Terry Brooks, author of THE VOYAGE OF THE JERLE SHANNARA: Antrax

It has been a little more than thirty-five years since the classic fantasy epic, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, made its way across the Atlantic from England and elevated its author, John Ronald Ruel Tolkien, from relative unknown to impossibly famous. Modest sales in 1965 of a paperback edition mushroomed in the three years that followed to three million copies. Today, more than fifty million copies have been sold, and there is no sign of a slowdown. Furry-footed hobbit Frodo and the good wizard Gandalf are as famous as Elvis and just as likely to be spotted journeying across America.

At the turn of the century, numerous lists of the best books of the past one hundred years were compiled, and in almost every case THE LORD OF THE RINGS was included. In some cases, it was placed first. This deification of J.R.R. Tolkien caused no little consternation in some quarters, not the least of which were those academic and literary. Despite Tolkien's Oxford don credentials and the continuous attempts of the RINGS faithful to cloak their leader's writings in classic's finest trappings, there were some who would have none of it. Not now, not ever. Tolkien was an author for reading-light, for computer-wired geeks and Peter Pans who simply wouldn't grow up.

Place me firmly in that camp, although I don't pretend to be much good with computers and my children have forced me to grow up rather faster than I would have liked. Yet my reasons for choosing to take this position are not what you might think.

To dismiss Tolkien as a lightweight, a dreamer or an advocate of Pollyanna solutions and muddy-minded rationalizations is to miss the point completely. But to embrace him as the voice of his generation because he has identified the Great Satan and exposed him (or her, you decide) for what he is, fails to explain the reason for his continuing popularity as well. Neither analysis sufficiently addresses the reasons for Tolkien's widespread following and the cult-like devotion of his most faithful readers, the ranks of whom swell with the emergence of each new generation.

I think I can safely assert that virtually every writer of fantasy working in the field today who began writing after the publication of the RINGS trilogy owes a debt to Tolkien. He may not have invented the form, but he provided it with its most important model in modern times and every writer is aware of its various components. Ask them. Few will dispute me. Moreover, the material has impacted writers working in other categories of fiction as well, not so much by its content as by its form and style. Not a month goes by that I don't read at least one interview or review that credits J.R.R. Tolkien with contributing to a writer's current work.

These writers are not so enamored of the RINGS that they are reduced to copying it, although now and again that happens. What they are doing mostly is paying homage to it, either by reworking its machinery or reinventing its uses. Thus, such diverse efforts as Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials and George Lucas's STAR WARS are solidly grounded in the mythic foundations of the RINGS. The gaming worlds of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS are equally indebted. The list goes on. The connections spread wide and run deep throughout our artistic culture, and I am constantly amazed at the directions these tendrils of inspiration take.

Readers are equally affected, often in ways they fail to recognize. I know this to be true because in my travels on book tours, which are extensive, I always ask people what they are reading. I ask this of everyone, not just of those who appear at my speaking events. Many of them do not read my books, I am sorry to report. They don't even read fantasy. Well, of course they have read Tolkien's LORD OF THE RINGS, they will admit upon questioning, but they don't think of that as fantasy. Readers of nothing but mysteries or contemporary fiction or even nonfiction will have read J.R.R. Tolkien's opus and remember it as a seminal event in their lives.

Why is this so? Why do we connect so strongly with this story? Why is anticipation of the forthcoming movie equivalent to that of the last STAR WARS movie? Why does a book of epic fantasy have such a powerful hold on us in an age when computers and genetics dominate our lives?

A part of the answer lies in understanding that the author is an important member of an ancient storytelling family. Our oldest stories are fables and fairy tales, THE LORD OF THE RINGS is deeply rooted in that tradition. It is one of its grandest and most ambitious undertakings, and on a storytelling level alone it is an amazing achievement. Because our story experience is grounded to one degree or another in myths of this sort, we are immediately at home with the elements of the tale, from the quest undertaken by the little band of heroes to the archetypal confrontation between good and evil.

