Book discussion - from other thread

[System Commander]

Even though we have ventured off topic, I feel I have to follow up with Cam.

I read the first .. oh, about 4-5 Dresden books.. the only problem I had with them was that I found Dresden just a bit to sappy. I think the last book I read he was crying becasue he saved someone, or loved someone or something.. I loved the lore behind the magic universe he functioned in, but all the emotional turmoil, morals etc. just started to wear on me a bit.. I think I wanted to be a bit more rough and tumble. But hey, I definitely understand that's alo of the appeal. I had thought about picking them up again, but just hadn;'t gotten around to it yet.

My only other pet peeve with them is in every book, they are wirrten to they can stand alone. So, you pick up book 4.. and they will take a few pages to explain how the magic works, what Dresden does, what his skull buddy is, etc. Let assume 90% of the people reading number 4 have read the previous 3.. thats alot of redundancy.. and I really dont like it when the book assumes your stupid, or needs reminding.

So, all in all though, they were really cool for the world around Dresden and how it all interacts, I just want Dresden a bit meaner.. and maybe he gets there in later books?

[Administratum]

Yea, you kinda hit the nail on the head with your comments about what you dont like in the books. I pretty much agree with what you are saying. I have started the second, but im not far in so i think i might abandon the series until i get some more classics out of the way, and then if im going to read soda pop fiction why not stay in the 40k universe. Still no advice on asimov. I liked The Last Question, but man the other stuff i have tried sucks balls. His writing style seems so dated, and the guy reading his =I=censor=I= sounds like he is straight out of a 50's government propaganda ad. Im going to dump them unless someone can tell me whats worth reading.

[Terran]

He does. BY which I mean, Dresden does. I would actually argue that he is very 'rough around the edges', but constantly fights to try and be better than his baser self.

I am a very very prolific reader of fantasy/sci-fi beyond the 40k mythos. I can safely say that anything by Jim Butcher is something I will buy w/o even reading the flap.

All that emotional stuff is called character development. Unless you want Dresden to be something like 'generic wizard w/ a hat A', that kind of stuff is essential. Personally, I think Butcher does very well with it, and it helps develop Dresden's character through-out the series.

I would argue that there is plenty of rough and tumble. I usually credit Butcher for placing more 'foot to ass' (in either direction) than many fantasy authors.

@ Cam: That is because most of Aasimov's stuff was written in that era and earlier. It will be influenced by themes from that time. Big Brother is watching, Red's must die, communism fears, etc.

Personally, I steer clear of it. My father has a disturbingly large collection of his works, and loves them. Myself, I just didn't grow up in a time when I would have a decent frame of reference for what he is writing about. Also, remember that Science Fiction itself has been built on top of something he helped start. Going to it now is kinda like going back to OOP 40k models. Some of them are gems, but most jut don't compare to today's more 'refined product'.

Rambling post over. I may not say a ton, but I am passionate about me books.

[Viserion]

Butcher definitely does rehash previous info on his universe but personally, I can easily overlook and skim past these sections when an author can create an image in my mind so easily like the line in Dead Beat, after reanimating the remains of a tyrannosaurus :

"It was like riding a carnivorous earthquake."

[ScottRadom]

Yea, you kinda hit the nail on the head with your comments about what you dont like in the books. I pretty much agree with what you are saying. I have started the second, but im not far in so i think i might abandon the series until i get some more classics out of the way, and then if im going to read soda pop fiction why not stay in the 40k universe. Still no advice on asimov. I liked The Last Question, but man the other stuff i have tried sucks balls. His writing style seems so dated, and the guy reading his =I=censor=I= sounds like he is straight out of a 50's government propaganda ad. Im going to dump them unless someone can tell me whats worth reading.

I'm a huge fan of Asimov. I like about everything I've read of his, though he made a few awkward decisions at the end of some of his serialized novels.

[Paz]

I do have and have enjoyed all the Foundation books by Asimov. He's a dated sexist writer, but he spins a great yarn.

Plus he hit on my mom way back in the day at an Author's lecture. Grossss.

[System Commander]

The emotional stuff is character development, I get it. I wasn't saying it didn't belong in the book, I'm saying I don't like it personally. As I said, I like the whole lore behind the book, the way everything interacts, I just don't like the overly sappy parts of Dresden himself. You can have character development happen in all sorts of ways, and I personally don't like the choice that Butcher takes in this area. The books are very popular and he is a character unlike anyone else. When it comes to the action, it's fantastic, it just takes to long to get there sometimes, to much lovey/crying stuff for me. Jim Butcher is a great author.. I never said he wasn't.

