I will acknowledge that people have tastes I don't understand - Children of Time was another collection of filler tripe that contributed nothing to the genre. Definitely put it down when I realized it's "A Deepness in the Sky", without the good parts, just "lol prehistory with spiders."

You brought up Martin - he has a passing understanding of history, combat, and was a veteran (aka is somewhat grounded in reality while writing fantasy), which is why Gemisin and Brandenson should not be used in the same sentence with him, and definitely not with Tolkien.