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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ruleslawyer" data-source="post: 1300020" data-attributes="member: 1757">You didn't read my original post, did you? I don't dispute that REH is as much a part of the fantasy landscape as JRRT; I'm just talking about the difference between pulp writing and good writing. Penny dreadfuls are as much a part of the Victorian experience as Dickens, but there's a quality difference.Please. I've never read the Conan pastiches, let alone the no-doubt-awful derivative fiction, and I'd never pass off anything other than original Howard onto my friends and family. Don't get me wrong; I like the Conan stories. But I do recognize, even while reading them (and recognized this when I first read them at the age of eleven), that they're formulaic, full of lurid overexposition, and sometimes rather silly.I've got more than a few of these, too! Not disputing that LotR's not for everyone...Fine. Forget about the minor villains. Do you really believe that Gollum's welter of conflicting personalities, torment, bitterness, greed, and struggle with humanity and kindness are even vaguely echoed by any of the Conan villains you listed? All of whom (with the exception of Khemsa) are motivated by exactly the same things: The desire for eternal life, power, and sex. (Actually, scratch even the sex, in the case of Xaltotun, and the eternal life, in the case of Taramis.) Nor are they once-great individuals who have fallen, like Saruman, or nearly so powerful and persuasive in their dialogue. Merely in the course of the books, Saruman goes from a wise, great, majestic figure to a vain individualist, then a servant of darkness, then a vicious, malignant "poor loser," then a shattered, helpless old man, then a sneering petty villain. All of the villains you listed have always been evil, in the cosmos of their individual stories, and their motives are barely even characterized. You're not reading the same books I am, then. Sauron is the reason FOR villainy, its empowering principle. He's not a nonentity, but merely a non-person, as is appropriate for something that's far beyond the human and far closer to the divine (or diabolic). The trilogy is named for him for a reason. And, if you actually care to read any of Tolkien's background material, Sauron is a heck of a Personage.Perfect I did NOT say. Better writing is what I said.I know very few non-genre readers who haven't read and respected (if not loved!) LotR, and few who liked Harry Potter. I have very few fantasy fans among my friends; those who aren't tend to be very appreciative of LotR, and too old and critical for Rowling.All of whom just happen to get naked a lot for no particularly well-justified reason at all, and all of whom nicely fall into line and ask to be ravished by story's end. Welcome to pulp formula.IANDJ, but there are some good places to start with this. Since most Conan stories were originally published in Weird Tales, finding good reprintings tends to get difficult between rare spurts of archived republishing, but you can start withThe Coming of Conan the Cimmerian:<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345461517/qid=1073427808//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i0_xgl14/102-0751645-9465748?v=glance&s=books&n=507846" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345461517/qid=1073427808//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i0_xgl14/102-0751645-9465748?v=glance&s=books&n=507846</a>There are also the Ace books early-1990s reissues, but those constitute a mix of original REH stories, De Camp/Carter pastiches, stories featuring other Howard characters "morphed" into Conan by De Camp, and stories (and even two entire novels!) by other authors. For the real deal, The Coming (and its forthcoming sequels) are the way to go.</blockquote>

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