We all read a lot of sci-fi/fantasy, warhammer is just a tiny drop in that. No ones discrediting or challenging credentials, I'm just giving my opinion on the books. Saying I don't like it.. *shrugs* I dont think it's a big deal.

I sure if I mentioned I disliked Tolkien, I'd ruffle some feathers as well.. (and I do dislike them).

[ScottRadom]

I'm with ya Robyn! Tolkien is a garbage author. Let's GET HIM!

[Administratum]

I never really cared for the hobbit, nor "hobbits" in general. The whole concept of the people irritated me, as do halflings in the world of dnd. I read the lord of the rings when i was 17 or 18 and remember it taking a very long time. There were parts that just dragged forever, and i really dont know what possessed me to stick it out. In the end i was left with an appreciation for the work as a whole, but i would never suggest anyone read it. Just watch the movies, you get the best of it imo. So yea, i guess i would lump Tolkein into the same garbage pile as asimov, and maybe just write it off to them being out of date... like shakespeare i guess (wish my english proff could see this).

[Terran]

Personally, my biggest beef with Tolkien is that by the time I actually got to him, I was tired of his story and its framework. I had read so much Tolkien-ish fantasy by that point, I was tired of the "weak but brave character gets thrust into a situation far above his control or understanding, and somehow manages to show how bravery and a true heart will win the day for the good guys" framework. I understand that Tolkien did it first (and arguably best, since it has been reproduced so many times), but I got sick of it before I even reached it.

And of course this can be tied back to Jim Butcher, because of his two series, I liked the Alera one less. It was good, but it still followed some of that Tolkien 'little man in big situations' framework.

[Paz]

You guys... make me so sad...

[ice]

I'll throw my 2 cents in, one of my fav sci-fi books was Dune and it's 4 sequel books. they were great, I'm glad to have read them, and I'm positive that Paz has read them too.

Edit: I have to say Tolkein's books were pretty darn good too. You learn alot more about what was happening in middle earth, then if you just watched the movies! As for Asimov I haven't read anything by him yet, so no opinion there!

[Paz]

I've... just got to extrapolate on this.

You may not like Tolkien, because of the style it was written in, or that it is too slow for you.

But, you... cannot say that Tolkien is a bad writer. He was a professor, nay a master of the English language, he basically created the modern version of fantasy. Before him? The nibelungenlied, the ring sagas, Icelandic Sagas, that stuff was never tied together, but Tolkien brought it together into something wondrous. he is the most celebrated fantasy writer of all time. His work is vast, sweeping, ahead of its time, trend setting. it is prose and poetry, a weaving of English folktales and myths. There's a reason its the 2nd most printed book after the bible. And its not because its... *shudder* badly written.
Asimov and Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert, Robert E. Heinlein, Kurt Vonnegut, these fuckers invented EVERYTHING that permeates fantasy and sci-fi. Everything.

I heard a girl in Cole's telling her boyfriend that Shakespeare was a =I=censor=I= writer, and that he didn't have anything on twilight.

SIIIGHHHHHH.

[ScottRadom]

Tolkien was a =I=censor=I= author.

Sure, he was a master of the english language. So much so that as an Oxford professor NOBODY was qualified to edit his books. So they didn't. He sucks. He had a grand vision, and an even grander story to tell but his actually delivery is =I=censor=I= awful. Most of it is just plain showing off. He made up every language in the book including, what, 3 versions of elvish? So. That makes him a pretty cunning linguist (he he) but does NOT mean he is great at pulling all the pieces together. His pacing is awful. The scouring of the shire is THE example of how to create an anti-climatic ending to a saga.

Even the character of Aragorn in his writing is lame. I prefer the reluctant hero in the films to the "I'm gonna go get THIS sword fixed, and then ram it up Sauron's ASS!!!" from the book.

Tolkien had a great imagination and made some great characters. Sure, he is the cornerstone of sweeping epic fantasy because he influenced a lot of future authors. And Zeppelin loves to rock about Mordor, so I am not saying he didn't accomplish a lot. I think his setting and characters were SO good that he made his mark. I think those traits overshadow his crappy writing, but I still vote him as a crappy author.

