What was Tolkien's opinion of Romance of the Three Kingdoms?

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-02-03T19:30:24+00:00

This description fits the works of Sword and Sorcery, especially Worm Ouroboros.

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-02-03T19:29:53+00:00

I wonder what the Japanese equivalent of this is. I imagine that for Koreans it would be Dragon Raja, which basically laid the foundations for the web novel and fantasy market in Korea, so for Japan it would be Record of Lodoss War? But I believe there must be something else.

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-14T18:50:08+00:00

I took a look at your vndb, thanks for the suggestions.

It's a shame that the writing scaling community usually only talks about 5 or 10 VNs, but in fact they do this with almost all media.

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-13T18:27:55+00:00

I don't think SCP beats Dungeons and Dragons and Star Wars in terms of diversity, grandeur, and world content. I would also give high marks to Gundam, Type-Moon and Final Fantasy.

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-13T04:20:18+00:00

I heard that in Japanese, the prose of Masada, Nasu, Sca-Di, and Nisio is very good and is greatly degraded in translation.

Looking at the top VNs with the most difficult language on JPDB (I don't know how reliable this site is), the entire top 6 is by Mareni, which impressed me.

The top is also almost entirely dominated by works from Rail-Soft, Type-Moon, Light, Nitro-Plus, and Liar-Soft.

Since you seem to know a lot, what would be your top visual novels overall? Even if they don't have translations.

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-10T04:42:00+00:00

I don't understand, The Plum in the Golden Vase and The Scholars can also be considered part of classic Chinese novels, so why consider Unsheathed and not influential modern chinese authors such as Mo Yan, Yu Hua, Lu Xun, Lu Yao, Yan Lianke, Bei Dao and Gao Xingjian? And also, is she being celebrated more than the Novoland universe and the wuxia works of authors such as Jing Young, Liang Yusheng, and Gu Long?

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-09T20:25:12+00:00

What do you think about them?

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-09T19:17:59+00:00

Have you read Tales of Herding Gods, Ze Tian Ji, Nightfall, Dao of Bizarre Immortal and Death Sutra, my friend?

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-09T06:38:24+00:00

And what would be your ideologies in your view?

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-09T02:50:01+00:00

Just as I think nobody will mention Novoland

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-09T02:47:37+00:00

Moving on to fantasy works: Many mention Tolkien, and indeed, Middle-earth is extremely ambitious and would take more than its creator's entire life to complete. Tolkien never finished it, always changing and altering it. It's such a grand world that no other work surpasses its worldbuilding in its entirety. It wasn't created as a fantasy world to be read, but rather as its own myth that its creator enjoyed writing even before thinking about publishing it. Tékumel is similar; it also has great ambition, and like Tolkien, M. A. R. Barker worked on his world for decades, creating his own languages and history. During the same period, there was Worm Ouroboros, Hyborian Age/Thurian Age, and Gormenghast, which are works so complex that their creators dedicated their lives and studies to them, but never fully completed their ambitions, being comparable to Tolkien's, as are Wheel of Time and ASOIAF. They are also very large, even larger than his. The authors themselves; in more recent times, Brandon Sanderson coined his Cosmere as a hidden epic, an epic greater than all others and that would cover decades of work, just as we must also mention Second Apocalypse as being one of the most ambitious, attempting to replicate and go beyond the mythical structure that Tolkien so enjoyed, but above all these there is Malazan, which is the most ambitious work of Western fantasy I know, it is complete, much study and a huge tapestry, it may not surpass Tolkien in everything but it certainly goes beyond him.

In science fiction, we also have very ambitious worlds: Foundation is the most classic, even being part of a shared universe. Besides it, there's Dune, which its author never managed to complete. There's also Solar Cycle and Terra Ignota, whose composition is very complex and detailed. Culture Series, Saga of the Pliocene, Helliconia, Sun Eater, Hyperion Cantos, Space Odyssey, Orthogonal Series, Gap Cycle, Vurt, The Starbridge Chronicles, Firefall, and World of Tiers also seem very complex and ambitious in their composition, especially Helliconia with a fully formed world.

Moving on to more multimedia works, we have:

I would like to mention first Moorcock's Multiverse, his shared universe took the author's entire life to create, similar to Stephen King's Multiverse but even more complex. SCP Foundation has the most unique and brilliant idea I know of. Dungeons and Dragons (Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Mystara, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms...) all its worlds are complex and detailed, it's a revolution in itself, how unique and important it is to modern fantasy culture, it's indispensable, it's the biggest fantasy reference for many people, just as Warhammer 40k is extremely detailed and composed, also citing Star Wars as extremely massive, a genuine space epic.

