J. R. R. Tolkien

In thrilled anticipation of inducting the master of fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien, into the esteemed ranks of the Alliterates, the group assigned one of its members to actually read one of his books.

What a letdown. There are mistakes everywhere. For instance, Bilbo could not retire to Rivendell to compose poems. Halflings bards aren’t allowed in Second Edition. And what about the Priest Character Class? Tolkien completely ignores them. Sauraman really should be considered a priest, not a wizard, and Sauron a god — at least according to the definitions in Troy Denning’s foundational work Deities and Demigods. Come on, John, you can’t write shared-world fiction and ignore the source material.

Of course, in some places, Mr. Tolkien paid only too much attention to other fantasy authors. His characters in The Lord of the Rings are one-to-one ripoffs of the characters in Robert Jordan’s and Terry Brooks’ first books. And Gandalf is clearly just a renamed Elminster. In fact, a number of the scenes are almost directly plagiarized from a novel Rob King will be writing in a couple months.

How could Tolkien be considered the master of fantasy? His works read like a big mishmash of all the other fantasy novels out there. It’s like reading Shakespeare — just one tired old cliché after another!

Sorry, John. We don’t want derivative plagarists in our group.