I don’t see how such extra volumes could be prevented if the author or their estate permitted it. That’s their business. People can (and should, to my mind) forget about bad sequels and spin-offs the way that I try to forget the worse Alien films. Which are the Dune novels that “count”? So to my mind, the only way we can judge it is by asking whether the individual spin-off is good. What the criteria are for “good” is hard to say: would a well-made story that was just more of the same qualify? I think that would depend on the source material. Most detective stories are more cases for the same detective, so I suppose you could argue that they were “more of the same”, but it would seem wrong to oppose them in that way. But The Lord of the Rings seems to be to be a very finite story: it has a clear cut-off point, because the big questions have been answered, the mission is complete and things have changed substantially for those involved.
So if I was going to suggest criteria for maximum “worthwhileness”, I would say something like this: First, the new story needs to work as a story in its own right (although it might comment on the original or require some background knowledge of, say, where the elves live). It needs a good shape, good characters and, perhaps more importantly, a finite ending. There may be a temptation to just write soap opera in an established setting, to allow readers to go back to a setting that they loved (fair enough) but I think this may lead to weaker stories. Second, the new story ought to explore something new about the setting. So, a story about the “dwarven front” in the war of the ring might tick this box. Third, the new story ought to contain new ideas about the setting without clashing too much with the original. This is difficult to set out, especially given that some stories require the reader to buy into the setting in a certain way (Gondor should have a king and not a Parliament, say). A Marxist would certainly bring some new ideas to Middle Earth, but his story might clash so much with the original that it would do more harm than good. Or it might revitalize it.
The problem is that these are vague ideas and one person’s valid addition might be another person’s cashing in. So I can wish that people would leave stories alone, but can I stop them or feel that I’ve somehow got permission to sabotage them? No.
Fair enough. But to talk about "exploring something new about the setting" - then no author in human history has left a richer vein for other authors to mine. If this thread was "Which part of Middle Earth do you wish a resurrected Tolkien would write about", it would be endless. Who wouldn't want to read the full story of Beren and Luthien? Or of Helm Hammerhand, or of the war of Gil-Galad and Elendil, or a story finally putting the spotlight on Galadriel? Lord of the Rings may be complete, but Tolkien's world is achingly not so.
The real question is whether there's authors who could do justice to the setting, not whether there's stories still to be told in it.
As to fantasy coming from Tolkien, I stand by this. Yes, it existed before him, and yes, there has been a huge amount of fantasy both before and after Tolkien that has been neither a copy nor an answer to what he wrote. But Tolkien’s influence is vast. He – inadvertently - “codified” the standard fantasy setting and races, even if they crop up with different names. He established not just the content but even the idea of the size and scope of fantasy. I cannot think of a figure in English literature who has overshadowed a genre the way Tolkien has – not even Christie or Chandler in crime, or Austen in romance. Even a book like Wizard’s First Rule, which is nowhere near as well-written and explicitly stated by the author not to be fantasy, wouldn’t exist without Tolkien to riff off. We can mention Fritz Lieber and Conan and a dozen others, but I just don’t think that huge names like Eddings or Jordan would exist in anything like the same way without him. So maybe “ripped off” is a bit coarse, but “been vastly overshadowed by” seems fair to me.
This maybe should be a new thread but -
It seems to me that, even when one man has a vast influence, when asked to pick between the favourite and the field the field generally has it. Does Tolkien have a big influence? Yes. Does he have a bigger influence than (Dunsany + Howard + Lovecraft + Peake + Mirrlees + all the notable authors prior or co-existing with him) PLUS (Moorcock + Le Guin + Kurtz + Wolfe + Gygax + all the notable creatives who went off piste with his influences) PLUS (Lucas + Herbert + Heinlein + Dumas + Tolstoy and all the other non-fantasy creators frequently cited as major influences) PLUS (All the myths, folktales, legends, religious philosophies and history that have served as inspiration)?
How much of a percentage of influence would we say Tolkien has against that field? How high a percentage does it need to be to be considered "vastly overshadowing"?
If the criteria is simply the number of works that seems to bear a significant imprint of the original, then how many other figures in fantasy should be considered to overshadow the field as well?
Particularly if the influence could be said to be waning. The standard fantasy races are no longer standard. How many series started this millennium can you think of that have all of elves, dwarves and orcs? I have one, maybe two. The standard fantasy races are a standard of gaming, not literature. What percentage of fantasy books have you read that 'standard setting' compared to non-European/non-Medieval? For me, that balance is tipping away from the 'standard', particularly if you want to be strict about Medieval.
Tolkien established a marketplace for big fantasy stories. That's his main contribution. He is the most popular example of a certain type of plot, but it is a synthesis of other stories, myths, and real life that other authors could (and did) arrive at separately; and if you look at fantasy as a whole, again it becomes less standard. Certain themes, certain tropes, they're his; Good vs Evil, the Wizardly Mentor (perhaps *squints at Arthur*). But many other popular pre-occupations of fantasy - the rogue, prophecy, the barbarian, non-evil dragons, etc.etc. - tack-ons.
He was - is - hugely influential. But he exists in a far huger realm. Even among those whose stories stem mostly directly from his ideas, the influence dims with each new idea; even with Jordan and Eddings, far more of their DNA came from non-Tolkien sources than Tolkien. And there are many huge post-Tolkien fantasy authors whose debt to Tolkien seems very minimal and whose influence is already big - people like Gaiman and Pratchett and Emma Bull and Glen Cook and Bradley. Hell, Rowling. And when so much of Fantasy-land has Tolkien as but of many, many influences, I just don't see why he should be said to overshadow the genre, no matter how big his influence may be; and just because his influence may be bigger than authors in other genres, it doesn't mean its still big enough to be considered to overshadow the genre. A mountain is vast, but it doesn't overshadow the rest of the range.
He does in people's minds, but I think people need to take a step back and look at all of the genre and make a re-estimation.
I was thinking of Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius. Sorry, should have been clearer about that.
Oh no, Morrison's work that got up Moorcock's nose was based on Jerry Cornelius. But it was based on, not using him, and so Moorcock considered the thing in very poor taste.
