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<blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 7545309" data-attributes="member: 59082">This is where I diverge with you, if only in semantics. You seem to be operating under a rather narrow definition of what a &quot;novel&quot; is and should be, as if all authors must follow the guidelines of novel-writing as laid out in courses and books as to what a novel should and should not be. I like to think of Dune as the SF equivalent of LotR. In a similar sense, it has some of the same problems as LotR that you are implying, but like LotR it is an incredible book. So my point is, does it matter? I don't think that Tolkien (or Herbert) failed to write great novels; I think they wrote great books, so it doesn't really matter to what degree they fulfilled the criteria of what a good novel is or isn't. They transcended the guidelines, so to speak.That said, it does matter to the aspiring novelist who tries to emulate Tolkien by, essentially, writing the world as the main character (LotR is not the story of Frodo &amp; Friends as much as it is the story of Middle-earth). The problem is that no aspiring novelist is Tolkien, and 99.999% of them create worlds that are but pale shadows of Middle-earth to the degree that they are &quot;alive&quot; in and of themselves. LotR works--and is a great book--because of Middle-earth, because of how alive it was. You can write a book like LotR if you have created a living, breathing world. If not, if your fantasy world is mostly a derivative pastiche of Tolkien and D&amp;D and whatever bad 80s fantasy films you grew up on, then your book will probably suck. But if you are able to do what Tolkien did--dive deeply into your own imagination and discover a mythopoeic realm and bring it into word and image--then you have a chance to transcend the guidelines for what a good novel is and can be.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mercurius, post: 7545309, member: 59082"] This is where I diverge with you, if only in semantics. You seem to be operating under a rather narrow definition of what a "novel" is and should be, as if all authors must follow the guidelines of novel-writing as laid out in courses and books as to what a novel should and should not be. I like to think of [I]Dune[/I] as the SF equivalent of LotR. In a similar sense, it has some of the same problems as LotR that you are implying, but like LotR it is an incredible book. So my point is, does it matter? I don't think that Tolkien (or Herbert) failed to write great novels; I think they wrote great books, so it doesn't really matter to what degree they fulfilled the criteria of what a good novel is or isn't. They transcended the guidelines, so to speak. That said, it [I]does[/I] matter to the aspiring novelist who tries to emulate Tolkien by, essentially, writing the world as the main character (LotR is not the story of Frodo & Friends as much as it is the story of Middle-earth). The problem is that no aspiring novelist is Tolkien, and 99.999% of them create worlds that are but pale shadows of Middle-earth to the degree that they are "alive" in and of themselves. LotR works--and is a great book--because of Middle-earth, because of how alive it was. You can write a book like LotR [I]if[/I] you have created a living, breathing world. If not, if your fantasy world is mostly a derivative pastiche of Tolkien and D&D and whatever bad 80s fantasy films you grew up on, then your book will probably suck. But if you are able to do what Tolkien did--dive deeply into your own imagination and discover a mythopoeic realm and bring it into word and image--then you have a chance to transcend the guidelines for what a good novel is and can be. [/QUOTE]

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