In one study of Tolkien's work Holdstock is placed in a quartet of noteworthy fantasy authors, alongside Ursula K. Le Guin, John Crowley and Marion Zimmer Bradley, for writing fantasy books that almost have Tolkien's breadth and depth of imagination, and "in some respects surpass Tolkien". Another Tolkien scholar, Michael D. C. Drout, also asserts that Holdstock's fantasy is significant in the fantasy literature genre because in the Mythago Wood cycle Holdstock has created literary works containing the power and aesthetic standards of Tolkien's fantasy without being either a "close imitation of" or a "reaction against" Tolkien.