Another part of the answer lies in our attraction to large sagas, and THE LORD OF THE RINGS is certainly one. It is vast and awe-inspiring in the way that all great sagas are. Just by its very size, it commands a certain attention. The text is huge and the background notes enormous. The story sweeps and resounds. It encompasses worlds and nations. It gives us a sense of transcending our own lives to live, for a short time at least, a greater, more compelling existence. We yearn for such experiences, such exposure, if only in a vicarious sort of way. The Rings trilogy gives us this.

But the real strength of THE LORD OF THE RINGS has always been its story. Its themes are universal and unchanging. Frodo's struggle to resist the power of the ring and to do what he knows is morally right directly reflects the way we see ourselves and our own struggles with life's complexities. The larger conflict between Sauron and Gandalf immediately reminds us of similar struggles in our own world THE LORD OF THE RINGS isn't just about Mordor and the Shire, we realize. It is about places closer to home, where good and evil are engaged in the same implacable, endless struggle.

Tolkien speaks to us of people who live in another place and time, but in the tradition of all good fiction writers, he speaks to us of ourselves as well.

What Tolkien does so effectively with his writing is to allow us as readers to meet him halfway. He suggests possibilities without stuffing them down our throats. He lets us make the connection between his writing and our own lives. The genius in his approach to writing is to allow multiple interpretations to his work, thus making it more inclusive. No book does this better than The Lord of the Rings, which offers room for so many varying opinions on such sprawling topics as abuses of power, self-discovery, coming of age, redemption, and moral responsibility--just to name a few--that readers immediately connect.

Fine and dandy, but other authors have done this as well, often on an equally grand scale and in a similar magical setting. Think Homer and THE ILIAD. Think Sir Thomas Mallory and LE MORTE D'ARTHUR. What sets Tolkien apart from them? Is he just the latest version or does he add something new to the mix?

I would suggest the latter. I would suggest that he brings an approach to his storytelling that was missing from these earlier tales, particularly the mythologies and legends of ancient times. His themes are dark and darkly prophetic, yet he offers hope through the actions of his characters. Even the most grim moments are shot through with dollops of quixotic humanity, of lightness born of song and poetry, of small acts of kindness and gestures of charity. His heroes face terrible dangers and suffer dreadful losses, but they go on with a resilience that is inspiring.

In describing their unshakable determination, Tolkien tells us something important about ourselves. He tells us that he believes even ordinary men and women can prevail in the face of inconceivable power. We don't have to be Gods and Goddesses, Immortals and Kings, or creatures out of myth and legend in order to stand up against monstrous evil and terrible danger. Nor is it a foregone conclusion that we must sacrifice our lives in order to gain redemption or learn humility, as the heroes of Troy and Camelot were required to do.

For centuries, this was the lesson of mythic storytelling. But Tolkien tells us that perhaps we can come to terms with who and what we are, with our fears and doubts, with our failures and inadequacies, and with our humanity simply by staying the course. Heroism isn't solely a characteristic of warriors. Death isn't the only option for the besieged. Hope isn't the final refuge of the doomed.

Tolkien gave us this worldview when he wrote THE LORD OF THE RINGS. It was a seminal moment in fantasy writing.

There is magic at work in his storytelling that transcends everything previously written in the realm of epic fantasy. It infuses his complex plot and defines his dozens of memorable characters. It covers such vast amounts of ground that in the end we feel that we have traveled far from home even though we have never left our reading chairs. We return footsore and weary, yet enlightened. We never feel disengaged or adrift from the story, never distanced from Frodo and his companions in such a way that we don't care deeply what happens to them. We never lose hope for them or for ourselves.

A good epic storyteller can make us feel like that. He can help us find truth in fable and myth. He can give us hope in a world that sometimes seems intent on crushing us. He can touch our hearts and make us believe in dreams.

J.R.R. Tolkien understood this. The uplifting power of THE LORD OF THE RINGS serves as testament. In an age of sprawling cities and giant corporations, individuals still count. In an age of machines and science, dreams still have magic. In an age of terrible evil, Everyman can still prevail.

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Orson Scott Card, author of ENCHANTMENT

I talk to a lot of beginning writers in the course of a year--at book signings, during school visits, by email, in the rare classes I teach--and one of the most common things I hear is, "I'm hoping to be a writer."

