Francis, keep in mind that GotM was written long before the other books. His writing style "develops" quite a bit during the following books. Maybe just pick up the second book or even the third and read a bit into it and see what you think. And he gets "better" * with every book.
* better in quotation marks because, well, better is kind of subjective. I, for example, loved his early books a lot. His latter books are sometimes too cluttered up with introspection and philosophise-ing.
Btw, the man is named Erikson, not Erickson. And this is not only smartass-ing from my side but it's also important because there is an Erickson author (i think he even writes fantasy-ish stuff).
As to Tolkien's work: i am totally in love with the Silmarillion. Such an awesome story and so...beautifully written. Sure, it's not everyone's thing...it has kind of an archaic style...but it's just epic. The Silmarillion is Tolkien's best work, period. Hobbit and LotR is nothing against the big S.