What might be an interesting philosophical
discussion turns into genuine fantasy only in the
final few pages. More volumes of the encyclopedia
begin turning up, revealing increased detail about
the imaginary world, and other artifacts follow.
The world slowly becomes aware of the existence
of Tlon until this supposedly fictional reality begins
to replace the familiar one. We learn at the end
that the narrator is now living in what has become
Tlon, and the old world of humanity is now the
fiction. The story is filled with exotic, thought-pro-
voking ideas and speculations.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1892–1973)
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien will, of course, be re-
membered primarily for the Lord of the Rings tril-
ogy—THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING(1954), THE
TWO TOWERS(1954), and THE RETURN OF THE
KING(1955), as well as the associated novel, writ-
ten earlier, THE HOBBIT(1937). His development
of an elaborate, extended history accompanied by
minutely detailed descriptions of his many human
and nonhuman civilizations in Middle Earth gives
the books a feeling of authenticity rarely equaled
in fantasy fiction. His influence on authors who
followed is immeasurable. There are those who
have directly imitated him such as Terry BROOKS
and others who have adopted one aspect of his
work, as is the case with the many authors who
contribute to the FORGOTTEN REALMS fantasy
world series. His work remained relatively un-
known until the 1960s, when mass-market paper-
back editions propelled him to superstar status,
and his work has maintained its preeminent posi-
tion ever since. There has been no other single
work as influential on other fantasy writers.
Tolkien wrote other fantasy fiction, although
nothing else as ambitious or as successful. The
short Farmer Giles of Ham(1949) is a pleasant, lik-
able story about a farmer who tames a dragon.
Smith of Wooton Major(1976) is similarly low key,
almost in the style of a traditional fairy tale. His
several short stories and a few related articles have
been collected in various combinations as The
Tolkien Reader(1966) and Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo(1975), and fragments
and sketches appeared in book form as Unfinished
Tales(1980) and with others added as The Book of
Lost Tales(1983) in two volumes. His only other
effort at a full-length fantasy was the far less suc-
cessful The Silmarillion(1977), which is actually a
mesh of interrelated stories chronicling the history
of Middle Earth. Roverandom(1998) is a short chil-
dren’s story about a dog magically transformed into
a toy. Although some of his other fiction demon-
strates flashes of the scope and vision of his best-
known work, the plots are less dramatic and are at
times bogged down by the same depth of detail
that worked so effectively in the Lord of the Rings.
With the exception of Farmer Giles of Ham,which
is an underrated gem, Tolkien’s short fiction is of
only minor interest and would have been forgotten
if he had not also written his masterpiece.Tremayne, Peter(Peter Ellis)(1943– )
Peter Tremayne is the pseudonym of the writer and
Celtic expert Peter Ellis, who has written horror
and fantasy as well as science fiction and detective
stories. His first novel in the horror genre was The
Hound of Frankenstein(1977), a slight but amusing
addition to that saga in which the obsessed Doctor
Frankenstein reanimates a dead dog, which escapes
to cause trouble in the surrounding countryside.
This was quickly followed by Dracula Unborn
(1977, also published as Bloodright), the memoirs of
Dracula’s son Mircea recounting his days as a
Balkan nobleman. He next wrote The Vengeance of
She(1978), a sequel to the lost world adventure
novel SHE(1886), by H. Rider HAGGARD, but it
was notably inferior to another sequel, Journey to
the Flame(1985), by Richard MONACO.
Tremayne’s next few books were almost all
conventional potboilers, ranging from science fic-
tion to horror. He continued the story of Dracula
in The Revenge of Dracula(1978) and Dracula My
Love(1980), the last of which is one of Tremayne’s
best books. Others such as Zombie!(1978) are
competently written but predictable. His best hor-
ror novel from this period is The Morgow Rises
(1982). After 1980 he turned to traditional fantasy,
drawing on his background in Celtic lore for The
Fires of Lan-Kern(1982) and its sequels, The De-
stroyers of Lan-Kern(1982) and The Buccaneers of
Lan-Kern(1983), using traditional myths as theTremayne, Peter 353