Themes of The Lord of the Rings This is, according to Shippey, a very modern, 20th-century theme, since in earlier, medieval times, power was considered to "reveal character", not alter it. Shippey mentions Lord Acton's famous statement in 1887, that ""Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men..."" He then goes on to point out authors that were dealing in the same themes of power and corruption at around the same time as Tolkien wrote his work. These authors include George Orwell with "Animal Farm" (1945), William Golding with "Lord of the Flies" (1954), and T. H. White with
The Dragon Lord different fantasy adventure." A reviewer at swordandsorcery.org, Ryan Harvey, compared it to Robert E. Howard pastiche, and wrote "some prolonged sequences...turn out as nothing more than cul-de-sacs, neither adding nor detracting to the narrative." However, he found the prose to flow easily and the background to be very well-researched. The Dragon Lord The Dragon Lord is a historical fantasy or sword and sorcery novel by American writer David Drake. First published in 1979 and revised in 1982, the novel is set in sixth century Arthurian Britain. "The Dragon Lord" was David Drake's first novel. He spent six months researching and