>>You probably don't know that the Russian author Nik Perumov published in 1993
>>a sequel "The Ring of Darkness" about MiddleEarth 300 years later, which is
>>twice the size of "Lord of the Rings" and (IMHO) does not yield to the
>>original.
>
>Huh. I seem to recall Christopher Tolkien mentioning in one of his books that JRRT had planned a book after LOTR -- I wonder if the Russian book was inspired by that.

I am not sure if there were any detailed plans for that JRRT book. From what I know/read the Russian book is completely author's idea. He just used the JRRT world and its previous history to connect some lines.

BTW, Perumov was once assaulted by Russian "pure" JRRT fans and lost one tooth in the battle. :)

There was a demand to translate this book into English, but so far it was not possible because the whole JRRT world is copyrighted here.