Palacký University in Olomouc Philosophical

Introduction

The father of modern fantasy and the American Tolkien - those are the names they were called. Professor J.R.R. Tolkien and George R.R. Martin share many characteristics, despite being as different from each other as possible. They both come from a poor family, but they managed to graduate from the Universities with Honors. They both started to write stories when they were just small children and they both were teachers of literature (at least for some time). But most importantly they both created famous epic fantasy worlds with extraordinary sense of detail and dedication to their work. By following the principles of the World Building theory I will focus on the most important aspects of creating the secondary worlds and I will try to describe the worlds of Tolkien and Martin with respect to them.
The aim of this theses is to draw attention to the similarities in the works of both authors and decide, whether the success of Martin’s fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire could be, at least partially, caused by the fact, that after more than thirty years of more or less successful attempts of aspiring fantasy authors to imitate Tolkien and his work, there finally is someone, who can be rightfully called “the American Tolkien”.

2. Tolkien and Martin

In this chapter I would like to introduce both authors through their lives, show their backgrounds and provide some information about how their most significant works were created. While they both come from a poor family, it is interesting to see how differently their lives were going, mostly because one of them lived in England and the second one is an American, but also with respect to the eras they were living in. The factual information in this chapter was taken from H. Carpenter’s Tolkien, A Biography for the subchapter 2.1 and from George R.R. Martin’s official webpage georgerrmartin.com for the subchapter 2.2, if not stated otherwise.

1.