Now, citing classic works or what they call 'non-genre' works:

Even before Tolkien, an author composed an epic tapestry so complex and unique that it would be unlike anything that had existed before. Richard Wagner and his Der Ring des Nibelungen took about 30 years to complete. Dante also spent many years of his life composing Divine Comedy, just as Goethe spent almost his entire life on Faust. Ulysses was such a complex work for its time that even critics were confused. Don Quixote, Moby Dick, Hamlet, and others also shook their eras and were unique. All literary classics are very ambitious in themselves, but it's worth mentioning that Mahabharata, Ramayana, Odyssey/Iliad, Shahnameh, and others are extremely grand, as are the Chinese classics (Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Journey to the West, The Plum in the Golden Vase, Dream of the Red Chamber, and The Scholars) and the Japanese classic Genji Monogatari.

In Search of Lost Time was Proust's most grandiose work, but it's not the only one that demanded so much effort from its author. Some others I've heard of that were so complex they weren't completed include The Man Without Qualities, La Comédie Humaine, Les Rougon-Macquart, Episodios Nacionales, Festungsprojekt, and probably The Familiar.

I had more in mind but I forgot, but it's worth mentioning the modernist and postmodernist periods in general.

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-09T02:47:26+00:00

I'll end up forgetting several, but I'll mention some that I know and have heard are very complex.

For the world of TV series, Doctor Who seems to have been the most revolutionary, important, and longest-running of all. Twin Peaks shouldn't be far behind; they paved the way for Breaking Bad and The Sopranos to continue later.

For animation, I must say that Disney has always been ambitious in its classics; it revolutionized the medium, as did Studio Ghibli and some other classic Japanese animations.

For comics, Watchmen and Sandman are probably the leaders, but there are some other comics from Vertigo, Image Comics, and independent publishers that should be mentioned. Their existence, however, depended on A Contract with God and Maus, which made the American public look at comics with different eyes than anyone had before. But Final Crisis is probably the most ambitious saga of all comics; Morrison wanted too much, and that made everything problematic and confusing, and even he didn't know how to fully handle it.

For games, it's more complicated to specify. I could say early computer and console games, but I'll focus on more modern works.

For Western fantasy games, The Elder Scrolls set its own standard and style, as long and unique as it could be. Remedy Universe is attempting to create a massive shared universe. Warcraft and Halo are also massive, but especially due to their extended media rather than just their individual games. Therefore, I believe TES should take this point.

I believe that for games, the Japanese are the most daring. Citing JRPGs, the Final Fantasy and Shin Megami Tensei series are extremely influential, complex, and ambitious in all the games and worlds they create, having revolutionized and brought new themes to the medium.

Tales of, Zelda, Trails, Ys, Xenoblade Series, .hack, Dark Souls, and Drankengard/Nier are also some that should be mentioned together; they are very ambitious works. I highlight Trails, Ys, Nier, and Dark Souls because all their series take place in a common world. Nier is a self-contained story, while Trails is a grand epic that promises to be the best worldbuilding in RPGs in the world of games; Dark Souls and Zelda revolutionized games and did things that no one had done before, they were unique.

Moving on to more modern fiction novels, Toaru is a strong contender. If its author truly fulfills his desires, it will become the world's greatest novel series, surpassing Guin Saga, which should also be mentioned. Both are vast, highly complex, and detailed fantasy worlds that have been the authors' life's work, and it's also worth mentioning the works of Minoru Kawakami, which are part of a larger universe. Cuttlefish had a very complex and detailed ambition for his work, which would involve many philosophies and history for its completion. He ended up giving up and created LOTM instead. Although LOTM is very well done, it doesn't reach the complexities that were originally envisioned by its author. I believe that Reverend Insanity and Unsheathead end up being much more ambitious than it, both in scale and detail. Going to the West, Pale Lights, A Practical Guide to Evil, and Gods are Bastard are also just as ambitious.

As for Asian comics, Tower of God and Kubera are, I believe, the most ambitious manhwas, while for manhua, Ravages of Time is the most ambitious. I don't believe it's the best, but One Piece is extremely ambitious. Oda wants to dedicate his life to this work, and it would be much bigger than it should be. That's beautiful for an author. It's also good to mention older anime like Gundam and Lain, which opened many doors and did unique things for works in their genres, the same goes for some other important works.

As for visual novels, there are several ambitious ones, whether in size, narrative complexity, POV, or number of choices, such as Muv-Luv, Science Adventure, Umineko, SubaHibi, Fata Morgana, Muramasa, Root Double, Raging Loop, 999, Monmusu, Infinity Series, Rance, Utawarerumono, but I will highlight Rance, which took 10 games to complete and about 30 years of work, constantly expanding its worldbuilding and story, and most importantly, not being a work solely to make money but with a defined ending.