Dune, I loved. My fav book of all time. Hated the sequels. Especially Chapterhouse Dune. Ugh. Still love me the Asimov. I put him in a similar vein to Tolkien in that I won't claim he's an awesome author (he wrote around as many textbooks as he did fictional stories, and sometimes it really felt like he got his wires crossed) but his imagination was good enough to overcome his wordsmithing.

I'll lump H.P. Lovecraft in with the big pile of =I=censor=I= authors who are described as "Legendary" and crap. Again, awesome imagination but he wrote like a =I=censor=I=. Did he kill himself? I hope so.

Just because something became popular does NOT make it fantastic. Baywatch used to be the number one TV show on the planet. Budweiser is NOT a quality beer either.

I also call bullshit on Paz citing those dudes as the founders of the feast. They were influenced as well. Jules Verne and H.G. Wells were influenced too.

[Administratum]

Its funny, Ivan is going through a similar thing to this with film. The film school sent him a list of must see pictures, and most of them are like black and white and some dont even have sound and are shot in sped up version whatever its called. Its pretty retarded in my opinion. Honestly, what do those pictures have that you cannot get from current films. But this is bordering on another threadjack so ill bring it back to books.

I am just getting into lovecraft, and have not been able to form an opinion yet. I dont think he killed himself, that was Poe if im not misstaken... who may have been one of his contemporaries. Well it could have been any one of a number of authors that offed themselves. In the intro to the lovecraft book im reading, there is a bit on how some of the most significant contributions to literature have been made by people who are disturbed, or just bat =I=censor=I= insane. Did you know that they guy who wrote peter pan was into sadist bondage of children!! Messed up i know, and one of the authors that Paz mentioned, Vonnegut, has schizophrenia. I read breakfast of champions though, and found it to be a really great read. Im not sure that it would really fall into the fantasy, or sci-fi genres. It was just all kinds of weird. If Vonnegut does sci-fi or fantasy i might have to look at some of this other work, but from my limited experience i cant see how he influenced fantasy.

Dont forget Robert e Howard in that list of big influences on the fantasy genre. What is best in life?!?!?

[Guest]

That makes him a pretty cunning linguist

I would disagree; the languages themselves are pretty crude, and none of them (to my knowledge) are finished or usable in a pragmatic fashion. Which sucks, because I wanted to use them in my D&D games

His pacing is awful.

I would disagree but then agree. As far as a "thrilling action novel", LOTR is not. In fact, Tolkien just wanders all over the place; the books are very slow indeed.

But the LOTR books aren't supposed to be those. They aren't books you pick up for fifteen minutes to read about dudes slaying orcs or frisky chicks going medieval on your ass; that is why it's called an "epic" tale. By definition they're slower; that is one of their flaws. The Iliad wasn't exactly balls to the chair exciting. But it's a world one is meant to throw themselves into. Not only this, but Tolkien actually took time to describe how things were in his world, and his descriptions were extremely vivid. He paints an excellent picture in one's mind, rarely stumbling back on previous "it looks like this" mantra. He rarely assumes the reader will have the knowledge of what something looks like. Sometimes it's a little asinine, but I don't think this is a problem because A) Tolkien's thoroughness makes up for his pretentiousness and B) given the time the LOTR books were written and the fact that they were pioneers, this can make sense: today it does all seem watered down due to the simply massive amount of exposure we get to his formula. Now we have movies and video games that do the painting for us. I think it's kinda sad that all of the exposure of derivatives of his work make us forget why the books were written like they were.

I think it's a very modern ideal that Tolkien's books are poorly written because they're slow. The same kind of behaviour that makes one count how many pages have to be read in order to finish, instead of just letting the story take one away. We do live in the world of "cheap" thrills, after all. Just look at the movie industry; they're engineered to hold the drooling audience's attenion for a (relatively) short period of time and even then, most of it just appeals to primitive parts of the brain.

Even the character of Aragorn in his writing is lame. I prefer the reluctant hero in the films to the "I'm gonna go get THIS sword fixed, and then ram it up Sauron's ASS!!!" from the book.

The character development in the movie was terrible. It was an interesting counterpoint, but it was still terrible. How is a prissy bitch a good king? At least Tolkien's version made sense, he aimed for and wanted for goal; it wasn't just arbitrarily dropped into the seat of his pants making him exclaim "Oh, well, I better become king!"

