Rather, given that they were forced to make changes to the game to avoid infringing upon trademarks and copyrights, the Dungeons and Dragons designers produced a hybrid vision of Middle-earth's creatures which wasn't really intended to be a statement about Tolkien. That is, they moved on, but took with them elements of Middle-earth which seemed universal, or were adaptable to a different model of creativity.

And then Dungeons and Dragons became a big phenomenon. Perhaps many people in today's gaming community don't think much of DnD because it was more what Mom and Dad were into. But Dungeons and Dragons brought fantasy alive for many people. We moved beyond the books and into the worlds of imagination we thought no one could share with us. Unfortunately, Dungeons and Dragons became popular enough to impose some stereotypes which have persisted until today among the fannish community.

That is, Elves are seen as creatures of habit, not as creatures of imagination and art. Dwarves are seen as creatures of temperament and not as creatures of judgement. A typical DnD adventuring party would usually include a Dwarven fighter and an Elven Ranger. Half-elf Rangers also abounded. Men fought or served as Clerics, too. The presumption of Class and Profession permeated the popular imagination and took readers away from the universal optimism which Tolkien advanced.

In Tolkien's world, a well-to-do Hobbit can be dragooned into masquerading as a common burglar (not a pocket-picking thief, although he tried a little of that to poor effect). Tolkien allows a common gardener (essentially an NPC henchman in gaming terms, a non-player character who tags along with the player character) to rise to become Master of Bag End, founder of a prominent Shire family, and Mayor of the Shire (perhaps with the longest ever tenure in that office). Sam wasn't just a gardener. He was an individual with feelings and priorities and desires. He just managed to focus so well on what he was doing that people are often surprised to learn Sam had a girlfriend.

Middle-earth allows kings to be bards, warriors, healers, scholars, and smiths. Barbarians transcend cultural boundaries and become civilized peoples. Ancient lore is not treated as something that only a special group of people can understand. Anyone may learn a little something of each race's special lore. Dungeons and Dragons removed these potentials, these aptitudes, from the imagination of fantasy readers and writers alike. Too many fantasy novels now emphasize a pseudo-medievalistic guild structure in their societies. I don't mean that they are unnecessarily pseudo-medieval. I mean that the professions we became used to through gaming have permeated popular fantasy fiction.

But maybe the worst influence that Dungeons and Dragons has had upon the legacy of Tolkien is the confinement of "magic" to special people, special races. Magic is such a hard thing to define, unless one resorts to Arthur C. Clarke's famous observation "Any sufficiently advanced technology seems like magic." But Tolkien's magic isn't really a technology. It is a primal force, like gravity and the weak and strong nuclear forces, upon which technologies may be built.

Part of that primal force involves calling upon stronger beings for help, and both Sam and Frodo are able to do this. But in gaming, only a Cleric or a related professional would be able to do this. A game ref can, of course, have a god or angelic being intervene directly on any character's behalf. But neither Sam nor Frodo got experience points for calling upon Elbereth.

The subtlety and beauty of Tolkien's magic has been lost amid a sea of misperception and pseudo-classification. Many people believe that magic in Tolkien is based on race, but Tolkien couldn't really define it that way. He tried to. He wrote an extensive account of magic for a letter he was composing, but he abandoned the whole discussion. He realized, after reading what he had written, that his rules were improbable, based on what had been published. That is, he was arguing that men were incapable of working real magic themselves (which explains why we cannot share in the Elvish gifts). But then he remembered that the Numenoreans made magic swords. So much for drawing distinctions based on race.

The fantasy community has become so much more sophisticated than Tolkien since those days. Without really understanding what Tolkien's magic was about, how it worked, or why it should have worked, they turned their backs on it and began devising new magic methodologies. So you now have costs and penalties for using magic. Dungeons and Dragons requires players to roll dice to see if their characters lose a point of constitution when they make permanently enchanted magic items. Why? To keep people from flooding the game with magic devices.

One popular author had his magicians walking around with "sources", fellow characters who somehow contributed their strength to the magicians. The magic process was draining, and supposedly the good magicians would do whatever they could to avoid killing their close friends and companions. There is nothing elegant or useful in such a magic system. It makes magic seem industrial, rather than natural.

One doesn't diminish one's neighbors simply by breathing, eating, or exercising. Tolkien's magic is simply an act of will. Its costs and penalties are determined by the moral consequences of one's actions, or by the physical demands that the expenditure of energy made upon the magicians. Gandalf was physically affected by his magic. He became weary.