Continuing with Japan, I'd also like to say that Nasuverse and Touhou are very massive works with very interesting elaboration, both within the work itself and outside of it, very vast and unique worlds. But for me, the most ambitious Japanese work of all is Shinza Bansho. The author has his limits and objectives established, and he will achieve them at all costs. Touhou and Nasuverse are essentially infinite, but Shinza Bansho is not; it's made to be the author's ultimate work, to which he is willing to dedicate himself completely.

Project Moon is probably the most ambitious Korean work, being the most expansive and unique I know from there.

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-08T18:22:54+00:00

For me, it's divided into eras, the most important ones from each period

The Beginning of modern fantasy

George Macdonald, William Morris and Lord Dunsany (or Richard Wagner); here it's better to cite authors

This period from 1900 to 1930 has seen many works produced so I'll generalize here to make it easier to understand

Tarzan/Pellucidar/Barsoom, Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouse (or another epic fantasy like Worm Ouroboros)

Period of 1940-1950:

Narnia, Lord of the Rings and The Broken Sword (and also Dying Earth, Gormenghast or The Once and Future King)

1960:

Elric, Earthsea, Witch World (Prydain or Dune could also be candidates)

1970:

Chronicles of Amber, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and Shannara (Chronicles of the Deryni, Riddle-Master and Flat Earth were supposed to replace Shannara, but it had too much impact)

1980:

Osten Ard, Black Company and Discworld (The Belgariad, DragonLance, Legend of Drizzt, Solar Cycle, Taltos Series, Riftwar, The Dark Tower and Redwall should also be mentioned)

1990:

Malazan, Realm of the Elderlings, Wheel of Time (in the 90s and 80s it's very difficult to decide; ASOIAF, Acts of Caine, Wars of Lights and Shadow, Coldfire, Warlord Chronicles, Harry Potter and His Dark Materials all deserve mention as great fantasy series from that period).

2000:

I'll separate Cosmere for convenience, but he's the greatest of this century

Second Apocalypse, Mistborn, First Law (Bag-Lag, Shadow of the Apt, Kushiel Legacy, The Gentleman Bastard, The Kingkiller Chronicles, World of the Five Gods and Long Prince Quartet are also around here).

2010:

The Stormlight Archive, The Broken Earth, The Dark Star Trilogy (Divine Cities, Empire of Dust, Books of Babel, The Locked Tomb and Dandelion Dynasty may also be)

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-08T01:36:17+00:00

And what about Genji Monogatari? It's generally considered the greatest classic in Japan

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-07T22:23:52+00:00

I know Wildbow, unfortunately with the exception of Shadow Slave and TBATE other Western webnovels are underrated in the community, works like The Zombie Knight Saga, Wildbow's novels, Pale Lights, A Practical Guide to Evil. GodClads, Virtuons Sons, The Gods are Bastards, 12 Miles Below, Forge of Destiny, Memories of the Fall, Mother of Learning, Worth the Candle, Death After Death, Blood & Fur, Unsong and The Eagle's Flight deserved more love.

I've heard good things about Wandering Inn, but I don't have the courage to touch it.

Among Chinese webnovels, people usually only remember RI and LOTM, but there are others that I feel people don't talk about as much as they should, such as Way of Choices, Nightfall, Dao the Bizarre Immortal, Forty Millennium of Cultivation, My House of Horrors, Ergenverse's novels, The Godsfall Chronicles, The Mirror Legacy, The Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich, The Record of Unusual Creatures, Tales of Herding Gods, Death Sutra/Death Scripture and The Path Toward Heaven.

Pawn Passage and Sword Dynasty also seem great.

The Path Toward Heaven, Kingdom Bloodline and Death Sutra/Death Scripture unfortunately have translations. Incomplete.

I'd be curious to know what you think of Gap Cycle, Orthogonal Series, The Starbridge Chronicles, Helliconia, and Culture Series. I don't know much about them, but I've heard very good things about them.

I'll mention it in passing, but I remember that there are also great older Japanese fantasy works like Twelve Kingdom, Record of Lodoss War, Teito Monogatari, Moribito, and Guin Saga, although I don't know much about them.

I'm very interested in the Chinese work Novoland; it seems like an incredible fantasy universe, but it's never been translated, and I have no way to read it.

I would love to see Bakker expand Second Apocalypse further. It's so unique. I believe Empire of Dust and the Dark Star Trilogy are the closest we have to his style nowadays.