Though I know the sort of modesty and self-doubt that causes people to think and speak that way, it's still a frustrating thing to hear. While it can be hard to get published, being a writer is something you can accomplish just by doing it.

It is especially frustrating when young writers ask what they should study in order to become a writer. Should I major in English? Journalism? To which I always answer, "Why aren't you writing already? What are you waiting for? Permission? Certification? Your writer's license? The things you write now, today, while you're still young, are just as real as anything you'll write when you're old. They're just as much a part of your career."

And then I clinch my argument with: "The Bronte children shaped each other as storytellers with the things they wrote as children. And J.R.R. Tolkien's lifetime masterwork, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, exists today only because he took seriously the things he invented and created as a child."

I'll go farther. I think much of the reason J.R.R. Tolkien was able to create what is arguably the most beloved, powerful, and enduring work of fiction of the twentieth century is that he never stopped being childlike in his creativity, his ability to lose himself in a fictional world and emerge from it with passion for the tales he had to tell.

He would still have been a wonderful writer. "Smith of Wootton Major" is chief among his shorter works, but all are good--and, had he not written THE LORD OF THE RINGS, he would surely have written other memorable shorter works. It is not slighting them, though, to say that they are the work of an adult and do not partake of the irresistible vigor of childhood, the reckless creative profusion of the springtime of life that is so obvious in THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

We all know young people don't understand the world the way adults do. We grownups have long since learned that most things don't matter and most things can't be changed much by anything we do.

It is childhood where magic is real, adolescence where heroes still stride the earth and romance is more important than mere survival. We love THE LORD OF THE RINGS because it takes us back into a youthful world which is as dangerous but far clearer and more meaningful than the "real" world we grownups have to deal with every day.

And wise writers will not wait until they have passed some meaningless hurdle later in their lives before they start to tell their tales. They will start now, planting their gardens as soon as the sun begins to shine and the soil can be turned in spring. Looking at the first shoots in the garden it is hard to tell the pumpkins from the squash, the rosemary from the tarragon. But the lushness of the summer garden comes from those almost-unrecognizable early plantings.

What a child dreams is real, and the best of what the adult does has its seeds in that most fertile time. We have no better example than J.R.R. Tolkien, the Childe Roland of the twentieth century.

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Dan Chaon, author of AMONG THE MISSING (National Book Award Finalist)

In his recent book, LOST, Gregory Maguire talks about the power of childhood reading: "The person who would become a lifelong reader should stumble upon very rich stuff first, early, and often. It lived within, a most agreeable kind of haunting." That certainly sums up my relationship with THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Since I first became obsessed with the books as an eleven or twelve-year-old, I've re-read them perhaps fifty times. Most recently, I turned back to them in the months following the death of my parents, and returning to that richly imagined world of Middle-earth provided a large measure of comfort to me.

As an adult, I'm more aware of some of the books' faults--those awful, interminable songs and poems, the occasionally wooden characterizations and the stilted dialog, which from time to time slides into unintentional camp ("You comfort me, Gimli," says Legolas, "and I am glad to have you standing nigh with your stout legs and your hard axe.") And yet, the story of Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring still retains an unshakable place in my imagination.

This was the first truly sorrowful book that I'd ever read, the first book that broke my heart. As a child, I was shocked and alarmed by the book's unwillingness to give its hero a full recovery. "I am wounded," Frodo says at the end. "Wounded. It will never really heal." And then, even more terribly: "It is gone forever, and now all is dark and empty." Which was stunning--the book was so full of grief at the end, so full of the passing of things that would never come back. It was a grief that I understood perfectly, but which had never been articulated for me before.

For me--and perhaps this is just my own morbid personality--THE LORD OF THE RINGS managed to sympathetically convey the vagaries of human loss and corruption in an unforgettable way. I think of Frodo, permanently damaged by the ring's influence; of the struggle of Smeagol/Gollum in THE TWO TOWERS, the degraded creature's attempt at humanity as he leads Frodo and Sam into Mordor; of the bitterness of Saruman and his final days as "Sharkey," in the Scouring of the Shire.

