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I just got done reading the lord of the rings series and just started the hobbit but I will surely be done soon. I know of another tolkien book about the pre-history to the series called the simillarion that I plan to read after the hobbit. I was wondering if there is another book or book series that like-minded people like me have read and would recomend to a fellow tolkien fan.

I would recommend the books of Nick Perumov. If not in the bookstore, they're available through Amazon. Many of them, if not all, directly follow Tolkien's plots.

An author whose books are post-apocalyptic rather like JRR Tolkien, and just as other-worldly, is Isobelle Carmody and her Obernewtyn Chronicles series.

You can try the Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. If you like that one, you'd like the rest in the series. Unlike Tolkien though, Sword has an ending that feels like an ending and you don't have to run out and buy another book. I was introduced to Tolkien when the movie came out. I was so upset by the ending of the movie that I ran out to buy the book to find out what really happened, only to find that the movie ended just like the book! THEN I had to run out and buy the rest of the series! I was a little frustrated, though I really enjoyed both the movies and the books.

Be warned about the Silmarillion - it will fry your brain! It is seriously hard going, taking in thousands of years of mythic Middle Earth history with very few (if any) continuing characters. Occasionally there is a proper short story like Beren and Luthien, but most of it is pretty uncompromising Mythic Prose.
Tolkein, of course, (all unknowing) spawned a whole fantasy genre of pseudo-medieval quests with an assortment of different races working together. The Shannara series is but one of these.

My brother is reading the Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. It's not really the kind of books I read but it is close to Lord of the Rings.

I highly, highly recommend the Dragonlance Chronicles as well. The main stories by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman are brilliant. If you're an adult reader, The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind is also good.

Eigon wrote:Be warned about the Silmarillion - it will fry your brain! It is seriously hard going, taking in thousands of years of mythic Middle Earth history with very few (if any) continuing characters. Occasionally there is a proper short story like Beren and Luthien, but most of it is pretty uncompromising Mythic Prose.
Tolkein, of course, (all unknowing) spawned a whole fantasy genre of pseudo-medieval quests with an assortment of different races working together. The Shannara series is but one of these.

I absolutely agree! I picked up the Simarillion because I read all of Tolkein's other books that I could find. I could not get through it. It was very difficult because there were no characters to relate the stories to his other books. I did enjoy Of Beren and Luthien very much though.

A few other things Tolkein has written:
Children of Hurin
Farmer Giles of Ham
Smith of Wooten Major

The last two are shorter pieces, and are unrelated to any of his other works. I found a book at a thrift store that was them bound together, but I haven't seen them since. Definitely worth a look though.

As a huge fan of The Silmarillion - more so than The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings - I'd like to say that it might be pretty dense, but you can get through it OK if you (a) pay close attention and maybe keep some notepaper handy to take notes about family trees and (b) there's also some reading guides that will point out important features and help you keep stuff straight that you can find. Me, I just Google stuff a lot if I forget it.
Also - if you like The Silmarillion, there are books like The Lost Tales that collect earlier versions of the stories and stuff like that.