Life, to some people, is a quest. A quest for knowledge; answers to some of the most burning questions that still endure today. Is the physical world merely a projection of our own making? For what purpose was Stonehenge really created? Will there ever be a workable Middle East peace process?* It is in this post that I shall provide the answer to a question as important, and much-posed, as these.

People who know me well enough will be able to recount to you a story which rocks the very foundation of Nerdishness to the core – I walked out of the cinema half way through The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring. When I divulge this information to those new to such a concept (i.e. that LOTR is shite), I am invariably met with the same response. “Why??!”, they wail, with a look of slack-jawed, glassy-eyed horror and confusion, as if I’d just barged into their house, urinated on their sofa and stamped on the hamster. And that is the question I shall now answer: what possessed me to commit such an abominable act, the strongest statement you can make against art of any kind. Cinema’s equivalent of spitting. That’s right, I spat in the face of J.R.R. Tolkein. Figuratively, of course. I’d never do that literally; the man was a war hero for God’s sake. Have some respect.

The answer, despite all that elaborate bullshit build-up, is fairly straightforward. I don’t like Lord of the Rings because it’s all too easy. Yeah, that’s it, that’s why I have a problem with it. By easy I mean easy – anyone could have written it, and lots of people probably did but never got published. Or they did get published, but their book is languishing with all the old Reader’s Digest collections and charity shop throw outs on the shelves of your local Wetherspoon’s pub, occasionally thumbed through by some pisshead who’s just staggered out of the bookies for a pint or seven while he waits for the 3.30 at Chepstow. You know the one – the guy who decides he has to talk to you about his childhood even though you’re only in there for a quick lager and a read of your book before you go to the train station.

Writing fantasy, you see, is a piece of piss. Easier than making my old music teacher cry (all you had to do was randomly bash the keys on your Casio, or set off one of those pre-programmed backing tracks, and she’d weep like Ellen MacArthur at sea) in fact. The important parts of a story – keeping a reader hooked, coming up with plot twists etc – are simple for a fantasy story writer; when you think it’s getting a bit dull, simply invent a new character, or bring a dead one back to life, or invent a new character specifically to bring said dead one back to life. Easy! What’s that, Gandalf’s dead? Well let’s raise him from the dead and make him even better than last time! Because, after all, we can. The writer doesn’t have to conform to regular logic or science (since fantasy is almost illogical by definition, and pretty much has to regard the laws of science in a contemptuous fashion), freeing him or her up to put down whatever the hell they bloody well feel like on the day. ‘Hmm, this is getting a bit tricky. How on Middle Earth will that character who will eventually be played by Viggo Mortensen ever manage to defeat all those nasty blokes who look like Bruce Forsyth? Erm…an army of ghosts? Yeah, that’ll do. Hey, it’s not like anyone can question it – this is fantasy!’

The fact that a series of stories that could have been written by you or me after drinking a case of lager are more popular than some of the greatest works of literature that have the decency to be set in the real world pains me. Writers who base their stories in reality have a much harder task on their hands; time, space and the laws of physics can’t just bend on a whim when you’re writing The Day of the Jackal, for example (incidentally, that’s 2 Forsyths that have crept into this post by accident).

But maybe I’m a cynic and it’s all just harmless fun which, conveniently for the Tolkein family and the film studios, has the nice side effect of being able to strip nerds of their cash from 50 paces. No, it’s definitely still rubbish.

*No, there won’t. So that’s two questions answered, then.

Life, to some people, is a quest. A quest for knowledge; answers to some of the most burning questions that still endure today. Is the physical world merely a projection of our own making? For what purpose was Stonehenge really created? Will there ever be a workable Middle East peace process?* It is in this post that I shall provide the answer to a question as important, and much-posed, as these.

People who know me well enough will be able to recount to you a story which rocks the very foundation of Nerdishness to the core – I walked out of the cinema half way through The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring. When I divulge this information to those new to such a concept (i.e. that LOTR is shite), I am invariably met with the same response. “Why??!”, they wail, with a look of slack-jawed, glassy-eyed horror and confusion, as if I’d just barged into their house, urinated on their sofa and stamped on the hamster. And that is the question I shall now answer: what possessed me to commit such an abominable act, the strongest statement you can make against art of any kind. Cinema’s equivalent of spitting. That’s right, I spat in the face of J.R.R. Tolkein. Figuratively, of course. I’d never do that literally; the man was a war hero for God’s sake. Have some respect.

The answer, despite all that elaborate bullshit build-up, is fairly straightforward. I don’t like Lord of the Rings because it’s all too easy. Yeah, that’s it, that’s why I have a problem with it. By easy I mean easy – anyone could have written it, and lots of people probably did but never got published. Or they did get published, but their book is languishing with all the old Reader’s Digest collections and charity shop throw outs on the shelves of your local Wetherspoon’s pub, occasionally thumbed through by some pisshead who’s just staggered out of the bookies for a pint or seven while he waits for the 3.30 at Chepstow. You know the one – the guy who decides he has to talk to you about his childhood even though you’re only in there for a quick lager and a read of your book before you go to the train station.

Writing fantasy, you see, is a piece of piss. Easier than making my old music teacher cry (all you had to do was randomly bash the keys on your Casio, or set off one of those pre-programmed backing tracks, and she’d weep like Ellen MacArthur at sea) in fact. The important parts of a story – keeping a reader hooked, coming up with plot twists etc – are simple for a fantasy story writer; when you think it’s getting a bit dull, simply invent a new character, or bring a dead one back to life, or invent a new character specifically to bring said dead one back to life. Easy! What’s that, Gandalf’s dead? Well let’s raise him from the dead and make him even better than last time! Because, after all, we can. The writer doesn’t have to conform to regular logic or science (since fantasy is almost illogical by definition, and pretty much has to regard the laws of science in a contemptuous fashion), freeing him or her up to put down whatever the hell they bloody well feel like on the day. ‘Hmm, this is getting a bit tricky. How on Middle Earth will that character who will eventually be played by Viggo Mortensen ever manage to defeat all those nasty blokes who look like Bruce Forsyth? Erm…an army of ghosts? Yeah, that’ll do. Hey, it’s not like anyone can question it – this is fantasy!’

The fact that a series of stories that could have been written by you or me after drinking a case of lager are more popular than some of the greatest works of literature that have the decency to be set in the real world pains me. Writers who base their stories in reality have a much harder task on their hands; time, space and the laws of physics can’t just bend on a whim when you’re writing The Day of the Jackal, for example (incidentally, that’s 2 Forsyths that have crept into this post by accident).

But maybe I’m a cynic and it’s all just harmless fun which, conveniently for the Tolkein family and the film studios, has the nice side effect of being able to strip nerds of their cash from 50 paces. No, it’s definitely still rubbish.

*No, there won’t. So that’s two questions answered, then.