkien believed in both. My main point was that a world where even the noblest intentions cannot save it might not look like what you imagine.

What's really ironic about this paragraph is Middle Earth is a setting of despair, where things are not fundamentally good, and in fact it is a world of darkness and hopelessness and greed and evil is the prevalent state of the world. Tolkien describes his world as "fighting the long defeat"...

Too many feels. No like button option is quite appropriate for that post.