Ancient lore is another aspect of Tolkien which has found its way into the popular imagination. But in the hands of lesser artists, it has become like a dry and dirty clay. What we have to consider today when we pick up an "epic fantasy novel", is something less brilliantly conceived than whatever Tolkien provided in the way of glimpses into the ancient past of Middle-earth.

For example, David Eddings offers the following prologue to The Malloreon

After the Seven Gods created the world, it is said that they and those races of men they had chosen dwelt together in peace and harmony. But UL, father of the Gods, remained aloof, until Gorim, leader of those who had no God, went up on a high mountain and importuned him mightily. Then the heart of UL melted, and he lifted up Gorim and swore to be his God and God of his people, the Ulgos.

Is there anything like this passage in Tolkien? Yes, there is. Not in theme, but in manner of presentation. But you won't find that passage in a prologue. It's not the author who tells you this brief account as Eddings presumes to do.

I will tell you the tale of Tinuviel, said Strider, 'in brief

for it is a long tale of which the end is not known; and there are none now, except Elrond, that remember it aright as it was told of old. It is a fair tale, though it is sad, as are all the tales of Middle-earth, and yet it may lift up your hearts.'

And then he chants 9 stanzas in "translation", and he explains the story...

'...It tells of the meeting of Beren son of Barahir and Luthien Tinuviel. Beren was a mortal man, but Luthien was the daughter of Thingol, a King of Elves upon Middle-earth when the world was young; and she was the fairest maiden that has ever been among all the children of this world. As the stars above the mists of the Northern lands was her loveliness, and in her face was a shining light. In those days the Great Enemy, of whom Sauron of Mordor was but a servant, dwelt in Angband in the North, and the Elves of the West coming back to Middle-earth made war upon him to regain the Silmarils which he had stolen; and the fathers of Men aided the Elves. But the Enemy was victorious and Barahir was slain, and Beren escaping through great peril came over the Mountains of Terror into the hidden Kingdom of Thingol in the forest of Neldoreth. There he beheld Luthien singing and dancing in a glade beside the enchanted river Esgalduin; and he named her Tinuviel, that is Nightingale in the language of old. Many sorrows befell them afterwards, and they were parted long. Tinuviel recsued Beren from the dungeons of Sauron, and together they passed through great dangers, and cast down even the Great Enemy from his throne, and took from his iron crown one of the three Silmarils, brightest of all jewels, to be the bride-price of Luthien to Thingol her father. Yet at the last Beren was slain by the Wolf that came from the gates of Angband, and he died in the arms of Tinuviel. But she chose mortality, and to die from the world, so that she might follow him; and it is sung that they met again beyond the Sundering Seas, and after a brief time walking alive once more in the green woods, together they passed, long ago, beyond the confines of this world. So it is that Luthien Tinuviel alone of the Elf-kindred has died indeed and left the world, and they have lost her whom they most loved. But from her the lineage of the Elf-lords of old descended among Men. There live still those of whom Luthien was the foremother, and it is said that her line shall never fail. Elrond of Rivendell is of that Kin. For of Beren and Luthien was born Dior Thingol's heir; and of him Elwing the White whom Earendil wedded, he that sailed his ship out of the mists of the world into the seas of heaven with the Silmaril upon his brow. And of Earendil came the Kings of Numenor, that is Westernesse.'

Aside from the fact that this is one of Tolkien's longest passages of exposition, it comes from a character. You can feel Aragorn's passion for the story even though there is much in it which is mysterious to the first-time reader. In fact, it's downright confusing for many first-time readers. But it's entertaining. And it's distracting. The whole mood of the scene is altered by Aragorn's story, and the subsequent encounter with the Nazgul is starkly contrasted with his campfire tale.

The revelation of ancient lore through the lips of a character, rather than the cold summation of an unseen and unnamed narrator, brings the lore to life. And it helps to make the fantasy world more realistic. Tolkien didn't throw away an opportunity to sit everyone down and tell a bunch of stories. The tale of Beren and Luthien really doesn't seem to fit with the adventure of Frodo, although there are connections to the greater story. It is a precursor of Aragorn's own quest for love. It inspires Sam when he and Frodo are in Mordor, and he realizes that they are in a way carrying on the ancient struggle of the Elves against evil.

