This isn't really a rock-and-roll thread, as the subject line might suggest, though the impetus to this post was something I read in a book about rock legends Led Zeppelin.
In his book, Led Zeppelinآ´s Led Zeppelin IV (33 1/3), Erik Davis writes:
"Like all origin stories, this one depends on your frame of reference, your own lineages, your taste. It’s very much like the question of who deserves blame for the genre of heroic fantasy, whose multi-volume sagas of dwarf-lords and magic blades continue to clog the SF sections of bookstores. Hardcore sword-and-sorcery buffs will rightly name the pulp peregrinations of Robert E. Howard’s Conan, while more literary types will nominate, with equal justification, Tolkien’s "Lord of the Rings". Sabbath is Conan; Zeppelin is Lord of the Rings."
8O HUH!? "Hardcore sword-and-sorcery buffs will rightly name" Robert E. Howard's Conan as the beginning of heroic fantasy? I don't think so! The Tolkien remark I can tolerate, I suppose, but Howard? I like Robert Howard, mind you, but he was definitely NOT the start of heroic fantasy. Sorry. Nope.
In his book, Led Zeppelinآ´s Led Zeppelin IV (33 1/3), Erik Davis writes:
"Like all origin stories, this one depends on your frame of reference, your own lineages, your taste. It’s very much like the question of who deserves blame for the genre of heroic fantasy, whose multi-volume sagas of dwarf-lords and magic blades continue to clog the SF sections of bookstores. Hardcore sword-and-sorcery buffs will rightly name the pulp peregrinations of Robert E. Howard’s Conan, while more literary types will nominate, with equal justification, Tolkien’s "Lord of the Rings". Sabbath is Conan; Zeppelin is Lord of the Rings."
8O HUH!? "Hardcore sword-and-sorcery buffs will rightly name" Robert E. Howard's Conan as the beginning of heroic fantasy? I don't think so! The Tolkien remark I can tolerate, I suppose, but Howard? I like Robert Howard, mind you, but he was definitely NOT the start of heroic fantasy. Sorry. Nope.
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