Customer Reviews

After the King: Stories In Honor of J.R.R. Tolkien

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Like many collections of short stories, After the King is a mixed bag, but it contains a higher ratio of stories I liked than most do. Many of the best of the fantasy genre are here, including Pratchett, McKillip, Norton, de Lint, and Beagle. (And though this book is credited to Jane Yolen, she is mainly credited writes a introduction -- a good one. She also writes one of the below)

"Reave the Just" by Stephen R. Donaldson was one of my least favorites -- there's hardly any magic, and none of the characters really connect. We have a besotted youth, a spineless widow, a sadistic suitor, and Reave the Supremely Uninteresting. But fans of Terry Pratchett -- and of Cohen the Barbarian -- will enjoy the wry and funny "Troll Bridge." The SF story "Long Night's Vigil at the Temple" by Robert Silverberg is spellbindingly written and uncomfortably plotted, on the subject of religion and bringing up intelligent questions about the basis of some of them.

"The Dragon of Tollin" by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough is a fairly average dragon story. Poul and Karen Anderson's "Faith" is an intriguing story simply by virtue of featuring some goblin POV. I found "In the Season of the Dressing of the Wells" bu John Brunner boring, obnoxious and poorly characterized. "The Fellowship of the Dragon" by Patricia McKillip is perhaps the best of the entire volume, with the poetic language and intriguing plotline. Tolkien would be proud.

I found Harry Turtledove's "Decoy Duck" (what a horrible title) to be intriguing, though a little out of my grasp. Andre Norton's "Nine Threads of Gold" is haunting to the core. Charles de Lint's "Conjure Man" is equally haunting for different reasons, starting with a quote from Tolkien himself, and proceeding to a lesson about nature and life. The dedication is excellent.

Emma Bull's "Silver or Gold" is a delightful story in the tradition of old fairy tales and myths. Similarly Karen Haber's story "Up the Side of the Air" is cute without being cutesy, the tale of a wizard who gets a new assistant -- who happens to be a little girl. Peter S. Beagle pens the story "The Naga," which is rather densely written but also in the tradition of old fairy tales and myths. Some readers may like the quirky contemporary story "Revenge of the Sugar Plum Fairies" by Mike Resnick, but I thought it was weird and mildly irritating. ("Number one on our hit list is Walt Disney"?)

"Winter's King" by Jane Yolen is haunting and sad at the end, and much shorter than the surrounding stories. "Gotterdammerung" by Barry N. Malzberg was blah -- I didn't connect to anyone in it, and it was formatted and written somewhat oddly. "Down the River Road" by Gregory Benford is also fairly dull, stretched out over a charmless contemporary setting and divided into chapterettes. Judith Tarr redeems the ending with the haunting, poetically-ended "Death and the Lady."

And finally, for some inexplicable reason Dennis McKiernan wrote a story as well: "Halfling House," one of the worst SF/F short stories I've ever read. A small warning: it contains his ripoff hobbits the "warrows," as well as various other short species staying in a tiny, dimension-traveling inn -- and a few clumsy Tolkien homages that made me wince rather than smile. Not to mention the incoherent ending.

Before anyone buys this simply because it says that the stories are "in honor" of Tolkien, let me warn you: Most of these stories bear no resemblance to Tolkien's work -- whether for good or ill. Some are contemporary stories; some take place in the generic medieval settings, and some take place in specific medieval settings (complete with Viking names). Some are comedic, some tragic, some a combination of both -- several were introspective. Some of them are pure fantasy, no fantasy, mildly fantasy-like, or bordering on SF.

A mixed bag, as I said before, but with several excellent stories. Even if you are not a fan of the authors, you may want to check it out.

I see quite a few other readers have preceded me, but I just want to express my anger, as a life long Tolkien fan, at the ethically shabby tactic used to sell this book. If I were an author who's story was published as a part of this collection, I'd be pretty angry, too; I doubt if any of them had any idea that they were going to be associated with a shameful hustle like this. As has been pointed out: none of these stories have any thing to do with Tolkeien's world or characters, nor are they written in a style that recalls his. This is just a particularly grubby sales tactic, intended to sell books to those of us longing to revisit that world in some way. Shame on the editor or the publisher or whoever hatched this misleading title and subtitle- and thanks for the internet, where wary book buyers can be warned.

Wow! The first word to come to mind when I read this book after I got it from the library. I searched local bookstores for almost a year before I decided to try Amazon. But don't be fooled, this book is not meant to be anything like Tolkien. It is written by authors who have been greatly influenced by this great man and his work. There is a story here for everyone, whether you like comedy, tragedy, classic fantasy, or futuristic science-fiction. True, not all the entries were "right up my alley", but reading each of them was a pleasure. I recommend it to anyone whose life has been changed by the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien.

I found all of the stories well written and enjoyable, but then I did not assume that they would be done in a Tolkien-like writing style or would be based on Tolkien's works. If you are looking for stories that are reminiscient of Tolkien's Middle Earth, you will be sorely dissapointed. If you are looking for an tome of enjoyable fantasy fiction (that sometimes borders on science fiction) you will like this collection. The fact that the stories (although very good) did not live up to the title of the book prompted me to give it three stars rather than four. Caveat Emptor.

In her introduction to this collection of short stories, purportedly written in honor of the late Oxford don JRR Tolkien, Jane Yolen discusses the flood of fantasy literature that has burst through the gates opened by the phenomenal success of The Lord of the Rings. She mentions the shameful use of his name and work for titles that he would not have even approved, let alone recommended, and concludes that he would have been horrified. Of course, she insists, the volume in hand is different. These stories are not imitations of the master, but rather (shifting into hair-splitting mode) they are "in honor of" him.

