[markem]

Stumbled across this one. The writing is good and so is the story so far.

The Last Ringbearer

Think of it as the story of Tolkien's trilogy and after as told by the other side. In fact, remember that to the victor goes the writing of history, so how different would the history be if told from the loser's perspective?

This is from the e-jacket e-blurb:

More than 15 years ago Russian scientist Kirill Yeskov tried to settle certain geographical problems in Tolkien's fantasy world. One thing led to another, and he tackled a bigger project - what would happen if we assumed that it's no less real than our world? His conclusion was that in such a case, the story of the Ring of Power is most likely a much-altered heroic retelling of a major war - but what was that war really about?

The result of this re-appraisal was the publication in 1999 of "The Last Ring-bearer" - a re-thinking of Tolkien's story in real-world terms. Dr. Yeskov, a professional paleontologist whose job is reconstructing long-extinct organisms and their way of life from fossil remnants, performs essentially the same feat in "The Last Ring-bearer", reconstructing the real world of Tolkien's Arda from the heroic tales of the Free Men of the West written in that world. We have a pretty good idea how well heroic tales map to reality from our own world...