What exactly was holding movie-Aragorn from running away and starting a farm or whatever? He actively put himself within the plot and expressing a variety of hero-like characteristics, but he was reluctant to become king, a ruler, leader. whatever. Isn't the archetype of a hero supposed to be ambitious and, yanno, be able to lead people? His character development as such was terrible because it made absolutely no sense.

disclaimer: I may be blurring the two, it's been years since I've read the books and even longer since I watched the movies.

Budweiser is NOT a quality beer either.

The comparison of Tolkien to Budweiser makes a lot of people sad.

I heard a girl in Cole's telling her boyfriend that Shakespeare was a =I=censor=I= writer, and that he didn't have anything on twilight.

Saddening, but expected. It's often that people dismiss something as dross because it soars over their head. Is that person aware that Shakespeare influenced a lot of what modern English is? In comparison, all I can say Stephanie Meyer has done is piss off a whole bunch of people, sacrifice an iconic villian to suit her creepy-ass high school fantasies relived as an adult, and pollute writing with her terrible penmanship. Oh, and turn a generation of girls into prissy bitches who like to act like females are better than males but will inevitably bend over like a good housewife should.

!@#$ing disgusting, that woman is.

[Administratum]

The comparison of Tolkien to Budweiser makes a lot of people sad.

this made me laugh.

Sounds like you have done a good deal of reading, and i cant disagree with anything much. One thing that i do need to air out is my dislike of shakespeare. I am well aware that it is claimed that he is responsible for the english language as it is today, but this is not exactly due to his greatness, but rather the fact that his works were some of the first to be recorded and reproduced en mass. At least that is how i remember my english prof telling it.

Now i know that the man has literary skills, but hold on. Prior to him, english was not well recorded, so he was free to make up whatever =I=censor=I= words he wanted. Of course you can make crap rhyme or perform literary gymnastics when you have no rules... which essentially is what he did.

I am far from a literary scholar, but in my opinion the popularity of shakespeare is primarily due to the power held by great britain during the industrial revolution, when mass printing really took off. I like to think of it as propaganda for the superiority of british culture over the rest of the underdeveloped world. This all rides somewhere between fact and opinion, but i found some of this info helpful to me in justifying my dislike of williams crap.

Last thing i need to say, which hopefully will lend a little more credibility to my opinion and argument. I have read several shakespeare plays, and thoroughly dissliked all of them. However, i have also read other classics which i enjoyed. The one that always comes to mind is Dante's Inferno. That is some old school =I=censor=I=, and just as hard to understand as shakeapeare... and its technically poetry.

[System Commander]

It's funny how so many people, despite being united by one hobby, can have such vast differences of opinions on books.

Where I was in agreement with Scott on Tolkien, and still am, I'll have to disagree with you on Lovecraft. Now, Ive only read about half of his stuff, and maybe I'm just hitting the good stuff, but for example, the Mountains of Madness was probably one of the creepiest and scariest stories Ive ever read. I read it about 3 years ago, and considering I hadn't been really freaked out reading anything in a good 15 years, I was impressed.

I will never say Tolkien was a bad author though. I've always been really careful in saying that I personally didn't enjoy his books. I dont know why, I really, really want to but I just lose interest so quickly while reading them. Ive tried hard multiple times to hammer through it, I just cant to it. Fellowship is one of about 2-3 books Ive walked away from in my whole life, and Ive done it three times. I know Im in the minority in saying I dont like them, and trust me, Im really not saying it just to be one of those people .. I really want to like them, I just cant.

I think it has a lot to do with the fantasy element, and it being a bit too slow. If Im reading fantasy, I do want action, and lots of it. I can sit down and read a very slowly paced Sci fi or other Literature, but with Fantasy, I usually want the hack and slash. You know what the other big issue is, I saw the movies before I read the books.. and I love them. So, when Im reading the book and the fellowship get into the mines of moria for the first time, and that Orc battle breaks out with the troll.. in the movie, great.. in the book, two paragraphs. Ugh..

What's important on this thread though is to make sure it's not personal and not attack others opinions. Id love to push the discussion towards finding out some really good books/series that people have read that some of us may not have read.

I'll start with the Black Company series from Glen Cook. The books are fantasy based and follow a mercenary group around who's history dates back hundredas if not thousands of years. Its set in a world with magic, but the primary users of magic are these bizarre and twisted wizards that were bound to service of a super powerful wizard.. the story mainly follows the black company around while they are in service to one of the wizards who's trying to kill the other ones. The wizards are really hard to kill, and since they are trying to off each iother, it results in these crazy battles where they are losing limbs, or going through eleborate plans to trap and kill the other ones.. Magic is rare, but of course dangerous. Anyway, I have no idea why I like the books so much.. but when I read them I found I was intrigued by the grittiness and bizarreness of it all.

