What non-Tolkien 📔book is like Lord of the Rings, and should be read?

[Keva]

Recently I found and read a book called Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel. I don't know if it's been suggested on here before now, I just saw your original post. But, as a lover of Middle-earth and an extensive reader, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

My copy is 1006 pages long. Set between the years of 1806-1817 AD in England, the book explores themes of magic, English identity, and the communion between the Englishman and the land of his birth. It contains strange and wonderful magic, amoral fairies, and intelligent characters. One never feels let down by the story, nor does anything feel contrived. It is a tale spun by an author who took great pains to get the language and setting just right, who loved her native land and wove that love through every scene, creating vivid descriptions and enthralling personalities. Not a scene is wasted. No filler is to be found here, every moment takes another step towards the final climax of the book.

I have already read this book three times, and will continue reading it again and again and again. I hope it will appeal to you as well. I hope it appeals to many, many people.

Driven by your words I tried Gunslinger
It was awful...

 

[WatcherWraith]

Driven by your words I tried Gunslinger
It was awful...

Gunslinger??? What is that?

 

[Radaghast]

Gunslinger??? What is that?

A book by Stephen King. The first in his The Dark Tower series.

 

[WatcherWraith]

A book by Stephen King. The first in his The Dark Tower series.

Thank you. I've never read Stephen King. I guess Keva must have clicked on my comment by mistake.

 

[Deimos]

Recently I found and read a book called Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel. I don't know if it's been suggested on here before now, I just saw your original post. But, as a lover of Middle-earth and an extensive reader, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

My copy is 1006 pages long. Set between the years of 1806-1817 AD in England, the book explores themes of magic, English identity, and the communion between the Englishman and the land of his birth. It contains strange and wonderful magic, amoral fairies, and intelligent characters. One never feels let down by the story, nor does anything feel contrived. It is a tale spun by an author who took great pains to get the language and setting just right, who loved her native land and wove that love through every scene, creating vivid descriptions and enthralling personalities. Not a scene is wasted. No filler is to be found here, every moment takes another step towards the final climax of the book.

I have already read this book three times, and will continue reading it again and again and again. I hope it will appeal to you as well. I hope it appeals to many, many people.

That definitely rings a bell.
I also can't recall if I read about it here but I know I made a note of it and put it...somewhere.

 

[Ithilethiel]

Recently I found and read a book called Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel. I don't know if it's been suggested on here before now, I just saw your original post. But, as a lover of Middle-earth and an extensive reader, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

My copy is 1006 pages long. Set between the years of 1806-1817 AD in England, the book explores themes of magic, English identity, and the communion between the Englishman and the land of his birth. It contains strange and wonderful magic, amoral fairies, and intelligent characters. One never feels let down by the story, nor does anything feel contrived. It is a tale spun by an author who took great pains to get the language and setting just right, who loved her native land and wove that love through every scene, creating vivid descriptions and enthralling personalities. Not a scene is wasted. No filler is to be found here, every moment takes another step towards the final climax of the book.

I have already read this book three times, and will continue reading it again and again and again. I hope it will appeal to you as well. I hope it appeals to many, many people.

I’m glad you enjoyed that book but I could not get through it. I tried. I truly wanted to like the book but I finally gave up on it, something I rarely ever do but life is just too short. My problem with Clarke’s writing is that she abandons her reader and the agency of her characters. The book starts out with so much promise that I couldn’t wait to pick it back up. But then suddenly when Mr. Norrell moves to London everything changes. The character, once a dynamic master of magic as she presents him in the first chapters, suddenly becomes petulant and petty to the point where I could have cared less what became of him or the magic. Clarke then proceeds to write in so many characters and endless plot lines whose story arcs also go nowhere I began skimming, skipping ahead. I kept waiting for something, anything of interest to happen but it never really does. It's like trying to swim in a vat of molasses. The story just drones on and on. I could never find the thread that connected it all together. I finally just gave up and deleted the book from my Kindle. Maybe she pulls it all together in the last 100 pages but that’s asking a lot from a reader, to wade through 900+ droll pages for a payoff. No criticism to your taste. Clarke is just not for me.

 

[WatcherWraith]

I’m glad you enjoyed that book but I could not get through it. I tried. I truly wanted to like the book but I finally gave up on it, something I rarely ever do but life is just too short. My problem with Clarke’s writing is that she abandons her reader and the agency of her characters. The book starts out with so much promise that I couldn’t wait to pick it back up. But then suddenly when Mr. Norrell moves to London everything changes. The character, once a dynamic master of magic as she presents him in the first chapters, suddenly becomes petulant and petty to the point where I could have cared less what became of him or the magic. Clarke then proceeds to write in so many characters and endless plot lines whose story arcs also go nowhere I began skimming, skipping ahead. I kept waiting for something, anything of interest to happen but it never really does. It's like trying to swim in a vat of molasses. The story just drones on and on. I could never find the thread that connected it all together. I finally just gave up and deleted the book from my Kindle. Maybe she pulls it all together in the last 100 pages but that’s asking a lot from a reader, to wade through 900+ droll pages for a payoff. No criticism to your taste. Clarke is just not for me.

If it wasn't to your taste, I won't try to convince you otherwise.

 

[Ugluk]

Oh Yes I agree!
Im a big fan of the Babylon5 Storyline, which turned TV scifi of the time from soaps in space to epic adventure: later copied by ST: DS9
JMStrazinsky plots were almost borrowed from Tolkien's works and included places like Zha'Ha'dun (very much like a certain Dwarven undermountain city/mine we know of) and the mysterious Volons were very much akin to the Valar, the Minbari were very like Elves, there was much sense of loss and an ending of ages... Certianly worth watching. Nothing since has come close.

