Tolkien references in literature

[FoolOfATook]

I'm reading Stephen King's novel Firestarter (not one of his best, by the by), and I came across this description of the novel's antagonist:

Rainbird was a troll, an orc, a balrog of a man.

Now, there's nothing unusual about King referencing Tolkien- he does it in many of his novels and short stories, but I thought it would be cool, and perhaps a bit useful or enlightening if we all posted any references we find to Tolkien in works by other authors in this thread.

[Talierin]

I was reading some sci-fi book, I think it was called Jaran, and it mentioned Battle of the Pelennor Fields in a line about famous battles, heh... I've seen other references in some other books too, but they aren't coming to mind right now.

[Eriol]

Arthur C. Clarke says in 2010 - A Space Odissey 2 that the landscape of Io (a moon of Jupiter) is like Tolkien's description of Mordor.

I'm a great fan of Clarke... I really enjoyed reading that.

[Ithrynluin]

I know I've come across many Tolkien refrences in different books, but these two distinctly come to mind.

From Dean Koontz': False Memory:

Dr. Mark Ahriman’s suite of offices was on the fourteenth floor of one of the tall buildings that surrounded the sprawling, low-rise shopping plaza. Getting Susan from the parking lot to the
lobby and then across what seemed like acres of polished granite into an elevator was not as arduous a trek as Frodo’s journey from the peaceful Shire to the land called Mordor, there to
destroy the Great Ring of Power—but Martie was nonetheless relieved when the doors slid shut and the cab purred upward.

Curiously, Martie thought of Frodo again, from The Lord of the Rings. Frodo in the tunnel that was a secret entrance to the evil land of Mordor. Frodo confronting the guardian of the tunnel, the spiderlike monster Shelob. Frodo stung by the beast, apparently dead, but actually paralyzed and set aside to be devoured later.

Once more she sensed a disquieting strangeness in the mundane scene around her, as if this were not the ordinary elevator alcove that it appeared to be, but was in fact the tunnel where Frodo and his companion Sam Gamgee had confronted the great pulsing, many-eyed spider.

From Stephen King's: It - which is my fave book ever, with the exception of Tolkien:

It's been days since I sat down to write the story of the fire at the Black Spot as my father told it to me, and I haven't gotten to it yet. It's in The Lord of the Rings, I think, where one of the characters says that 'way leads on to way'; that you could start at a path leading nowhere more fantastic than from your own front steps to the sidewalk, and from there you could go . . .
well, anywhere at all. It's the same way with stories. One leads to the next, to the next, and to the next; maybe they go in the direction you wanted to go, but maybe they don't. Maybe in
the end it's the voice that tells the stories more than the stories themselves that matters.

[Rhiannon]

I can't quote it because I gave it back to my friend, but Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett has a Tolkien reference: the three witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat are (through a series of extremely complicated circumstances) boated down an underground river when a green slimy thing pokes its head over the side of their boat. "Hello," it says, "it'sss my biiirthday."

The witches stare at it for a moment, and then Nanny Ogg hits it over the head with an oar.

And I can't remember which one it is, but one of Laurie R. King's Mary Russell books contains a Tolkien reference.

Wonderful thread, FoaT.

[FoolOfATook]

Found another Stephen King reference to Tolkien, this one in his novella "The Mist", in the collection Skeleton Crew:

Old trees have always reminded me of the Ents in Tolkien's wonderful Rings saga, only Ents that have gone bad.

In Pratchett's novel with Neil Gaiman, Good Omens there's a character named Pippin Galadriel Moonchild.

[Rhiannon]

In To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth, Jeff Cooper refers to Nazi Germany as 'Mordor', and repeatedly calls criminals things like 'orcs' and 'goblins'.

[Theoden_king]

In another of Stephen King's books, The Stand


Instead she would find an underground passage leading somehow from Wonderland to Hobbiton, a low but somehow cosy tunnel with rounded earthen sides and an earthen ceiling interlaced with sturdy roots that would give your head a good bump if you knocked it against any of them. A tunnel that smelled not of wet soil and damp and nasty bugs and worms, but one which smelled of cinnamon and baking apple pies, one which ended somewhere up ahead in the pantry of Bag End, where Mr Bilbo Baggins was celebrating his eleventy-first birthday party...

[Nóm]

From Chapter 1 of Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon...


Sasha was reading in bed when he came to her, his ruddy, bearded face alight, but she laid her book on her bosom and listened raptly to his story as he told it, his hands moving. Near the end, he drew back to show her how he had drawn back the bow and he had let Foe-Hammer, his father's great arrow, fly across the little glen. When he did this, she laughed and clapped and won his heart.

He was telling of a dragon he killed, and it goes on to say...


That worm fell dead with a final fiery gust, which set the bushes around it alight.

Until now I had only known Tolkien to use the term worm for a dragon, but correct me if this is more common. I don't read fantasy in general.

I've read tons of Stephen King books but this is the first one I am rereading since discovering Tolkien, so I'll no doubt catch the references now that I had no idea about before. I'll edit more into this post as I find them.

[Rhiannon]

Until now I had only known Tolkien to use the term worm for a dragon, but correct me if this is more common. I don't read fantasy in general.

It's pretty common- it's used in the Bible, I know.

[Theoden_king]

Also in Salems lot when Ben blesses the axe with the holy water to knock the padlock off, I think it says the blade glows with a blue elvish light. Its been a long time since I last read Salems lot and I don't have a quote but I'm pretty sure thats right.

[Inderjit S]

In Needful Things by Stephen King (He sure loves Tolkien!) Polly comments on a wizard in a advertisement being either 'Merlin or Gandalf'.

[Wolfshead]

There's the one in Witches Abroad that Rhiannon mentioned, I have the book in my room (I haven't got round to returning it to the school library yet...), but I'm not about to go trawling through it for the quote, I think Rhiannon had it fairly accurate.

There are quite a few subtle references in Bored Of The Rings ;) I also have a suspicious feeling there were one or two in Barry Trotter And The Shameless Parody as well, but I don't have that anymore to check.

So, other than that, I can't (immediately) think of anymore. Unfortunately.

[Rangerdave]

Of course Sauron shows up in The Mote in God's Eye and The Gripping Hand. Both by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

Of course, the Sauron they refer to is a Planet. So I guess it's not really the same.



RD

[Theoden_king]

Originally posted by FoolOfATook
I'm reading Stephen King's novel [I]Firestarter[/I


Also the horse that Charlie likes to visit is named Necromancer in this book.