If Thomas Edison made his first working light bulb after every house hold in America was wired for electricity, would he be famous?
Ok, not an exact analogy. But this is kind of a cart before the horse question, in my opinion.
If Tolkien was writing today, we would have a different story, because he would have had different influences.
Sorry, but Thomas Edison didn't *invent* the lightbulb. That's a farce of the American school system. He was just very good at *marketing* it. More than half of the patents he had were *bought* from other people or he simply hired people who were able to do it for him under his company.
The two major components that made it possible, were the Canadians (the chamber) and one African American (the bamboo filament before the modern version that made it last long enough to go to market), who don't get credit. When he couldn't patent, then he stole by trying to claim his version was better. And then famously said, "If I didn't invent the Lightbulb, I invented nothing." Which is true--he didn't invent anything. He had his team of scientists do it for him.
See a similar story on the telephone.
Invent... nope. Marketing, yes.
If Tolkien wrote this millennium...
...he would have grown up in a completely different environment.
...he would not have lived through WWII.
...his themes of industrialization would be utterly changed.
...he couldn't have mirrored his races on the world since views of those have changed.
...he would be writing in an entirely different fantasy genre.
I'd be interested in Tolkien writing this millennium because I have no idea what he'd be writing.
I also think his writing style would have suffered under the new rules. He tended to be wordy. He'd not have CS Lewis to kick him around too. He used to have Best Friend envy from what I heard.
He thought he and CS Lewis were best buds. He was kind of the stereotypical old professor type, steady and slow, while CS Lewis was the hare. CS Lewis considered himself to have a best bud every week.
Lewis left behind a bunch of Christian writing as well, but not very many author notes. I'd think he'd be the improviser type though, from his personality. Total rough draft that would piss off the group, then he'd settle down and refine over and over.
Thus to get Tolkien, you need to make some zombies/walking skeletons that can talk. A writer needs friends to get the writing the way it is.
I thought it was common knowledge that Tolkien was reincarnated and came back as Stephenie Meyer.
Totally different writing styles. Tolkien was what one would call an Outliner. Linear forwards with the occasional milestone. Stephanie Meyer, from what I've read is an out of order improviser, with a few minor milestones, about no planning.
Tolkien is writing today, under the name of GRRMartin...
Similar writing styles, yes. (Also took Tolkien forever to finish anything. He's also back up and when it wasn't perfect he'd erase stuff).
But GRRMartin is barely writing fantasy.
I think Tolkien would run into not being suitable enough for today's market. He might have a bit of trouble with the economics, and his races would be shredded to peaces (genetics would play in his mind since Darwin really kicked in after he started writing the books). The war motif probably would go towards a terrorism plot instead. Also, I've heard reports of Tea time not being a big deal in England anymore, except with the Queen Mum. This would hurt the Hobbitssssessssss. His writing style is also out of fashion as well. (His son isn't as good a writer.... whose also tried to go solo.)
He might also get kicked for not properly diversifying his cast base so that women were stronger represented in the stories rather than pawns for the men. (The LoTR movie tried to fix this to some extent through Eowyn and extending the main love story so Arwen wasn't so unlikable and plastic.)
We're already shredding his world building... and suggesting things like polyandry dwarves.
Also Brandon Sanderson would be out of a job, since he followed Tolkien and Jordan. Poor Colbert wouldn't get as many geek jokes in either with the role playing, etc. And Stewart too.
But really, Tolkien wrote more than epic fantasy, it's just that people don't read the non-hobbit stuff. Generally, I like that better because I think the prose is tighter.
