h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I remember reading Lord of the Rings, which talked quite a bit about thew transition from the Age of Elves to the Age of Men, and thinking "So when is the age of dwarves?"
In fact, it seems to me that there is a lot of fantasy fiction with dwarves in which they're a bit of an afterthought. Lots of people seem to be able to do a mystical, magical "fay" or "elvish" race that's really interesting to read, but few manage to really distinguish dwarves from short, tough, undergroundy humans.
So, can you guys think of any portrayals in fantasy of dwarves that really make you sit up and think?

the artemis fowl books, definitely one of the dwarves was a fairly significant part of most of the stories

Ah, but is the fact that he's a _dwarf_ what makes him key? I'd like to find not just wellconstructewd individual dwarf characters, but a well-constructed dwarf race.

Snow White

Come to think of it, I can give one possible answer to my own question: in CS Lewis' Narnia, the dwarves are the only creatures (apart from the visiting humans) with any moral ambivalence. Unlike all the other creatures, they can choose to be either good or bad or just sit on the fence - and often do.

They usually don't have much in the way of individuality, do they?

I'd see that as a common weakness in a lot of fantasy races, though; the pastry cutter syndrome.

Dwarves appear in almost all (35) of Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' novels. One of the best is THUD where the Dwarves and Trolls go to war, but there is something new to learn about their culture in almost every book. They are not what you'd expect (thank god).

~jwf~

You should read the Silmarillion Bob.

In there you will find out exactly why there is no age of Dwarves in Tolkien's world and read about their creation and their fabulous cities. Why they appear as stunted humans etc...

There's a lot more to Tolkien's race than appears in the Lord of the Rings. They (apart from the eponymous hero himself of course, and Gandalf) are very much the stars of the Hobbit too.

Perhaps the dwarves from the Arcanum computer game.

I did read The Silmarillion. It's part of my reason for considering them an afterthought in Tolkien's world. Elves and humans get huge lands, mythologies, royal family trees. Dwarves get a couple of cities here and there so they can hang around the edges of the elven hegemony, and then put in the odd appearance in human Middle Earth. Even their origin is second-class: the promoted side-project of one of the lower Valar rather than the big guy.
Their role in The Hobbit is contentious for me in this factor too. The dwarves seem too much like they could just be another faction of Men who live in hills and get called dwarves by everybody: indeed, every time there's an opportunity to distinguish them from humans, the difference is somewhat overlooked. The Battle of the Five Armies doesn't count on this as there were multiple factions there anyway, so the racial difference needn't be the key dividing factor.
I think this is partly because it's narratively a bit detached from LotR and the mythology, being the first published - although much (possibly even most) of the other stuff was pre-existing in note form - and because it's a kids' story. Both of these make it more difficult to include lots of detailed racial background and world-building, but I still miss them.

I don't know why I went all A-level English in the middle there. Basically though, there wasn't enough 'dwarfness' abotu the dwarves in The Hobbit, and in LotR and The Silmarillion they very much take a back seat to Elves and Men.

Well we'll have to agree to disagree then.

I think there's plenty of richness in there. They were not, afterall, one of the two races or children of Iluvatar and were the children of the Vala Aule. They were only given life at all because Iluvatar looked kindly on him.

I think it explains very well why they are/were very much a third class race. Yet nothwistanding that, they build and spend millenia living in one of the worlds most fabulouse cities - Khazad-dum. Spend many a long time both in friendship and wars with the elves.

Besides which, I think Tolkien rather deliberately kept them somewhat mysterious since most books are from the narrative viewpoint of Elves and Men.
Why should that be a problem anyway? One of the things that separates books from film or TV is that often things can be left up to the imagination rather than having to have everything laid out for you on a plate.

the age of dwarfs could be before recorded history in Tolkien world as the dwarfs were the first race created,

the age of elves was when the elves were dominant

the age of man is when man is dominant

the age of dwarfs....no one noticed as it all happed underground and no one was important enough to be invited unless they were a dwarf.

The Silmarillion goes right back to the beginning of time, but I suppose the elves only moved east after a while. The dwarves might have been in charge until that point, I suppose.
In the end, you've kind of got to ignore Tolkien in this kind of discussion. He's so seminal that everybody else is in his shadow. The question should really be which books (if any) have more interesting dwarves than Tolkien's.

If you're ignoring Tolkein because of the way everyone since largely copied his blueprint, you really have to go back to the folklore and legends he plundered to get his ideas.

There are all sorts of little people in legends from all around the world, who had a lot of different activities and characteristics - but since Tolkein, they are often now all blended together as "dwarves" or "elves".

In a sense, he devised a fantastically successful folklore for the modern day - but like all good artists, he stole his ideas from what he found around him.

>> The question should really be which books (if any) have more interesting dwarves than Tolkien's. <<

Yes. And that's Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' series.
35 books containing something like 4 or 5 million words, more than all of Shakespeare and the Bible combined. It took me ten months to find and read them all. And now I have to begin re-reading them because nothing else is as satisfying, not even Shakespeare.

~jwf~

Julian May's take on dwarves and elves in the Saga of the Exiles was well done and pretty different.

However, over all the thing that most made me rate dwarves the most was playing Slaves to Arnok : God of Blood Chapter II : Dwarf Fortress. That really showed what they were made of, and often it was spread throughout the whole map. Gonna have to play it again now Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

The Dwarves were around before the Elves. Aule fashioned them because he was impatient waiting for the Children of Iluvatar to make their appearance.

TRiG.

Not really, Aule fashioned them but Iluvatar forbade them to awake before the firstborn (the elves).