What do you think of the anti-Tolkien backlash in modern fantasy?

I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a fantasy author who is truly anti-Tolkien. Other than Michael Moorcock, who is there? I’ve seen a few critiques of a few aspects, but most authors recognize him as one of the main pillars of modern fantasy.

Having said that I have read a more than a few fans who don’t admire the Lord of the Rings. I think there are a number of reasons for them.

This kind of thing leads to an irrational backlash.

1. Tolkien is rather weak on female characters. Oh, he has a few interesting ones if you dig beneath the surface; but they are not readily apparent to casual fans.
   
   And in a post-Jackson fantasy world, this fact seems even more heightened. Frankly speaking, some women understandably just don’t relate.
2. In a surging genre that in many ways is in its golden age and where Robert Howard-influenced fantasy seems to have made a strong comeback, Tolkien probably seems rather quaint. Again if one digs beneath the surface, one finds that not to be the case; but digging beneath the surface of Tolkien requires patience that not all fantasy readers have.
3. Tolkien tale of powerlessness triumphing over ultimate power is timeless; yet Tolkien is very much of his time. The Lord of the Rings is very much the work of a man who grew up in a mighty empire in a world that has vanished as definitively as Doriath or Gondolin. Younger readers, divorced of real-world context, simply might have a harder time relating. Modern fantasy with it’s tinges of post-Vietnam, post-Holocaust themes, fits more snugly in the milieu of today’s mores and attitudes.
   
   It’s always been somewhat of a young readers’ genre. The political stances of younger authors like Joe Abercrombie (whether expressed intentionally or not), couched as they are in modern irony and cynicism, seem more real and honest to those young readers.

As to what I think of it…well I don’t agree with it. But people are free to feel how they will. The Lord of the Rings(and attendant stories of the same world, like Silmarillion) will always be one of my top epic stories of my life.

Time has proven the Lord of the Rings to have real staying power. If it fades somewhat in history, well that is par for the course. Even Moby Dick or Faust seems stale to many modern readers. That doesn’t lesser their value; only their commerciality.