What about the rest of you guys?

[Paz]

Tolkien was trying to create England's lost mythology.
Tolkien believed that the Worst crime to England was the Norman invasion, and the destruction of lots of Anglo-Saxon culture. He felt the influx of french culture permanently stained the mythology of Britain.
So Tolkien, a scholar of the European isles mythology and language, went about creating a world for the languages he had been developing (multiple languages Alex, multiple languages by one man, based off welsh, Gaelic and other local dialects). The world he created was based of myths like Grettir's saga, an icelandic story, The nibelungenleid (a Scandinavian/Austrian story), Beowulf, and other stories. He wasn't trying to create your definition of the common novel, with a rising action, climax- etc.
He as creating a mythology. THAT'S why the books are second to the bible in popularity. Because mythology is something that resonates with a large amount of people, its a story we all enjoy.

As to the fathers of modern fantasy and sci-fi= now you're just splitting hairs for the fun of it Scott, and therefore I reverse your bulshit call. Of course H.G. Wells and Jules Vern were founders, I was just naming some. But the author's I've listed are generally accepted by scholars as the literary giants who churned the path of this genre for others to follow. Everyone needs a path though, Wells created a nice little hiking trail for alot of Authors.
Next you'll be telling me John Milton is a bad author.

Alex- much agreed, except for the languages part. Alot of of people these days have much shortened attention spans, because of the style of television and trends in entertainment such as literature. Remember how long it used to take to beat vidjagames? Repetition, endless questing. Now its all about instant gratification, about getting everything now, something everyone suffers from.

Tolkien's view of the U-catastrophe (a sudden and unexpected reversal from catastrophe to miracle or victory) had a lot to do with surviving WW1. Almost ALL his friends were killed in the trenches of that war, and it messed him up, but he still believed in hope, especially because of the love he felt for his wife, which in a way, was his own u-catastrophe. He saw the invention of technologies such as artillery and machine guns as great destroyers of life, hence why the Orcs have all the furnaces and explosives and such. He was a naturalist as well. All of these influences we can see in Tolkien, some date him (his lack of female characters) some are timeless (the smallest and weakest person can make the biggest difference).

The movies were great interpretations of Tolkien, but you can't get the full sweep of his stories and worlds from the movies. Sooo much was left out, so much that was prime Tolkien. The children of Hurin is a good read as well, a gathering of stories from the Silmarillion and other lost tales. It's main character: Turin Turambar, is much more of a tragic hero, quite the difference from Frodo or Bilbo.

I liked the first 4 dune books, DUNE, DUNE MESSIAH, CHILDREN OF DUNE, and GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE. Heretics and chapter-house were pretty effing stupid, not a fan. But he was getting old, and was too much about sexy killy woman with death va-jay-jays.


Robyn- A series I'm really enjoying right now is Steven Erikson's the lost tales of the Malazan. Super gritty and dark fantasy, very much my style. Plus he's out of Winnepeg! Explains the dark grittiness I guess. I also love George R. R. Martin's A tale of fire and ice series. They're making it into a tv series from HBO! hopefully it stays as dark and the books.
AS for Sci-fi, Alistair Reynold's Revelation space series will BLOW YOUR JUNK OFF. Hes a great writer as well as a physicist, he has some truly dark and scary ideas about aliens and such.

[System Commander]

Death killy va-jay-jays !! God dammit, I was writing a short story called the same thing.. I hope there's no copyright on that name.

Yeah, the old videogame *sigh* I sure miss those days.. sometimes, sometimes not. I loved parts where you have to figure =I=censor=I= out for yourself, but sometimes they were jsut insane. Like, say some early Might and Magic game. The dungeons were always insane, and it would take forever to get through them, epsecially when you got to higher levels. You could walk around for hours and hours looking for next stair case heading down, which was always beind the one corner I never looked at.. even when I was making map. Ugh, I hated that.. or the dungeon with a puzzle. So, you had to flip a switch, walk 5 minutes to the middle to see if it worked.. nope, go to the next switch in the opposite corner, flip it, walk back, check.. etc etc.

Youd spend 10 hours flipping =I=censor=I= switches. So, as annoying as it was, when you did figure it out or beat, god dammit if you diddnt think you were the smartest fricking person on the planet.

