Books like The Iron Tower

I've read some widely mixed reviews of this series. What strikes me is that many of the bad reviews read more like rants than anything else. I suspect these reviewers are so angry that the books exist, they feel the need to spew. For some time now in our society- from my viewpoint, starting with rock journalism- insults and putdowns have been accepted as intelligent discussion. Now with the internet cutting out the editorial process, we can add profanity to the list. Work done, book reviewed.So I read the series for myself. I made up my own mind. And in my own mind: It's not as good as The Lord Of The Rings, not by a long shot...but it's not as bad as some people think.Had I written the series, I might have though twice about the word 'Dimmendark.' And I groaned a bit each time the characters referred to another Darkday, as they rode across the 'Scape. Here's something not every fantasy fan seems to know: In addition to being an authority on language, J.R.R. Tolkien was quite careful in how he used it. All of his characters do not speak in the same manner. Quick note: Hobbits do not use the high speech. Rankin Bass seemed not to realize this, wherever original dialogue was added to their animated Return Of The King. Again: Hobbits do not use the high speech. But I fear that our understanding of high fantasy has become more informed over the years by Dungeons and Dragons and the entire role playing mindset than by study of the sources to which Tolkien turned. And I think it helps to think of The Iron Tower Trilogy in a vein similar to fantasy role playing. We take the tropes, mix them around, and tell our own story, whether or not we have the background to understand what we're doing.No, The Iron Tower Trilogy is not a carbon copy of Lord Of The Rings. That accusation suggests that McKiernan copied the plot point by point. Instead, he took many of the plot points, mixed them with many of his own, changed the sequence of events, and told the same kind of story his way. And no, it does not, as some reviewers have suggested, make The Sword Of Shannara look like an oasis of originality by comparison. Not at all. Shannara was just as derivative, and, in some ways, more so. Saying that is just another example of the kind of review-by-putdown approach I mentioned before. Differences? Many characters from LOTR have no equivalent here: Gandalf, Gollum, Samwise, Boromir, Faramir to name a few. The closest thing to Merry and Pippin are Hob and Tarpy- but they're killed off early on. We also have characters whose like do not appear in LOTR. Danner, Patrel and Merrilee are three examples.Tuck has no specific mission to match Frodo's. He's along on this quest because he and his friends have trained for it. He has no ring or other object to safeguard and then destroy.Frodo failed in his mission and had his bacon saved unintentionally by Gollum. Tuck succeeds in his mission. Yes, he goes blind, but he does succeed.Modru is closer in many ways to Saruman than to Sauron. Many people have questioned Tolkien's choice in not showing his Big Bad, by keeping Sauron an off stage villain. Modru's B-movie cheesiness starts to make Tolkien's seem like the wiser decision.The closest part of the series to LOTR is the crossing of the Drimmen-Deeve- equivalent to Moria. But in place of the truly frightening Balrog- a beast made more of fire than of solid matter, we have the Gargon- a big reptile. It's essentially a rubber suit monster from a Japanese horror film. And after being built up as an evil so terrifying that it's scared away generations of Dwarves and strikes fear at the very mention of its name- it's dispatched pretty 1-2-3. Four of our heroes: a man, a dwarf, an elf and a warrow poke it a few times and push it into a flaming bridge. Wow, he sure was made of some tough stuff, huh? But I did enjoy the series in spite of its flaws- and its audacity. I'm now reading the sequel, The Silver Call, and here's what surprises me: the sequel was actually written first, but so far it's written better. Could it be he had to rush out The Iron Tower Trilogy to meet Doubleday's demand for a lead-in? I don't know, but the book written second has more of the awkwardness of an untrained writer than the one written first.