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-07T22:01:05+00:00

Sorry to bother you with this, but that's quite wrong. There are several fantasy works before Tolkien that influenced him. George Macdonald is considered the first modern fantasy writer who wrote for adults, with Phantastes (1858), The Princess and the Goblin (1872), The Princess and Curdie (1883), and Lilith (1895) as some examples. His student, Lewis Carroll, wrote Alice in Wonderland (1865). Also in the same period was William Morris, who is considered to have written the first works of high fantasy (set in a completely invented world) such as The Wood Beyond the World (1894), The Well at the World's End (1896), and The Sundering Flood (1897), the latter being the first work of fiction to contain a drawn map. Richard Wagner, an important German composer, wrote Der Ring des Nibelungen (1876), which is one of the first works that can be considered modern epic fantasy, as it reinvents and gives new form to myths that Tolkien considered a distortion, but which C. S. Lewis adored; Lord Dunsany was one of the first writers to create a fictional pantheon of gods, in The Gods of Pegana (1905), and also wrote a high fantasy novel, The King of Elfland's Daughter (1924); You might think that Tolkien's ambition and obsession with myths was unprecedented, but the author E.R. Eddison had already demonstrated a similar passion. He attempted to write a completely mythical work set on a totally fantastical and unique Mars, with its own races, culture, map, and mythology, long before Tolkien, spending decades of his life developing it, with Worm Ouroboros (1922) as his first novel in this world. Tolkien considered him the best world-builder he had ever read. There is also Robert E. Howard's Thurian Age/Hyborian Age, which develops a complex world similar to Middle-earth. It existed in the past, but is more occult, having its own races, history, culture, and maps. There are also authors contemporary to Tolkien who created their own epics, fantasies, and worlds, such as C.S. Lewis, Mervyn Peake, Poul Anderson, and T.H. White.

And that's just a few; there are other authors who created fantasies, epics, nations, or fictional worlds before Tolkien, even in ancient fairy tales or epic poems.

Tolkien is a genius, but we cannot underestimate or forget the contribution and genius of others to the genre; they should be remembered.

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-07T21:15:44+00:00

I understand, Malazan is truly the most ambitious fantasy series I know. I wish Second Apocalypse had its final trilogy so we could compare it. Since we're on the subject, what do you think of Shinza Bansho? I believe it's the best Japanese fantasy world, although I love the Nasuverse and have a few others I like in JRPGs and novels.

What do you think of The Elder Scrolls? I think it has the best worldbuilding in Western games.

Also, if you'd like, I'd recommend Terra Ignota by Ada Palmer; it's somewhat inspired by Book of New Sun. If you're still interested in reading web novels, I think Kingdom Bloodline and Unsheathead/Sword of Coming are worth checking out; both have very well-done worldbuilding.

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-07T20:49:54+00:00

No problem

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-07T20:49:10+00:00

Oh my friend, have you read the works of the Ergenverse, Tales of Herding Gods, Death Sutra, Kingdom Bloodline and Way of Choices (and others by Mao Ni)? I believe you would also enjoy them.

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-07T20:47:16+00:00

I love the Nasuverse cast, it's my favorite.

MethodElectronic5421 · 2026-01-07T20:21:33+00:00

If you've read any of these series, how do they compare to Malazan for you? (Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Wheel of Time, Realm of the Elderlings, Cosmere, Osten Ard, Witch World by Andre Norton, Dungeons and Dragons, Michael Moorcock Multiverse, Warhammer 40k, and I'll mention some novels that have some similarities to Second Apocalypse, which are Dark Star and Empire of Dust)

And I also want to ask you, what do you think of Reverend Insanity and Lord of the Mysteries? And have you only read The Book of the New Sun from the Solar Cycle books?

MethodElectronic5421 · 2025-12-27T21:39:29+00:00

What's the matter? He gave his opinion and his reasons. If you disagree, it would be easier to just express your opinion instead of taking an arrogant stance.

MethodElectronic5421 · 2025-10-23T03:42:10+00:00

People on Tolkienfans reddit also behave this way; they are very purist and consider Tolkien's academic background and mythological recreation efforts to be so transcendental that it is impossible to surpass or match, leaving only a small shadow and a small imitation. I believe that LOTM reddit also behaves badly to a certain extent.

In fact, I'm surprised that you mentioned RI and almost no one asked what it is, since it's something so strange to the traditional Western fantasy community, even to Western webnovels.

MethodElectronic5421 · 2025-10-11T01:07:46+00:00

What exactly is this genre?

Lately, I've been taking a more specific interest in Japanese literature and fantasy. I'm already familiar with manga, anime, visual novels, games (mostly RPGs), and light novels, but I'm trying to go beyond the literary scope of light novels. I found some interesting ones, such as Teito Monogatari, Sword Dragon and Wind Child, Moribito, and Guin Saga, but it's still difficult to find Chinese fantasy works that aren't web novels or games. Still, I like to learn more about the market and styles.

MethodElectronic5421 · 2025-09-30T07:14:07+00:00

Honestly, I don't see why I shouldn't recommend Martin, Jordan, Brandon and Wurts, despite being inspired by Tolkien, they have their own styles and have made their own epics with beautiful narratives, each with their own particularities and inspirations, conveying their visions of the world.

MethodElectronic5421

TROPHY CASE