What I love most about the book is the way it places tragic grandeur side by side with smaller, individual loss and struggle. I learned a lot from that, just as I learned a lot from Gandalf's words at the beginning: "Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends." This haunting remark is one of those that I remember from my first reading, one which shaped my understanding of fiction, and of the larger, troubling world I was just beginning to get a glimpse of.

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Arthur C. Clarke, author of CHILDHOOD'S END

I read THE LORD OF THE RINGS soon after it came out and was greatly impressed. Then I read it a second time in 1954-5 on the voyage from England to Australia to do my book on the Great Barrier Reef (incidentally, coming back into print from Byron Press, I am happy to say!) The second reading confirmed my opinion--it's a masterpiece. I now manage to read about two novels a year, but before I am completely senile, I hope to have another shot at THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

I only met Tolkien twice--the first time was at a meeting with C. S. Lewis, who brought along a friend, whose name I didn't catch at the time! Years later I realized who it was...

The second occasion was a literary luncheon somewhere in London, and Tolkien was sitting next to me. His publisher was a very small man, and Tolkien pointed to him and whispered in my ear, "Now you know where I got the idea for the Hobbits." I am afraid that's all I remember of our conversation.

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Troy Denning, author of STAR WARS: The New Jedi Order: Star by Star

At the core of every story lies a system of ethics that suggests, given the circumstances of the world, how to live a just and honorable life. In classic tales, this system springs from universal human themes that transcend time and culture, touching us in ways we comprehend best in our hearts.

Barely two chapters into The Fellowship of the Ring, I knew I was reading such a story. Of course, at the time I couldn't have expressed my feelings in quite this way. I was an avid reader in his early teens who had never heard of the collective unconscious or mythic archetypes. All I knew was that Tolkien's stories carried me to the same ancient and mysterious world I had always sensed lying half-hidden beneath my own, and that his characters spoke to me in a way beyond words.

In their humble natures and modest stature, the hobbits seemed more like family friends than epic champions. Yet, when circumstances thrust them into perilous adventures, they found the heroic in themselves, calling upon hidden reserves of strength and determination to fight and defeat the evil that threatened all of Middle-earth. Portentously, that evil could be defeated only through the efforts of such unassuming and ordinary people as Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. The great heroes--Gandolf, Aragorn, Galadriel, Boromir--were powerless to resist the corrupting influence of the ring.

The implications are as clear in our own time as they were during the tumultuous years surrounding World War II, when Tolkien wrote the trilogy. The responsibility for fighting evil lies within each of us, in the decisions we make and how we behave in our daily lives. Like the hobbit ring-bearers, we carry the power to defeat the evil that threatens us. Like Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam, we must be careful to wield it cautiously and wisely, lest we become the very thing we are fighting.

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David Gemmell, author of MIDNIGHT FALCON

Way back in 1960, when I was a child of 12, a schoolteacher decided to read a novel to the class. It was THE HOBBIT by a virtually unknown author named Tolkien. I was spellbound by it. When it was finished I went to my local library to see if there were any other books by the author. I found THE LORD OF THE RINGS. It was a tough read for a child, but I loved it so much I sent a letter to the author, asking if he would be writing more books about hobbits. A month later a letter arrived at my home. It was from Tolkien, and carried his home address at the top. In it he thanked me for my letter and said he was, indeed writing another novel, but sadly there 'are no hobbits in it. Even so I hope you will enjoy it one day.' I treasured that letter for many years until it literally fell apart. THE LORD OF THE RINGS had a profound influence on my life. Before reading it I was a shy and nervous child, hugely afraid of life and its dangers. Afterwards--though the fears remained--I understood the phrase 'evil thrives when good men do nothing.' When faced with the dangers of a tough area I did not hide. I would think, 'Aragorn would not run away--and neither will you.'

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Tess Gerritsen, author of THE SURGEON

When I was a medical student, I'd return to my dorm room at the end of the day, exhausted both mentally and physically by the demands of the curriculum, and would reach for the one comfort I'd looked forward to all day--THE LORD OF THE RINGS. (I am not making this up, by the way!) I had time to read only a little of it every day, but a brief visit to Middle-earth was all it took to calm me and make me feel centered. When the sad day came that I finally finished the last book, I went right back and started the first book again. So my relationship with Tolkien's masterpiece is very personal, very warm--and absolutely enduring.

