Okay, look. I am going to be to the point with this blog because I'm watching Smallville right now. Anyhow, every now and then I flip through the pages of a book still waiting to be read, and always I read through the reviews for the book--because they take up at least 4 pages of the actual book, if not 6 in some, if its a series. I happened to have George RR Martins A Song of Fire and Ice Series here on my desk, all up to be 4(I have yet to buy 5, but plan to). So I picked up A Feast for Crows because it's just there, and I covered this another blog, about how I'm a book sniffer and whathaveyou, but I digress. So I flipped to the reviews page, and constantly--every single page--at least 2 reviews talked about how much George RR Martins work reminded them of T.H. Whites Once and Future King, or J. R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and it's even gotten to the point where they've started talking about Harry Potter.
This has officially become tiring. Martin is a fantastic author, and there is no doubt about that. I once thought that he was terrible, I hated the show because of the hype that surrounds everything in our day and time, but I always think that for anything I have never seen, read, or tried-I hated The Hunger Games once too-but I finally decided to try it out, and you already know my experience with A Game of Thrones, and I have bought almost all the books in the series. But what frustrates me now is how every time his books come out, ever friggin' reviewer out there reference another Fantasy book or series.
The reason it frustrates me is because they're acting like very other series out there is no match for Martin, and they're acting like his books are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Its annoying for the reason because they're belittling every author who came before him. Look, Tolkien had his world which was brighter, and purely Fantasy at its heart. Tolkien had dragons, elves, dwarves, and hobbits--that was his realm, that was his world. Rowling create Harry Potter for children, and that one was solely about wizardry and magic, and had all the charm of any other Fantasy. The same goes for every other writer in any other genre. On nearly every dystopian book to date, ever sense the mega success of the Hunger Games, a dystopian novel cannot be what it is without being compared to Collins' work. Veronica Roth's Divergent is nothing like The Hunger Games, there isn't any real likeness in it actually, not even the dystopian worlds they created are the same. Starters was a book that I didn't even dare to read because they compared it, and I didn't like the writing of the first page. Blood Red Road was good, but it was no Hunger Games. And then there was that endless Battle Royale and TMG war that still wages on today.
Back on the topic of Martin's work, I hate how they keep calling him the American Tolkien. Maybe he is, but the thing is, Tolkien and Martin's world are two totally different entities. Yes, Martin's work is a little bit more grown up than Tolkien's as it's pages are littered with whores, swearing, sex, and blood whereas Tolkien's are filled with histories, mystical lands, and fantasy in one of its purist forms. The only thing that really makes Martin's world 'fantasy' is because of the hints of Magic, Dragons, and the world that is is built in. If it did not have those things, it would be a Medival Fiction book, and a good one at that. Martin shouldn't be compared to Rowling either because she created a world or children, and one that people love. Sure adults read Harry Potter, but they are in every sense children's books. Tolkien's world was born from a children's book that his publisher requested he continue in another volume. Jurgen is a book that I have never read, but Martin has also been compared to James Branch Cabell, plus Jurgen deals wit a time traveler, so it isn't just fantasy anymore.
Martin has created a name for himself, and his name shouldn't be compared with the other great names of fiction such as King, Tolkien, Cabell, Eddison, Rowling, and all the other great writers of our generation. Rather his work should be listed and cherished instead of having to be a battle ax for the big name critics and holly to kill all the others with. It sickens me to know that no one can just appreciate a book any more, rather they have to compare it to another. Every book has its charm, and every book shines in its own way-even my first book The Maze Games, terribly plotted as it may be, it is still mine and I believe it shines in its own way, and someone will come along who likes it as much as I did when I wrote it.
Let us not spoil books by using them to throw at each other like the ancients and kindergartners throw rocks at each other, rather, let us read them, love them, and leave them be. It is like if there is a parallel universe, it does not intersect ours, and that is what a book is-a parallel universe reflecting our own. And because of this, every universe within a book shouldn't intersect with another.
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