Are there any other authors who write respectable and patrician grown-up fantasy and sci-fi?

Yes

No amount of Wolfe Posting will make his work literary fiction that operates within a fantasy setting

Kill yourself pleb.

Solaris is Amazing too, this guy is the impersonate Imagination

There is only one fantasy author worth pursuing, 99% of the others are simple carbon copies.

isnt the history of middle earth just a bunch of redundant material that rightfully didnt make it to the final books? and was just a cash grab in the end that should never have been published in the first place?

It's what you want it to be.

If you think his son analysing literally all of Tolkiens work from scribble to published work is useless, then yeah, I guess it is?

Earthsea is for kids, Hainish books are more relevant

Why does a person who knows nothing write a reply

>cash grab
Do you know just how long these books are? My first volume is around 1,000 pages. How can it be a cash grab? It's obviously for the fans who cannot get enough Tolkien.

I got these books years ago, and I am no way near through even the first book, I have never spent a better $200 cracking these books every year is my favourite time of the year, ill cherish them for my life.

Arthur C Clarke
PHILLIP k Dick

>doesn't even bother replying properly
>tries to argue against Tolkien being the driving force behind modern fantasy
Kek.

This. Marvelous

>inb4 muh purple prose
Purple like the emperor's toga, pleb

Chris is a greedy cunt

Kek, if you say so.

>get's jewed by hollywood studio
>apparently no profit from huge, famous movies
>0 money to Tolkien estate

>Chris is greedy
Right.

>Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings, and his studio Wingnut Films, brought a lawsuit against New Line Cinema after an audit. Jackson stated this is regarding "certain accounting practices". In response, New Line stated that their rights to a film of The Hobbit were time-limited, and since Jackson would not work with them again until the suit was settled, he would not be asked to direct The Hobbit, as had been anticipated.[17] Fifteen actors are suing New Line Cinema, claiming that they have never received their 5% of revenue from merchandise sold in relation to the movie, which contains their likeness.[18] Similarly, the Tolkien estate sued New Line, claiming that their contract entitled them to 7.5% of the gross receipts of the $6 billion hit.[19] According to New Line's accounts, the trilogy made "horrendous losses" and no profit at all.[20]

If obscurantist Joyce is literary, Wolfe is triply so. Weak, pathetic, and effete generation, whose feeble minds cannot encompass greatness. It is fit that the literary cornerstone of our age is unrecognized by the bourgeoisie and plebe alike, for Wolfe's one true prophet knows the Truth. And his godly opinion is objective fact, regardless of foolish consensus or even contrarian posturing.

i like him

Are you a Wolfe fan or just trying to impersonate one? Either way, this is pretty sad.

>Patrick Rothfuss

That story about the scientist who Slaughterhouse Five's after learning the Ayy Lmao language was boring and lame.

I read a lot of SF. Here are three literary authors who come to mind, authors who write their sentences deliberately for effect, who can be read and re-read to appreciate even further.

Robert Silverberg, whose stories are usually about people dealing spiritual matters in an SF setting. (Dying Inside Downward To The Earth)

JG Ballard. His early post-apocalyptic and disaster novels are full of ice-like detached prose and memorable surreal images, e.g. The Drowned World)

Strugatsky Brothers, who are very good at telling a story in an oblique and compelling way (Roadside Picnic, Hard To Be A God)

What's it called?

Nice recs. This is in addition to Lem, Dick and Clarke, or do you not like those?

Philip K Dick is one of my favourites (Martian-Time Slip particularly) but I don't think he is a literary writer in the same way as those I listed PKD clearly aspired to being literary, but his fast and pill-fueled working method didn't enable it. The prose is strictly functional, and he suffers from a lack of editing in most books (IIRC only two of his novels had editors.) He is still a great imagination.

I don't like Arthur C Clarke or many of the golden age writers (including Heinlein, but I do enjoy Asimov in the same way as PKD). I wouldn't call Clarke literary because it's all plot-oriented and not about style/aesthetic. His books just bore me.

Lem is still unfamiliar, probably the biggest obvious gap in my SF reading.

Story of Your Life.

I've read little from all those listed above, however I've read a bit more Lem and he's my favourite by far out of them all.

Any contemporary writers worthy of mention? Ted Chiang?

Thanks.

Okay but what sort of depth do they go into that the wiki doesn't (and the wiki is great for elucidation)? They seem interesting, but if it's just Star Wars Expanded Universe type stuff, I don't see the value in it.

>They seem interesting, but if it's just Star Wars Expanded Universe type stuff, I don't see the value in it.

Not really. The EU is written by various authors who have really no idea about the EU, their own input creates the EU.

Histories is a collection of scribbles and other stories Tolkien would tell his children, if you don't see the worth in it don't buy it, but to me, it's pretty much priceless.

>implying you can get enough Tolkien when he is your favourite author.

And I mean, being a wiki scholar is great and all, but what does reading Socrates give us that a wiki doesn't?

I can't give you the value of thousands of pages of non canonical stories in the Tolkien universe.

Of what you've read, what portion of it (perhaps a percentage) would you consider worth reading to an amateur scholar interested in Tolkien?

Don't start with histories if you haven't read Tolkien. Essentially, read everything else forest.

LOTR > Hobbit (Or other way) > Hurin > Silmarillion > Lost Tales > Histories

It really depends on what part of Tolkien's world you are interested in. It covers, well tries to cover, literally everything Tolkien ever wrote relating to Arda.

>Silmarillion > Lost Tales > Histories
Unfinished tales, not lost tales, Lost Tales is in Histories but Unfinished tales is another book in of itself.

Jack Vance and R.A. Lafferty.

I read lotr hobbit and silma.

In regards to the first and second book, which 4-6ish chapters are the most important in terms of worldbuilding?

...

It's all as relevant as the rest? It depends on what part of Tolkien's universe you are actually interested in, and don't say 'all'.

There are no important chapters in a book which is essentially a text book.

you did shit at school right?

R. Scott Bakker, Neal Stephenson, Frank Herbert, Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, Dan Simmons, Walter M. Miller Jr., Lois McMaster Bujold, Sapkowski...