Rating: 
Summary: Amazing
Review: I can't believe I found a book as good as the Lord of the Rings!
Rating: 
Summary: You're kidding, right?
Review: I found a copy of "The Iron Tower" in a shoebox of books I bought at a yard sale recently. I read the back cover and was greeted with the line, "Dennis L. McKiernan's Mithgar books are among the most beloved in all of fantasy fiction." Well this book is a must read then, right? Right??Don't believe everything you read. I struggled about a third of the way into the 600 page novel before I realized this was one of the worst fantasy novels I had ever read. Never mind the derivative story; the novel itself is badly written. One of the most glaring problems is the excessive use of passive voice. While it is not techincally wrong, it comes off as amateur and hackneyed. Also, any time an author uses "lo!" in the course of his writing, and is attempting a serious tone, I cringe. I cringed a lot while reading this.
Rating: 
Summary: Finish the series or don't rate it
Review: I had the exact thought everyone else here seems to have had. That thought being that Lord of the Rings was ripped off. This occurred during the first book. PART of the first book. If some of the nay sayers would have bothered to finish the entire trilogy they would have seen that the story line takes a life of it's own and does rather well at it. There are similarities, sure, throughout, such as they both enter caves to go under mountains, but such general themes are shared with almost every series at some point or another. I rate it as 4 stars, losing one star only because it seems to have recieved too much "inspiration" from Tolkien's work, but only one star because the following story makes me very glad that I chose to finish all 3 books.
Rating:
Summary: The worst example of plagarism is present in this trilogy
Review: I have been a fan and reader of fantasy novels for many years, and in all of those years I have never seen a more blatant example of pure plagarism. These books (and they are honestly not even well written enough to be called books) are a very poor ripoff of JRR Tolkiens Lord Of the Rings. Mr. McKiernan's books are not just similar to Tolkien's, but almost the exact same story and characters, just with very slight (and not very good or creative) differences. For anyone who has read Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, you will be horrified that this shoddy series was allowed to be published, and shame on the publisher and McKiernan for such a sad ripoff attempt that has not gone unnoticed. McKiernan, you have taken one of the greatest stories in the history of fantasy and science fiction, and defiled it so badly, you should be banned from ever, EVER, writing again, or should I say stealing others work and plagarism! And by the way, since I had to rate this book and couldn't go any lower than 1 star, I took the lowest possible rating available, but believe me this book is far less than 1 star, and is beyond negative review, there is simply not a number low enough for this horrid piece of theft (I mean work), or this vile, plagaristic author.
Rating:
Summary: This series of Plagarism
Review: I know a lot of Fantasy and Sci-Fi authors 'borrow' creative elements and writing styles from each other, but this series is a complete rip-off of Tolkien. The characters and many of this series' elements were practically 'copied and pasted' from Tolkien to this series. If you read Tolkien's series before this one you'll understand exactly what I'm talking about. I'm surprised there hasn't been a lawsuit filed for plagarism on Tolkien's behalf. If you are looking to read some books of this genre, your better off with Robert Jordan, George R.R. Martin, Raymond E. Feist, Ed Greenwood, Piers Anthony, Anne McCaffrey, and others of their caliber. The only reason I give this series even one star is beause at least McKiernan stole this story from the greatest fantasy author of his time (Tolkien).
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Writing
Review: I loved Dennis McKeirnan's Iron Tower. It is a beautifully writen book. The characters seemed wonderfully real and had a tangible feel to them. The story is much like J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Ring series.
Rating:
Summary: I loved it.
Review: I read these stories 14 years ago, and becasue I have lost my copies and wanted to reread them I am buying them again. I think the people who are going off on how it copies Tolkien have too much time on their hands. When I finished the 1st The Dark Tide I couldn't get to the bookstore fast enough to get the next two. I read the Shadows of Doom in one day. You have to enjoy reading this type of books. I have never been able to finish The Return of the King, twice. The story is an enjoyable read. One should read it just to enjoy reading it and not looking too deep into the story. It was very enjoyable and I am looking forward to reading it again. I have read and reread may of McKiernan's books and have enjoyed all of them. To show how much I did enjoy reading them, I am an American living in Ireland and having a friend ship these over to me. That is how much I enjoyed reading them.
Rating: 
Summary: Bored
Review: I started reading the iron tower and right from the first chapter the story it very familiar. I only got a quarter of the way in and then I stopped because I did not like the very obvious copying of the lord of the rings. However, I have a comment to one of the other reviewers who claimed that Jordan's and Brook's series were nock offs of Tolkien's work and I want to know what he was thinking to make such a comparison. Personally, I got bored with the lord of the rings, I read them but nothing in them remotely apeals to me. However, I loved both of Brooks and Jordan's novels and I can not see where the comparison is made. However, although I did not enjoy the lord of the rings I will say that anyone who wants to read the iron tower should first read the lord of the rings and then try the iron tower.