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James Clemens, author of WIT'CH GATE

I picked up THE HOBBIT reluctantly when I was in seventh grade. The cover looked lame, all pastels and with stylized trees and vague images of barrels floating down the river. I was more a pulp reader at the time: Doc Savage, the Shadow, Edgar Rice Burroughs, early Heinlein. So what was all this hubbub about Middle-earth and midgets with hairy feet? Why would anyone want to read such rubbish?

However, much to my annoyance, a well-read and respected friend kept shoving the book in my face. "You must read this!" His eyes were wild and glassy, his hair in disarray.

So eventually, to calm his feverish ranting, I succumbed to his pressure and did just that. Sprawled on my parent's sofa in the living room, I cracked the book and took my first steps into Middle-earth. My guides, Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey. I quickly became immersed in the lore, the history, the lands, the peoples, the runes, the horrors, the triumphs...I literally became lost in the story, swept away in a flood of adventure that carried me through the entire THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy.

Twenty-five years later, I don't know if I ever fully came out of Middle-earth. A part of me is still lost in that other land, unable to escape. I have only to close my eyes and be transported back to Rivendell, to Hobbiton, to the trackless Mirkwood, to ash-strewn Mordor.

At times, I find myself shoving my tattered and dog-eared copy of the THE HOBBIT at someone else, some stranger on a street corner. "You must read this!" I insist. He throws coins at my feet and flees. But still I persist, searching for someone else to draw into Middle-earth, like some crazed Marine recruiter.

Great books do that to you. It's not that you want to share them. You simply must. You have no control. And THE LORD OF THE RINGS is such a story. It is timeless piece, with a joy and resonance that will speak to readers for all the ages to come.

So find a copy, read it, tell a friend.

There is always room in Middle-earth for one more traveler.

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Anne McCaffrey, author of THE SKIES OF PERN

As I was beginning to write stories about dragons, I never did read more than THE HOBBIT by Tolkien but I do most definitely consider him the most important mid-century writer and certainly his trilogy opened minds once again to the joy and magic of fantasy as a genre. My son, Todd, literally shredded and wore out three whole sets of the trilogy. (Used to be a family joke for what to give him at Christmas and his birthday--a new THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy.) He was not alone in his fascination with THE LORD OF THE RINGS in his peer group...or else he talked most of his friends into reading the books.

My dragons are, anyway, science-fictional, not fantasy-based but I certainly do know of the impact he made on an unsuspecting generation of readers young and old.

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China Mieville, author of PERDIDO STREET STATION

I am so not going to make any friends here.

I'm looking forward to the films. Honestly. Peter Jackson's a great filmmaker, and a big, decent, intelligent fantasy blockbuster is way overdue. So bring them on.

It's just the books that leave me cold.

I mean, I tried them, I really did. As a kid, as a teenager, as an adult. First they bored me, then they annoyed me. (I did say I wasn't going to make myself popular.)

Tolkien's language is coddling, like an ageing relative cooing over a bored toddler. Clichès snuffle up to us like moronic dogs. 'Fey he seemed', says J.R.R., 'or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins', and I'm thinking 'Like _fire in his veins_?' In Middle-earth, it seems, laughter only comes in 'torrents', and swords rarely fail to 'flash'. And when an army breaks upon the enemy, you can be damn sure it'll be _like thunder_.

Even back in the day, such a catalogue of sub-Wagnerian pomposity would hardly have read as scintillating. And it's ironic that the schoolboy- toy-soldier, swaggering it articulates was shown to be a monstrous lie in the very war that Tolkien had fought in, the lessons of which he had obviously forgotten.

Tolkien wrote the tap-root text for fantasy set in a neverland of Feudalism Lite, where Good and Bad are absolute, and moral and political complexities conveniently evaporate. In Middle-earth, the Good look the part, and the Evil are ugly. Elves are noble, Dwarfs are good salt-of-the-earth types. In this world, conveniently enough, social and ethnic pigeonholes are actually true. This is a paean to Order and Reasonableness, to the status quo: threats come from outside. This profoundly conservative view is a lie.

