Clementines - better then drugs
Dec. 10th, 2001 04:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishadayOnly two so far today, but the box is nearly two-thirds gone. It may not last through tomorrow, and I'm thinkin' a run to the grocery store after aikido tomorrow may be in order. It'll make my gi smell good after practice.
I've been reading Meditations on Middle Earth today, which is a collection of essays on Tolkein by modern fantasy authors. Esther Friesner cracks me the hell up, as always, and Pratchett is amusing as well, though in a less crack-child-manic sort of way.
Anyway, it got me thinking (yes, always a dangerous proposition) about the relative merits, story-lines, attraction and sales figures of the Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter books. It's a sort of a circular thought, starting with Tolkein as the father of modern fantasy (not all fantasy mind you, just the stuff since 1965) that's managed to trickle down to Rowling some way or another, and how quite possibly the Potter-mania might interest a new generation in the classic fantasy - movie-goers interested in more fantasy films would check out Fellowship in a few weeks.
And the thought's intruded that I might want to re-read Diane Duane's So You Want To Be A Wizard again. Let's play find the parallels again, shall we?
Oh, yes, and in case you really cared, the LotR trilogy (which really isn't a trilogy so much as a book with three volumes) has been translated into 30 languages and sold anywhere between 50 and 100 million copies. I couldn't dig up language numbers on HP, but the first four had sold a little less than 100 million copies as of late September. Worldwide - these aren't just insular little American numbers.
I've been reading Meditations on Middle Earth today, which is a collection of essays on Tolkein by modern fantasy authors. Esther Friesner cracks me the hell up, as always, and Pratchett is amusing as well, though in a less crack-child-manic sort of way.
Anyway, it got me thinking (yes, always a dangerous proposition) about the relative merits, story-lines, attraction and sales figures of the Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter books. It's a sort of a circular thought, starting with Tolkein as the father of modern fantasy (not all fantasy mind you, just the stuff since 1965) that's managed to trickle down to Rowling some way or another, and how quite possibly the Potter-mania might interest a new generation in the classic fantasy - movie-goers interested in more fantasy films would check out Fellowship in a few weeks.
And the thought's intruded that I might want to re-read Diane Duane's So You Want To Be A Wizard again. Let's play find the parallels again, shall we?
Oh, yes, and in case you really cared, the LotR trilogy (which really isn't a trilogy so much as a book with three volumes) has been translated into 30 languages and sold anywhere between 50 and 100 million copies. I couldn't dig up language numbers on HP, but the first four had sold a little less than 100 million copies as of late September. Worldwide - these aren't just insular little American numbers.
