>>>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.

Also, the half of action happens in the "new" parts of JRRT world which were never described before. There are new people/nations/magic creatures and new concepts, for example "the third power". The creature with almost absolute power, but not on any side of the conflict.

Who is interested, can look at one of my daughter's web pages where she has some chapters summarized.

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Temple/2572/ring/index.html

She also has them fully translated but she removed the full translations because of copyright issues. There are also new maps.