Eddings' prologue goes on to tell virtually the whole history of the world. Tolkien's history of the world is revealed slowly through numerous stories and books. Tolkien gives the reader enough to understand that something happened in the past which had a profound effect upon the relations of Elves and Men. We are also told that those relations came to an uncertain crux in-between the more ancient events and the current drama. But Tolkien hints that there is more behind each revelation. He carefully selects material from the broader story to color the one he is presently telling.

Tolkien's trickle of information has been transformed into a torrent of infodumps from people wanting to establish for their readers or players that this is a new fantasy world. It's not enough merely to tell a story and drop hints here and there of something more ancient. A few authors, like Mary Gentle, actually preserve something of Tolkien's style. But many just sort of wallow in ancient lore. Ancient lore should be related either for its own sake or to enhance the primary story. Instead, we are being given massive doses of ancient lore to explain everything up front.

Was it necessary for the reader to understand that Aragorn was a descendant of Luthien when Gandalf mentioned him briefly to Frodo in the Shire? Of course not. But if a lesser author had written The Lord of the Rings we would already have been told about Luthien, the War of the Last Alliance, and perhaps even Isildur's untimely end.

The past is a mystery, and should be treated with the respect normally accorded to a mystery. That is, the reader should be given glimpses and clues about the greater picture, but should be brought to the full realization of what happened only near the end of the tale. Or at least near the end of the process which requires the ancient lore to begin with.

Many people seem to have no problem identifying the fact that history is a big part of what makes Tolkien so appealing. It gives his world a depth which is rich and enticing. The readers want to learn more, but they want to learn it after they have read the primary story, not before. Too many authors seem to be trying to capitalize on the desire for history in a formulaic process. History becomes important to a reader only when the characters produced by that history become important. This is probably the chief reason why Tolkien moved so much of his Arwen material to the appendices. She was important to Aragorn, but not yet so to the reader.

Of course, people try to improve upon Tolkien in other ways. For months after word had spread that Peter Jackson was making new movies based on the book, people in many forums expressed the hope that Tolkien's racism wouldn't be reflected in the movies. That racism is purely a product of perception, rather than the author's hand. There is racism in The Lord of the Rings. The story condemns it. Those who rise above the evils of racism are the characters who produce the greatest achievements.

The myth of Elf-Dwarf hostility has been taken up by many stories and fantasy worlds. Tolkien's Elves and Dwarves have become estranged, but they are not racists. They once shared a long friendship, but that friendship has been forgotten, largely because the people who shared in it have all fled or been killed. Legolas and Gimli don't dislike each other when they first begin to interact. They are merely oversensitive to anything the other's race says about his own race, and both are defensive. But neither harbors ill-will toward the other.

Tolkien made one brief comment in his appendices about an ancient grudge held by the Dwarves against Elves. And that one comment was for quite a while never questioned by his readers. What was the nature of the grudge? Why should the Dwarves have a grudge to begin with? And why should Tolkien's Dwarven grudge translate into some sort of universal dislike between Elves and Dwarves in other writers' hands? Tolkien had something specific in mind, and it appears that the grudge was based upon a misunderstanding. There were no wars fought over the grudge (which had nothing to do with the Silmaril). There could have been wars, but the Dwarves were wiser than that.

Nonetheless, we are expected to believe that, in any story including Elves and Dwarves, they won't like each other. Why? Because that is supposedly the way Tolkien made them up. But that isn't what Tolkien had in mind at all. His Elves and Dwarves experienced friendship on many levels, and they did have their differences. But they spent more time fighting side-by-side and working together than fighting each other. The reasons for their hostility exist in Tolkien's world. They don't really exist outside of it, but the hostility has grown and reached ridiculous proportions beyond Middle-earth.

The rule of thumb seems to be that, whereas Tolkien thought matters through and wrote stories to explain things, many writers simply accept certain axioms and proceed from them without questioning whether the axioms are sound. One of those axioms seems to be, "Tolkien did it wrong so we can do it better." And yet, even a badly written book like The Sword of Shannara can become a best-seller because it so closely mimics Tolkien's world without really understanding it. The one flaw you won't find in The Sword of Shannara is that Terry Brooks doesn't presume to improve upon Tolkien. He just retells the story and has a rollicking good time butchering every rule of good story-telling one can imagine.

There was nonetheless something compelling about Brooks' version of the story. Millions of people enjoyed it at the time it came out. Part of the process that he got right, was that he didn't reveal too much too soon. Sometimes he revealed too much too late, but the reader was kept wondering about the past. He used the mystery of the past effectively in his Magic Kingdom for Sale | Sold. Many things are simply not explained, but the hint that they could be explained is ever present.