Rating:
Summary: Plagarism is the least of the problems with this one...
Review: If all you could find wrong with this book was plagarism then don't bother....your point has been made, and this isn't even the worst thing wrong with this work. Although there is no doubt that the author is an accomplished prose crafter, he is in hopeless need of storytelling skills. There is dismally little character development here and it is just impossible for the reader to really care about those the story is about. All the characters speak the same, with the exact same voice, which is, not coincidentally, the self-same voice as the narrative. The action is repetitive and monotonous in the very literal sens eof that word: a one tone song. The siege of the castle is repeated over and over with each of five walls breached. The journeys of the characters - whether in captivity to the Iron Tower, or south to assemble the king's army - is desrcribed in excruciatingly uninteresting detail. Granted, Tolkien describes his journeys in equal detail, but he had character development as a backbone to these to keep the reader's interest. The Dread, supposedly a nearly impossible to kill menace is surprisingly easily disposed of. Plot development comes way to late. Not until the last thirty pages of the second book is exposition given as to Modru's motivation for besieging Mithgar and trying to conquer the land. There is also little or no subplotting to dovetail the main plot and to enrich the overall piece. There is no conflict except the main one: all of the members of one side of the conflict are friends. What minor conflicts do arise are quickly resoved with little byplay. Overall it has been one of the most difficult books I have ever forced myself to get through. I finally had to piut it in the bathroom where I am forced to read it during visits to the throne just to get through it. My advice is don't saddle yourself with this one. There are too many other phenominal pieces of fantasy literature out there to stall yourself on this attempt
Rating:
Summary: A frustrating waste of time.
Review: Let's face it, every fantasy author must copy Tolkien at some point in his or her career, whether or not they refer to it as "a tribute". Some are more obvious about it (take this trilogy, for example--I mean, Gildor? Did he have to go that far? Khazad-dum/Kraggen-cor and following sequences, Sting, warrows/hobbits, vulgs/wargs, Galen/Aragorn, Laurelin-princess/Laurelin-Valar tree, Rael/Galadriel, Brega/Gimli, and the rest were bad enough, but did he have to be so blatant as to [borrow] the name?!) than others (Mercedes Lackey has a "Lake Evendim" in her Valdemar novels). However irritating this can become to dedicated Tolkien-lovers, if the book is good enough, none of this matters. "The Iron Tower" isn't good enough. If I may bring him back into the rant, Tolkien is often accused of being sexist. Certainly he is; the man thought feminism was a sign of the Fall. BUT he had Eowyn! He had Luthien! He had Galadriel, the most powerful elf in Middle-Earth! Who does McKiernan have? Merrilee? A spoiled hobbit-brat--oh, excuse me, WARROW-brat--who breaks down after every hint of a fight and can't speak for herself when her position is first debated? What kind of warrior is this? And don't even THINK of telling me that Laurelin is anything even remotely resembling a heroine. What does the girl do? She sits there crying, knife in hand, while her 15-year-old brother-in-law is nearly killed! She's a disgrace to the feminine gender. Eowyn would be ashamed of her--and she's not the only one. Even sexism can be ignored in small quantities, or even not-so-small quantities, such as Tolkien (again), or David Eddings' Elenium/Tamuli (and Eddings had Mirtai! Ehlana and Sephrenia, too...). But McKiernan's idea of an interesting novel seems to be battle scene after battle scene after battle scene. For R.A. Salvatore (another Tolkien-imitator), this WORKS. But R.A. Salvatore's battle scenes have an intimacy and sense of presence that make the reader feel as if he or she is fighting the war. McKiernan's fights bored me nearly to tears. Nothing really truly happens. In between the battle scenes is nothing but more boredom. I'd hoped for something better from the elves. I love elves. Elves are so beloved, retold, and steryotyped that they are all too easy to ruin--and McKiernan does it completely. Like all of the characters, the elves are two-dimensional cardboard puppets. No motivation, except the painfully over-cliched "Oh, look, an evil Dark Lord is returning. Let's send someone to represent us in the group of heroes that must now save the world!", which doesn't even count as motivation anymore, no development, nothing. The characters simply aren't real. There's no one you can sense outside the story, no one who remains with you after you close the book. There's only the memory of a very long and fitful nap. If you want quality fantasy, try Tolkien. Try Salvatore. Try Lackey. Try Bertin. Try Eddings. Try Pierce. Try the other Pierce. Try Pullman. Try Davis. Try Cunningham. Try Lindskold. Try SOMEONE, but this series simply isn't worth it!
| 