In reality, a good percentage of the stories in After the King are the worst sort of imitations, salads of mythic creatures from the Tolkien cupboard with nary a character who could hold his own standing across a fence discussing taters with the Gaffer. Tolkien understood that quests and elves and orcs can only be fantastic when seen with the proper perspective, balanced against the homey and the mundane.

It would be unfair to suggest that all of the stories in this collection are derivative tripe; Terry Pratchett's Troll Bridge does not fail to amuse while Poul and Karen Anderson's Faith is dark yet moving. On the whole, though, Tolkien is better honored through books that don't use his name as a cheap sales gimmick.

Good stories, but if you expect anything that has any continuity with the Ring Mythos, look elsewhere. You will be very disappointed.

What next, "tales of the old south- a tribute to tolkien"? Or how about "a history of jet planes- stories in honor of tolkien"?

The stories, as a collection, deserve 4 stars, but this book's title and dust jacket (hardcover ed.) is so misleading that ol' Greenberg gets only one.

One might suspect that in "After the King: Stories in Honor of J.R.R. Tolkien," each story would have a distinctly Tolkien-esque feel. However, this is not entirely the case. Not every short story contained here is even traditional high fantasy, and sometimes it seems more like an issue of a fantasy or sci-fi magazine with assorted, mismatched tales.

Of course none of this means much in the long haul, because there are some nice little gems hidden in this 500 page volume. I particularly enjoyed the hilarious "Troll Bridge," the suspenseful "Faith," "The Halfling House," the haunting 6 page tale called "Winter's King," and even "The Revolt of the Sugar Plum Fairies," though the latter was one that seemed out of place.

Fantasy and science fiction fans alike will certainly find enjoyment here, whether it's comedy, adventure, or emotional yarns you prefer. Just don't expect Tolkien-esque fantasy from cover to cover.

(This is kinda long... the short and sweet is I really enjoyed this book)
After seeing the run of negative reviews I decided to revisit 'After the King' and see if it had lost any of the charm it had the first time through... nope, it still has it. Yes it is true that some of these stories are not tales Tolkien himself would have written, yes some of them can seem out of place amidst the rest, and no they do not take place in Middle Earth, but they all are sweetly faerie and therefore I believe quite Tolkienesque. Please bear with me as I try to explain.

Tolkien was very much the grave and nostalgic author we see in the LotR but he was a lot more too. We know he was light-hearted in the 'Hobbit', but he was also silly and charming in 'Roverandom', and silly and irreverent in 'Farmer Gilies of Ham'. In 'The Smith of Wootton Major' he delighted to show us brief glimpses of a magical land while in the 'Silmarilion' he methodically, but no less wonderfully, presented the whole beautiful and tragic thing. But I think he was most like the painter in 'Leaf by Niggle' who came to find joy in his work yet at the end still yearned for more.

All of the stories in 'After the King' share some of those qualities, albeit some more than others. There are goofy tales and grave ones. Some are light-hearted and some bittersweet. Here's just a few examples: there is the hope-against-all-hope redemptive story of 'Faith', the tongue-in-cheek 'Troll Bridge' reminiscent of Tolkien's own nostalgia for bygone days, and 'Death and the Lady' which exudes that same sense of quiet determination in the presence of great loss that characterized Tolkien's epics. But when it comes to being "after the king" I think 'Gotterdammerung' speaks best for the entire collection when it opens with the following line "We are talking essentially about the need to preserve a sense of magic, of mystery." That is what Tolkien desired(don't take my word for it, read his essay 'On Fairy Stories' and see for yourself). That is what he did best. Never being too fatalistic or disingenuous, he made his worlds a little mysterious. He made them wonderful. These tales in 'After the King' have a bit of that magic in them and the best part of all is that you don't need to be some sort of LotR buff to appreciate it.

If this rambling attempt to compare a few short stories to Tolkien's body of work leaves you a bit sceptical (and my apologies for being so long winded, I felt compelled to speak out) let me encourage you to read this book if for nothing more than the introduction, or addition, to some very good authors. I had not read any of these authors beforehand (I was mostly spending my "fantasy time" rereading LotR) but after finishing many more books by McKillip, 'Fellowship of the Dragon' is still one my favorites. 'Reeve the Just' me led me directly to some of Donaldson's other works, and a friends comparison between the brave apprentice in 'Up the Side of the Air' and the proud apprentice Ged of Earthsea fame introduced me to yet another great author I had never read before. So don't be discouraged because this is not some sequel to 'Return of the King'. Even years after reading these stories and authors for the first time I still feel this is a very good collection worthy of its title.

Short stories whose quality varies tremendously. Certainly none of the stories ranks as an all time classic. Worse, the connection to Tolkien's works is vague at best... "Authors writing in their own distinctive style but still somehow being evocative of J.R.R."? Please! That is a lame pretense. This book is clearly a marketing ploy. It serves the same purpose as the Amazon.com lines reading "If you've read this book, you might enjoy..." Only, to their credit, Amazon.com is straightforward about it.

Don't be fooled: the stories are nothing like Tolkien and have nothing to do with him at all. If you can get past the exploitation of the name for marketing purposes, however, you can still enjoy the stories. McKiernan, Pratchett and De Lint are some of my favorite authors, and they don't disappoint here. Except for "Up the River Road," which is too dragging and pointless, the whole collection is highly enjoyable. Buy it, settle back, and prepare to get lost in the imagination.