I'll have to jump in on Tai's little train of opinions. Tolkien IS overrated. If there's one thing he did well, it was setting, but his setting becomes too much with too many words... And whenever a character is introduced, we get to hear of the rest of their family as well. As for his fight-scenes;
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But, no Tolkien, no fantasy, and I have to admit that his imagination and love for his world was great. He wanted to make a mythology for Britian, and it really shows in the first 100 pages of Silmarillion. Jeez. So many names :blink:.