It's not so much that they are saying Tolkien is the best and this new guy is close, or that the series is similar to LotR or whatever, but that they are claiming (generally in a hyperbolic way) that here is something new which can or will kick off a new direction to the genre. Whether or not you grew up with Tolkien or love his work or think he's a hack, or agree with his influence on a particular writer or a writer's similarity to him, you cannot deny his seminal role in the genre. He made it okay to write about orcs and elves and worlds of fantasy and so on, as something more than J & W Grimm & HC Anderson's type of work. Well, maybe George RR Martin is going to make unmagical, political intrigue series cool, or RJ will make big epics focused on the minutiae encountered by the heroes more common.

I see the Tolkien comparisons not so much as an indicator of the book's content, or the quality thereof, so much as an invitation to get in on the next big thing. And who knows? After you've spent a decade or so reading a series, it might actually become the basis of a network or premium cable TV series, as with Goodkind and Martin, or a hideous, bastardized Sci-Fi channel mockery as happened with Butcher. Hell, there might even be a movie in it, as with Rowling or Pullman or Lewis and of course, the big guy himself. There is just something really satisfying about catching a series like that before the movies come out, or the websites get started and maybe that's what they are trying to appeal to.