There's a reason I can't stomach this stuff. Tolkien described the function of his fantasy as one of 'consolation'. In other words, it becomes a point of principle that this literature mollycoddles its readers. What's wrong with escapism? Tolkien asks: jailers hate escapism. Of course as Michael Moorcock has pointed out, this is precisely untrue. Jailers love escapism. What they hate is escape.

Sometimes I feel like I'm being too harsh. I mean, Shelob--how cool is she? The Balrog--that's a monster and a half. And whatever else, Tolkien above anyone else systematised his secondary world, and thereby developed a fascinating new technique in fantasy. We all write in his shadow: even those of us who dis the old man are engaged in an Oedipal struggle against the biggest daddy of all. We might as well admit it.

But then just as I think I'm being too hard on J. R. R., I remember the most excruciating, the most painful, the most tooth-achingly awful hymn of praise to village idiocy ever committed to paper. I remember Tom Bombadil. And I realize that if anything, I'm being too gentle.

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Anne Perry, author of FUNERAL IN BLUE

I was in my twenties when I first read Tolkien, and it seemed to me that in it I had discovered something which must always have existed, a legend of my own people. Middle-earth is the landscape of my heritage, sharpened by imagination to show the deeper meanings less visionary eyes had missed.

As a child I was shown by my mother, the magic of dewdrops on grass, the first wild flowers of spring in woods and hedgerows exactly like those the Hobbits knew. There is a beauty in it drawn from the dreams of all of us. If Middle-earth does not really exist, then it should! Desire will create it.

The journey from the warm comforts of the Shires to a land of inexplicable dangers, the understanding of loss and price, the acknowledgement that one must inevitably face evil, and fight it, are part of the journey of growing up. The harsher landscape draws us on because it is adulthood and we must always go forward.

Certainly the language is rich to the ear, the adventure excites, the mystery captures the curiosity, but it is the imagery drawn from our hopes and fears which makes us return again and again. Don't we all yearn for the lost magic of elves? Who has not stood in the depth of an ancient wood and felt the primal power of trees older than memory? And I cannot be the only arachnophobe who can see a vast spider as the ultimate, repellent evil?

We all learn to face battles, loneliness and sacrifice, but THE LORD OF THE RINGS opened up to me our understanding of the nature of power and what happens to those who use it. The deception of the ring of power, robbing you inch by inch of the substance of your being as you use it is perfectly judged. And yet to refuse it when it is your responsibility, in the interests of common good, is only a different kind of destruction. Abdication is surrender.

It is my belief that one of the greatest purposes of life is to learn to use power well, never to exert it over another's rightful agency, and to let it go as soon as the task is done.

The handling of power is both our greatest weakness and our greatest strength. Much in our souls may be measured by the way we handle it.

I have seen no more vivid, lyrical or exact portrayal of this than in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. I think that is Tolkien's lasting contribution and what makes his work worth re-reading and sharing with others, for pleasure, excitement, music of the heart, but above all the wisdom to know ourselves.

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John Shirley, author of the upcoming DEMONS

How do we know classic literary greatness when we see it? Partly by an enduring universality of appeal that also has a deep resonance, a sense of level on level of connectedness to those things that make life meaningful. These qualities practically define THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Sometimes, too, greatness is indicated by a work's epiphenomena--by what it catalyzes. That is, if it's imitated again and again, fed upon, drawn upon, then it must have been a deep well indeed. Surely THE LORD OF THE RINGS is among the most imitated of works--almost always badly imitated. Though it is not the only primal work of High Fantasy--and far from the first one--it was perhaps the most epochal, over-arching in its complexity and completeness of its vision. Unlike its imitators, it boasts a soundness of prose--you could strike a tuning fork on Tolkien's prose and there would be no sourness in the reverberation.

A great work can be read again and again--and for me, Lord of the Rings is a book I can return to perennially as an entertainment. But it's also meaningful: it is a tale of how goodness, as a spirit, works in the world--through individuals and movements of people of good will, through resistance to temptation, through bearing a great burden patiently until the time it should be taken from you by something greaterÖand how--after each of us has traversed our personal Mordor--a mellow light beckons from beyond the horizon, from the eternal, to whence we sail for reward. No tale could be more relevant.

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