Quote Originally Posted by Byzantine Mercenary
him and CS Lewis were contemporaries (and friends) but CS Lewis's world is very different from Tolkiens, when you read the entire series, they are both based on creatures from myths and legends (the true origins of the fantasy genre) so similaritys are understandable. Thats not even the main thing, CS Lewis did not just write The Narnia books he has written a lot of very good books about religion such as the screwtape letters, Narnia was written for children just the same as the hobbit was, would you judge all Tolkiens works on just the Hobbit?
On second thought, I take back my claim that Tolkien invented a genre. I think the quest-literatur goes way back to Homer's Odyssey.
I hated the hobbit when I first tried to read it. Too much on the hobbits lineage for my taste at the time. Ten years later however, after having read the LotR, I picked it up again and enjoyed it very much. I only browsed through Narnia while my gf read it and it didn't appear to be so special to me compared to the enormous hype the books got through the films.
That's what I was trying to say earlier, it's more a matter of taste than objective criticism.