The Dark Herald explains why JRR Tolkien should be forgotten?
The Timeline Where Tolkien Dies
Let’s take a look at what should have happened to The Lord of the Rings without support before we look at how that support changed its fate.In the 1960s, LotR has cult status among the counterculture. This was its peak.
Along come the 1970s, still riding the paperback boom. LotR stays hot on campuses, word of mouth stays strong. Tolkien is hot… But contained.
By the mid-seventies the boom has tapered off. Sales are still there, but the counterculture is dying off. It’s turning into The Thing Older Guys Are Into.
Now it’s the 80s. Generation X is in college and there has been no real generational handoff. Boomer stuff equals dull and dim. Fantasy has matured and expanded, but Gen X is reading Michael Moorcock, Tanith Lee, and Terry Brooks. All of them have been influenced by Tolkien, so there is a certain degree of backtrack—but The Lord of the Rings is becoming a niche, connoisseur’s market.
In the 1990s, the light has distinctly dimmed. Generation X has switched to grim-dark, urban fantasy. Neil Gaiman, Tanya Huff, Charles de Lint are ascendant. Tolkien is still influential, still respected, but has entered pre-obscurity.
With the 2000s come the Millennials. J.K. Rowling is blowing it so far out of the water you can’t see the ocean from space. Jim Butcher and Laurell K. Hamilton aren’t doing quite that well, but their impact is felt—while Tolkien’s is not. Sales of The Lord of the Rings are now a few thousand a year, mostly library editions. He’s known to the field, but invisible to pop culture.
He’s the guy Boomers won’t shut up about—like Timmy Hendricks or whoever.
2026—The torch has not been passed for three generations. Tolkien’s publisher dropped The Lord of the Rings a while back. The Tolkien Estate has long ago accepted market reality and self-publishes The Lord of the Rings on Kindle for $2.99 a copy or FREE on Kindle Unlimited.***
The Three Pillars of Tolkien’s Survival
There were three reasons that this alternate history never happened. And Tolkien fans only like one of them.
Hmmm… he does make a few salient points. Certainly the total failure of ARTS AND DARK AND LIGHT to break through to any sort of popular awareness despite the massive popularity of other, lesser epic fantasies tends to support this reasoning.
However, on a related note, I am pleased to be able to say that the German translation of A SEA OF SKULLS by Urs Hildebrandt is now complete, and we’ll be releasing all three AODAL books in German this summer.