My apologies for a VERY tardy reply, real life intervening is my only excuse.

Certainly JMS acknowledges the influence of Tolkien. He also acknowledges the influence of Shakespeare, Homer, Arthurian romance, the Bible, among others. I don't think you can say he borrowed much though. The Vorlons are nothing like the Valar, "merely" very ancient beings, as opposed to incarnate angelic ones. The Minbari are not really like elves, they are not immortal, preternatural beings to start with. Even the Vulcans in star trek are more "elvish". But I agree, nothing I have seen comes close.

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

I haven’t read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel but her book Piranesi is an excellent standalone.

 

[Deimos]

I haven’t read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel but her book Piranesi is an excellent standalone.

Thanks for that recommendation.
Are you familiar at all with Gene Wolfe? Anyone know about him?

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

Thanks for that recommendation.
Are you familiar at all with Gene Wolfe? Anyone know about him?

Ive heard the name but dont' know anything about them.

 

[Deimos]

Ive heard the name but dont' know anything about them.

OK... I asked AI about him and the sources were various literary sites.... sounds like I might want to try him.

AI (Gemini) response:

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) is widely regarded by critics, literary scholars, and fellow authors as the "James Joyce of science fiction and fantasy." While George R.R. Martin masterfully handles vast political tapestries and Tolkien meticulously builds myths, Gene Wolfe took architectural prose, psychological complexity, and the art of the unreliable narrator to their absolute limits.

He was not a commercial pop-writer. He was a mechanical engineer by trade (he actually helped design the industrial machine that makes Pringles potato chips) and approached his stories with the precise, interlocking discipline of an engineer.

Why Traditional Fantasy Readers Revere Him
Wolfe's writing requires active, forensic reading. He explicitly stated that he wrote for "literary re-readers."
The Absolute Unreliable Narrator: In a Wolfe novel, the protagonist is never lying to the reader; they are usually lying to themselves, or they lack the context to understand what they are seeing.
Sci-Fi Disguised as Fantasy: Wolfe frequently sets his stories in the unimaginably distant future ("Dying Earth" subgenre). What the characters describe as "magic," "demons," or "miracles" are actually forgotten, hyper-advanced technologies, alien biology, or ancient space vessels. The reader must decode the text to realize what is actually happening.

Masterworks & Entry Points

1. The Book of the New Sun (4-Volume Epic)
This is Wolfe’s undisputed masterpiece, frequently ranked alongside Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Herbert's Dune in terms of literary stature.
The Premise: Set millions of years in Earth's future (now called Urth), the sun is dying and exhausting its energy. The story follows Severian, a disgraced apprentice from the Guild of Torturers who is exiled and wanders a surreal, decaying world.
Severian claims to have a photographic memory, yet he constantly omits crucial events, rationalizes horrific acts, and misinterprets the ancient technology around him. For example, he describes walking through a gallery of paintings, one of which shows a knight with a golden visor in a desert holding a staff that breathes fire—the reader gradually realizes he is looking at a photograph of an Apollo astronaut on the Moon.

2. The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1.2.3. Novellas)
A tightly woven trio of interconnected novellas set on a pair of twin colonial planets, French-named Sainte Anne and Sainte Croix.
The Premise: It deals with a young man growing up in a bizarre, grand brothel/house run by his cold, scientist father. The overarching mystery addresses a vanished, shape-shifting aboriginal species that may or may not have secretly murdered and replaced the human colonizers generations ago.
It is a profound, deeply eerie examination of identity, colonialism, and memory. The clues to solving the book's central identity puzzles are buried in casual, throwaway sentences.

3. The Soldier Series (Soldier of the Mist) **
A brilliant historical fantasy set in ancient Greece around 479 BC.
The Premise: Latro, a mercenary soldier, suffers a head wound that gives him severe anterograde amnesia—he forgets everything that happened every time he goes to sleep. However, the trauma allows him to visually see and converse with the gods, ghosts, and mythological creatures walking among humans.
Latro must write his daily experiences down on a scroll to know who he is the next day, the text is the scroll. The reader has to piece together the actual political machinations of the Persian Wars through the eyes of a man who cannot remember his own friends from yesterday.

** [MY comment: sounds like the guy that wrote the screenplay for Memento might have read this story first]

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Direct Comparison: Wolfe vs. Tolkien vs. Martin

Feature​	J.R.R. Tolkien​	George R.R. Martin​	Gene Wolfe​
Worldbuilding Focus	Mythic, linguistic, historical, and geographic depth.	Historical realism, socio-political systems, and lineage.	Gnostic mysteries, deeply buried sci-fi frameworks, and psychological architecture.
Narrative Trust	Omniscient, deeply trustworthy, mythic clarity.	Third-person limited, flawed but generally honest perspectives.	First-person, profoundly unreliable, deeply self-deceptive.
Prose Style	Elevating, poetic, Anglo-Saxon and Norse influenced.	Naturalistic, gritty, cinematic, and visceral.	Intricate, layered, heavily reliant on archaic vocabulary and classical allusion.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I read 1. and 3. from that list.

Also There are Doors.

 

[Deimos]

I read 1. and 3. from that list.

Also There are Doors.

And?....AND??!!! ...what did you think of them?

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I can't say I "enjoyed" them, exactly, for the qualities, or characteristics described in the overview above. He makes for a challenging read. I'd say give him a try, and decide for yourself.

 

[Deimos]

I can't say I "enjoyed" them, exactly, for the qualities, or characteristics described in the overview above. He makes for a challenging read. I'd say give him a try, and decide for yourself.

Maybe there's a reason he is not well-known (AI assessment/extrapolation not withstanding)
Some comments by real people https://www.reddit.com/r/genewolfe/