And, just like that.. THREADJACK!

PS - I do enjoy some shakespeare writing, primarily Macbeth and Hamlet.. but even those at least have some sword action. And by sword, I mean penis..

PPS - as a further side note, they have been running the "teaser" railers on HBO for Game of Thrones, coming out in 2011. Until then, we have the Walking Dead starting on AMC on Oct 31st.. yeah, I just moved the thread away from books again, take that Scott and Cam.

[Guest]

Sounds like you have done a good deal of reading, and i cant disagree with anything much. One thing that i do need to air out is my dislike of shakespeare. I am well aware that it is claimed that he is responsible for the english language as it is today, but this is not exactly due to his greatness, but rather the fact that his works were some of the first to be recorded and reproduced en mass. At least that is how i remember my english prof telling it.

Now i know that the man has literary skills, but hold on. Prior to him, english was not well recorded, so he was free to make up whatever =I=censor=I= words he wanted. Of course you can make crap rhyme or perform literary gymnastics when you have no rules... which essentially is what he did.

His 'greatness' is owed greatly to the fact that he was the first, but that doesn't discount the fact that what he wrote was very good. The characters felt real, the plots were interesting, and, as drama, it's quite thrilling at times. I love watching shakespeare's works being performed live, even though I hate going out and have only seen it nary a few times.

The movies were great interpretations of Tolkien

I would say "the best we have", not necessarily great - though it's no fault of Jackson's, just an inherent flaw of the transition from several-thousand-page epic tale to several-million-dollar cinema production.. It's a given that some stuff is left out otherwise we'd be watching the stupid things for a month. But some things didn't make any sense - why did elves assist men at helm's deep? That probably irritated me the most aside from prissy king aragorn.

The army of the damned* was =I=censor=I= sweet though.

* (or whatever they were called, I mix them up with the space marine dudes)

[Paz]

"The dead of Dunharrow".

[System Commander]

There are very few fantasy (not sci fi) movies that are put together as well as the LOTR movies.. the digital effects and cinematography alone are unbelievable, not to mention the costuming and acting.. yeah, no one won an oscar for acting, but how many fantasy flicks can put together an A list cast such as that.

Well, not reading the books, the elves helping at helms deep didnt seem odd to me at all. They're faced with overwhelming odds, some people show up to help.. *shrugs* no problem with that from me, thats for sure.

The movie just touches on the elf/man relationship, although from what Ive picked from other sources, its more complicated ithen depicted in the movie and probably more heated than portrayed in the movie. In the movie, i jsut seems elves are a bit irritated at man, and showing up to help Aragorn seems perfectly plausible to me.

From the first half of Fellowship that I read, half of that was spent with Tom freaking Bombadil.. I was happy beyond belief when I realized Tom was not in the movie.. *cringe*

Id still love to know how Peter Jackson got to do LOTR? I have to assume it was because the movie had to be filmed in New Zealand, and he was the only director on the island. I saw Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Dead Alive long, long before LOTR, and was in shock for a year when I heard he was making the movies. Excited as hell, as I like all three of those movies, but I was just going to assume everything was going to be done with muppets and gallons and gallons of blood. Everyone said it was becasue of his work in Frighteners, and while it was a decent flick, it didnt break any records.

Anyone know offhand how Jackson got picked for it?

[Viserion]

I also love George R. R. Martin's A tale of fire and ice series. They're making it into a tv series from HBO! hopefully it stays as dark and the books

And now is the perfect time to start reading his books. only 1 year left until he pushes back the release date for the next book another 2 years!!

[Paz]

Yep.

Jackson rose to fame not on his b-movies, but his A movies. heavenly creatures was a breakout directorial debut for him, and frightners, while not as popular, showed off his effects chops.
Jackson had wanted to do LOTR for some time, and when he set up WETA workshop after heavenly creatures, he and weta created a series of vignettes and test reels to take to the big companies.
He went to... not sure who first, but they set up a plan for 2 movies, done quickly. Jackson eventually jumped out of that deal, and went to New Line. The new line exec decided Jackson had the spunk to pull it off in a manageable budget (filming for native NZ crews in new zealand was waaay cheap) and gave the funding for the films.
BAM.

Crazy fact= Aragorn was originally cast as Stewart Townsend, Lestat from queen of the damned. After a few months of training, jackson decided he looked too young, fired him, refused to pay him, and hired Vigo at the last minute.

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