At the top of my list of 'sacriligious' things to do while insipred by Tolkien's works would be to dare to write a sequel. It is, you'll have to admit, pretty ballsy. How do you top an entire trilogy that's one of the best-loved literary works from the last century, one that's been called the inspiration for the entire genre of modern fantasy?
Answer: You don't. But you can still do alot with the concepts. Either with stories set soon after the events of The Return of the King, or by jumping waaayyy ahead to the present day age - or even later.
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AUTHOR: 'FernWithy'
STORY:The Jewel of Brandy Hall
PREMISE: Frodo has an heir after all (I adore it when a writer can shoehorn plausible events in between the 'official' canon, and this one's a particularly clever job of that). Very good grasp of the general Tolkien 'style' - similar use of dialogue, good grasp of established characterization. More character development than adventure, but thoroughly enjoyable and absoarbing. I have great admiraiton for this fanfic writer - you'll see her name pop up again in my SW selections.
NOTES: There's a prequel to this story - the story of the woman whom Frodo married. As highly recommended as the above.
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AUTHOR: 'Scribe'
STORY:Scribe's LotR Sequels - in sequential order:
The Daughter Of Rivendell
The Easterling
The Dark Elf
The Fairer Sex
The Patient
PREMISE: You ever wish Tolkien'd seen fit to focus more on the few female characters he included in his world? Scribe takes the female characters, barely ciphers, whom Tolkien gave us...and runs with 'em. She even introduces a new female character whom I found perfectly plausible. Plenty of adventure scenes and cliff-hangers. Her series includes a Legolas romance (not too many of those 'work'; this one does); there are a few NC-17-rated chapters with sex scenes due to this. Technically I find one more round of copy-editing is needed (slight glitches), there are forays into cliche (the sex scenes, while not bad per se, could have been lifted out of any stock romance novel, for instance), but over-all I must highly recommend this series to anyone craving female character development and action scenes.
NOTES: The last story in the series is set in the present day - was still ongoing as I post this.
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AUTHOR: 'Jilian Baade'
STORY: The Wanderer
PREMISE: Ever wonder what happened to Maglor, one of the elves led into madness and ruination by his family's oath to retrieve the stolen Simarills? Now you can find out. Set in the present day, this fic is still on-going (I'm not sure the author herself knows where it's going). Some might find the pace too slow; I like the characterizations and the 'incredibly-old-elf-interacting-with-present-day-humans' angle enough to stick around to see where this one goes.
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AUTHOR: 'Camilla Sandman'
STORY: Until the End of Days
PREMISE: Dark, dark, Ansty fic. What if Evil rose again in Middle Earth...and even Valinor wasn't safe? Ambitious premise, another 'stalled' fic. I hope the writer will be able to take this one to an eventual conclusion.
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AUTHOR: 'XMark'
STORY: Lord of the Rings II - The return of Sauron
PREMISE: Far-future sequel, Hollywood action-film style. Yet another 'stalled' fic. Nicely tongue-in-cheek. (Any story that has Gandalf spouting lines like: "I'm too old for this shit..." gets my vote... ^_^)
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AUTHOR: 'littlefish'
STORY: Dark Horizons
PREMISE: Set right before Aragorn's and Arwen's wedding - slightly AU to allow this side adventure. Interesting villain, plenty o' angst, and heroics for the entire fellowship. Nice bit of development for several of the characters in this one. Several nice original secondary characters.
---
AUTHOR: 'The Nightrunners'
STORY: Brothers in Arms
PREMISE: Somewhat future/AU Earth sequel. What's the term for those techno-magic Earths? There's a term for that, I just can't recall at the moment. Where magic and techonolgy exist side-by-side. Elves, reincarnation, action. Nice dialogue. In progress.
---
AUTHOR: 'AlexeCinz'
STORY: Middle Earth Reclaimed
PREMISE: Present-day, old Evil stirs. As in most of this story sort, contains reincarnation themes, elves who stuck around. Another very promising story that has sat, unworked on, for many moons now. For shame, Author.... for shame.
