/lit/ - Literature

A random thought made me remember the unauthorised books in Lord of the Ring's universe, 'The Ring of Darkness.' Quick look at google and...I'm stupefied. It wasn't released in english. That's pretty crazy to me, because it's one of the more memorable fantasy books I've read in my childhood, enjoyed them just as much as LotR.

If you are unaware, there's a russian guy Nick Perumov who writes (used to?) fantasy. In 1993 he wrote two books for his friends, and they were so good they told him to publish it. They were unexpected success and sold hundreds of thousands of copies in European countries. The guy himself also isn't some nobody, all of his book together sold millions of copies.

Now I'm sad, because I've learned that english publishers were afraid of Tolkien estate and never translated his works to english. After 2000s copyrighters in Russia also forced the seriesout of print. I read the books in polish, twice, and never questioned their existence until years later I realised it might have been illegal. I got them around 2010 from a local library, the same one that I got the sequel to E.T. (I made a post about that some time ago in this thread). Also one of the very few instances that I enjoyed fan-fiction.

I've just found epubs of the series (in polish, it seems there is no english translation, alas) so I'll likely re-read and find out how does the series hold up now that I'm no longer a kid.