The Dark Tide: Book One of the Iron Tower Trilogy (Crime Club)

Rating:
Summary: A PUTRID LORD OF THE RINGS IMPERSONATION
Review: The story goes that Mckiernan wanted to write a sequel to Lord of the Rings. The mere consideration of that is utterly ridiculous and evidence of the arrogance of Mr. McKiernan. Thankfully the Tolkien estate, knowing that a sequel was a dumb idea but perhaps knowing, too, that Mr. McKiernan was a hack, told him to forget it.

Thus...we got the Iron Tower Trilogy. A version of the Lord of the Rings told as if someone were relating a very condensed version of the story that they heard one night in a drunken stuppor sitting over a campfire and roasting marshmallows.

As if totally thumbing his nose at the Tolkien estate, McKiernan barely tried to hide the fact that he was lifting the story nearly idea for idea. Warrows who replace Hobbits have names EXACTLY in the Tolkien style such as the main character Tuck Underbuck. And then there are Ruhks which replace Orcs, Hloks which replace Urak Hais, Ghuls that replace Nazgul, Gyphon replaces Morgoth...and well...you see what I mean. Virtually every major LOtR's character and idea has been McKiernan-ized.

As with his other books set in this realm, the various races of the world all have different names for the same places or creatures leading to mass confusion on the part of the reader. Add to that McKiernan's extremely clumsy prose, terrible pacing and lack of character development, and you get one huge mess of a story.

While this was McKiernan's first major book, his latter novels such as the Hel Fire Duology all suffer from the same weaknesses. For the life of me I cannot figure out why he seems to have such a legion of fans but I guess we all have our own tastes.

Rating:
Summary: A imitation that forms a solid foundation
Review: You might think from my title that this will be a negative review. My rating for this book says otherwise. Let me first say, that over the past twenty years I have read, and re-read, The Lord of the Rings about seven or eight times. It remains the standard by which I judge all other fantasy. Other reviewers, including myself, have called The Iron Tower Trilogy a The Lord of The Rings cliff-notes. But perhaps a better appellation is, The Lord of The Rings companion. It is not as rich in detail and history as Tolkien's work. Nor is it quite as epic. But the story is every bit as compelling, every bit as gripping, and certainly as worthwhile a read. The language is awkward in places and not as polished. Does McKiernan's work stand on its own, apart from comparisons to The Lord of The Rings? I think so. As with The Lord of The Rings I found myself near tears at certain points and almost laughing aloud at others. Will you like this book? I don't know. But as a Tolkien fan of twenty years I loved it. I prefer to think of the Iron Tower Trilogy as a tribute to the genius of Tolkien; much like Moorcock's Kane of Old Mars was a tribute Edgar Rice Burroughs.