Answer: You don't. But you can still do alot with the concepts. Either with stories set soon after the events of The Return of the King, or by jumping waaayyy ahead to the present day age - or even later.
---
AUTHOR: 'FernWithy'
STORY:The Jewel of Brandy Hall
PREMISE: Frodo has an heir after all (I adore it when a writer can shoehorn plausible events in between the 'official' canon, and this one's a particularly clever job of that). Very good grasp of the general Tolkien 'style' - similar use of dialogue, good grasp of established characterization. More character development than adventure, but thoroughly enjoyable and absoarbing. I have great admiraiton for this fanfic writer - you'll see her name pop up again in my SW selections.
NOTES: There's a prequel to this story - the story of the woman whom Frodo married. As highly recommended as the above.
---
AUTHOR: 'Scribe'
STORY:Scribe's LotR Sequels - in sequential order:
The Daughter Of Rivendell
The Easterling
The Dark Elf
The Fairer Sex
The Patient
PREMISE: You ever wish Tolkien'd seen fit to focus more on the few female characters he included in his world? Scribe takes the female characters, barely ciphers, whom Tolkien gave us...and runs with 'em. She even introduces a new female character whom I found perfectly plausible. Plenty of adventure scenes and cliff-hangers. Her series includes a Legolas romance (not too many of those 'work'; this one does); there are a few NC-17-rated chapters with sex scenes due to this. Technically I find one more round of copy-editing is needed (slight glitches), there are forays into cliche (the sex scenes, while not bad per se, could have been lifted out of any stock romance novel, for instance), but over-all I must highly recommend this series to anyone craving female character development and action scenes.
NOTES: The last story in the series is set in the present day - was still ongoing as I post this.
---
AUTHOR: 'Jilian Baade'
STORY: The Wanderer
PREMISE: Ever wonder what happened to Maglor, one of the elves led into madness and ruination by his family's oath to retrieve the stolen Simarills? Now you can find out. Set in the present day, this fic is still on-going (I'm not sure the author herself knows where it's going). Some might find the pace too slow; I like the characterizations and the 'incredibly-old-elf-interacting-with-present-day-humans' angle enough to stick around to see where this one goes.
---
AUTHOR: 'Camilla Sandman'
STORY: Until the End of Days
PREMISE: Dark, dark, Ansty fic. What if Evil rose again in Middle Earth...and even Valinor wasn't safe? Ambitious premise, another 'stalled' fic. I hope the writer will be able to take this one to an eventual conclusion.
---
AUTHOR: 'XMark'
STORY: Lord of the Rings II - The return of Sauron
PREMISE: Far-future sequel, Hollywood action-film style. Yet another 'stalled' fic. Nicely tongue-in-cheek. (Any story that has Gandalf spouting lines like: "I'm too old for this shit..." gets my vote... ^_^)
---
AUTHOR: 'littlefish'
STORY: Dark Horizons
PREMISE: Set right before Aragorn's and Arwen's wedding - slightly AU to allow this side adventure. Interesting villain, plenty o' angst, and heroics for the entire fellowship. Nice bit of development for several of the characters in this one. Several nice original secondary characters.
---
AUTHOR: 'The Nightrunners'
STORY: Brothers in Arms
PREMISE: Somewhat future/AU Earth sequel. What's the term for those techno-magic Earths? There's a term for that, I just can't recall at the moment. Where magic and techonolgy exist side-by-side. Elves, reincarnation, action. Nice dialogue. In progress.
---
AUTHOR: 'AlexeCinz'
STORY: Middle Earth Reclaimed
PREMISE: Present-day, old Evil stirs. As in most of this story sort, contains reincarnation themes, elves who stuck around. Another very promising story that has sat, unworked on, for many moons now. For shame, Author.... for shame.