Dragonlance vs Lord of the Rings

HERE'S WHAT I THINK

J R R Tolkien is seen as being the father of fantasy and to any true fantasy fan Lord of the Rings is required reading. That being said it doesn't necessarily mean it is the best fantasy story out there. The Hobbit was a fast paced story with something new happening in every chapter. After Tolkien wrote the Hobbit he moved into more adventureous territory and made the follow up a trilogy. The follow up was a lot slower than the original and harder to follow. To me Tolkien had left his original format and tried to create a literary epic, he did of course succeed, but no matter how I tried to like Lord of the Rings I never could. The constant singing/poetry in the book was completely unnecessary and did nothing to enhance the story, in fact it detracted from it. The story also has too many wasted plot elements, it is a good story but it definitely ain't God's gift to fantasy like some Lord of the Rings followers seem to think. And what's with the wizard that uses a sword instead of magic and an all powerful ring that all it seems to do is make the wearer invisible?

Lord of the Rings has now become a total product range. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Dragonlance however was designed as a total product range. Dragonlance was designed as a side product of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. The book trilogy was designed to back up the new Dragonlance role playing game and because of that the group of friends in Dragonlance were on the lines of the Dungeons and Dragons scenarios each having their own traits, their own strengths and weaknesses and from a range of species (human, half-elf, kender and dwarf).

Overall there have been over 200 Dragonlance novels. It is easy to argue that Dragonlance is based on Lord of the Rings, just as it is easy to argue that Weis and Hickman took Tolkien's concepts and spun them into a real epic.

Lord of the Rings definitely wins on the film front as it has a proper Hollywood film to back it up, unlike the not so well animated Dragonlance film that has just been released but at least Dragonlances first film outing blows away The Lord of the Rings first outing.