Tuesday 7 March 2017

Convergent Themes

Pulling a few themes together -

(i) recent posts have addressed war, Tolkien and religion;

Tolkien recounts the creation of Middle Earth and its deities and the War of the Ring.

(ii) I suggested here that Poul Anderson, who contributed to many other authors' fictional universes, could have written a major Superman novel;

in the Smallville TV series, Kryptonians go to war and their scripture, the Book of Rao, holds real power, combining science and religion;

the time is right for a Tolkienesque History of Krypton.

Poul Anderson wrote well about war, religion and the "superman" theme (also here) and adapted Norse myths into modern fantasy novels independently of the better known Tolkien. Thus, many strands converge.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Your point (i), using "deities" is not accurate. As time passed and Tolkien more fully developed his Middle Earth mythos, eliminated polytheism and stressed monotheism. Eru Iluvatar alone was the true God and creator of Arda. Even the Valar were simply his servants and not gods.

Your point (ii), Anderson did write a Conan story called CONAN THE REBEL. And making contributions to Larry Niven's Known Space background.

Sean