Who hasn’t ripped off Tolkien
Filed under Soapbox on August 26, 2004
Keywords: Lord of the Rings, Shannara, Terry Brooks, Tolkien
One of the biggest complaints I’ve heard about Terry Brooks from his critics is that he borrowed liberally from Tolkien’s work. It’s not hard to see the similarities between certain characters and plot devices as I’m reading through Sword of Shannara.
Terry readily admits that Tolkien is his biggest influence. His sister gave him Lord of the Rings to read in 1971. Sword was published in 1977, so it’s not a big leap in deductive thinking to conclude that Frodo and company were on his mind while writing.
That said, I’m not sure you could find a modern fantasy writer who hasn’t borrowed from (sorry, “been inspired by”) Tolkien. My own trilogy features a diminutive humanoid as one of the good guys seeking to find the pieces of an ancient artifact in order to put it together and banish the evil threatening the world. It’s hard to escape certain comparisons when it’s all been done before. I think Brooks has proven that he is not some hack ripping off a master of the genre. In fact, to many, he’s become a master himself.
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