Quote:
Originally Posted by mitsuganae
Many thanks to everyone for your suggestions!
Incidentally, the concept of a particular species/race as the source of magic and/or a genocidal component for magic's departure is not a big deal to me, so suggestions need not be limited to those that contain them.
Telmah, I too have reservations about Tolkein's writing style, but agree that as a mythmaker he is quite impressive. I've only read parts of "The Silmarillion" (the creation myth is one of the best of its type IMHO) and "Lord of the Rings" but maybe I'll watch the films one day (yes, I know I'm one of the rare people on this earth who have not watched them!).
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Tolkien was a linguist first and foremost--his perspective on
Beowulf were very ground breaking. Personally though...the long songs got very old and his descriptions were lacking--there's all of one line about the Balrog.
It is such an important book to read though, because most of what we consider of modern fantasy starts with it--the idea that elves were elves and dwarves weren't evil spirits...most works have departed from this into series like
The Wheel of Time or
The Sword of Truth or the
Shannara. Basically whether its Robert Jordan or David Eddings or anyone else, they'll cover where magic came from. Even somewhat humerous books
The Magic of Xanth series, cover this. At the end of the day though, it starts with Tolkien and that's the best place to begin.