The Last Ringbearer.

Anyone read this?
Its a retelling of the War of The Ring from Mordors side, as a heroic Southerner and his orc companion try to infiltrate Lorien and destroy Galendril's Mirror before she uses its magic against the scientific utopia that is Mordor. In this tale, Mordor is not an evil land ruled by evil sorcerors but a technical wonderland brimming with inventions that the backward savages of Rohan and Gondor can only percieve as evil magic.
Gandalf is a meddler, and the elves are seen as trying to rebuld Middle Earth in the form of their former home, which they were rightfully banished from.
Its been around for years, but the Tolkien estate fought hard to keep it from being published.
Now its available online where no one is profiting from it.

Perhaps the estate's position is understandable. After all, the original works languished for years, then were pirated after they became popular. The first plea I ever read from an author to purchase authorized editions appeared on the back cover of "The Hobbit" back in the sixties.

This sort of thing occurs quite frequently with beloved works. Some of the spinoffs are very enjoyable. In some cases, they even achieve legitimacy, for example "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead."

Thanks for sharing. I doubt that I will seek out the work, having passed through the hobbit stage and moved on to other foolishness.

Tolkein's estate have been protecting LOTR for years. TSR asked permission for the use of Hobbit for D&D, Tolkein's estate said no freaking way. TSR ended up using the word halfling instead. Of course Tolkein's estate could not trade mark stuff like:

elves, dwarves, dragons, orcs, balrogs, demons, demigods, and certain spells.

Brought to you by the letter D: as in Drow

I'm surprised they couldn't trademark orc or balrog as those were made up from his imagination. As head of the literature department, his students were often hassled by the campus jocks- the Oxford Rugby Club or O.R.C. as it was known.
I completely agree with Tolkiens estate protecting his work from unauthorized spinoffs and such, but fans have been publishing such stories for years. I guess the cutoff point is if a work is for profit or for other fans enjoyment. there are many stories out there about Aragorns youthful adventures and even a few about his sons reign as King.
The most famous is Bored of The Rings, which sadly has become quite dated with its Nixon era inide jokes.

Folks were trying to rip him off for years, so he became quite protective of his works. It looks like he wasn't too concerned with the monsters, as most were already imbeaded in many mythologies so he really couldn't use them for himself. Kinda like trying to trademark Homer's stories, waay too late for that.

Well, think of hardware wars, people kinda forgot about that spoof. "help me Auggie ben doggie"

I forgot about that little clip. I saw it years ago and thought it was funny. Wish I had a copy.

As far as LOTR goes, I enjoyed the movies (I have all 3 director's cuts) but never read the books. I never heard of them until I was out of school for several years (not much of a reader anyway). As a result, I never read any followup stories either.

You are missing SOOO much stuff its scary. Go out ASAP an get a copy of the Hobbit. That book started it all and you get the background of Bilbo Baggins. Oh, the Dwarves....the dwarves....

I know the basic story of Bilbo, as I stumbled on some animated show made from the Hobbit book long before the movies came out, but I don't really know the history of the dwarfs.

Disney has dwarfs, Tolkien has dwarves. One group whistles while they work, the other is fond of lobbing
off necks.

Almost Brill.

The Dwarves may whistle whilst they lop off heads. Specifically Orcs. After which the dwarves get together get drunk and sing songs about the battle.