So many people are fearful of what harm might be done if someone were authorized to write more stories set in Tolkien's Middle-earth. But the harm has already been done in a million tiny, little ways. The bruising of Tolkien's traditions occurs every time someone tries to do it a little better than the master. No doubt someone will come along some century who can indeed do it better than Tolkien. But the masses haven't devoted the time to learning the craft of story-telling in the style Tolkien used, a style which they need to know. You have to do it Tolkien's way first before you can improve upon what he did. Too few people are actually trying to write like Tolkien.

A common complaint among fantasy readers is that there really is nothing like The Lord of the Rings. Sure, a few authors have truly dedicated fan bases. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is mentioned a great deal. But Robert Jordan has yet to earn the recognition that Tolkien has. And Robert Jordan hasn't even come close to having the impact on the popular imagination that Tolkien has had. Things are related to Tolkien of which Tolkien never even conceived. Even ElfQuest owes something to Tolkien, but there is only the vaguest, most distant resemblance between ElfQuest and The Lord of the Rings.

Which brings me to a point where I want to touch upon another topic: I'd like to see a Middle-earth comic. I doubt anyone would do it right. Not at first. We've seen "graphic novel" adaptations, but that's not what I'm talking about. I mean, there should be one or two daily comic strips which inhabit Middle-earth. Why? Because Middle-earth is growing. It never stopped growing. We just disguise it with other names. But there are still a lot of Middle-earth stories being told today.

Many people might say, "Sure, but they are so bad when compared to Tolkien." Yes, they are bad when compared to Tolkien, but the comparison isn't fair. Whether it's because editors feel Tolkien's style wouldn't sell today (I find that hard to believe, since The Lord of the Rings is one of the all-time best-selling books), or because authors simply feel intimidated by Tolkien's style, people are just not trying to publish books like Tolkien's.

Maybe some people really feel they can write better than Tolkien, but I don't think so. I just think they believe they can tell stories which are more relevant to today's readership than Tolkien's stories. That is the mistake. There is really no sex in Tolkien (except for all the babies Sam and Rosie have, and Arwen's promise to cleave to Aragorn). There isn't really any profanity. There is a lot of bloodshed but relatively little gore.

Tolkien doesn't try to provoke the reader into disgust or outrage. He just wants to entertain a friendly audience with an exciting tale. He doesn't pull out any gimmicks to spice it up. Today's authors could learn a thing or two from Tolkien. Today's editors could improve the pool of fantasy books by selecting a few good old-fashioned stories that don't try to break new ground. New ground will be broken properly when the authors learn how to get back to basics. C.J. Cherryh can write a story about Elves which is moving and compelling. Not everyone is C.J. Cherryh, though.

And fantasy shouldn't be trying to distance itself from Tolkien. After reading The Lord of the Rings, some people believe Tolkien had a problem with female characters. They don't stop to think that women were extremely important in some of his other works. The best story he ever wrote was the tale of Luthien. What's wrong with that female character? She is strong, intelligent, powerful, motivated, and has weaknesses and conflicts. And she loves.

Tolkien seems to be looked down upon more than admired by the creative community. If his work wasn't good enough for modern audiences, why do people keep buying his books? If his characters were politically incorrect, why do readers keep yearning for more Tolkien-like stories? If he didn't get it right, why was he voted Author of the Century in more than one poll in the last decade of the 20th century?

Modern fantasy came so close to improving upon the foundation Tolkien laid, but it took a step back and abandoned the basics. Tolkien robbed ancient and modern sources blind. One need only look to Homer, the Bible, "Beowulf", "The Kalevala", and the Norse myths to see where he got his inspiration and style. If today's authors and editors need to be formulaic, they should stick with a formula that works across generations and millennia. If they have to break out and be innovative, then it would help if they looked at how Tolkien did it by sticking with the basics, telling a story which makes sense, and not getting caught up in faux controversies.

We can't stop people from continuing to reinvent Middle-earth, but it wouldn't hurt to stop the clock and turn it back. Starting over could bring some new perspectives to modern fantasy, which has gotten a bit too stale for my tastes. Maybe that's just me, but I don't think so.

Michael Martinez is the author of Visualizing Middle-earth, which may be purchased directly from Xlibris Corp. or through any online bookstore. You may also special order it from your local bookstore. The ISBN is 0-7388-3408-4.