Dennis L. McKiernan

Dennis McKiernan - The Lord of the Seeing Crystal, um, Magic Arrow, uh, oh forget it....

A band of tiny but strong halflings from an idyllic little land join up with a human king-in-waiting, an elf archer and a doughty axe-swinging dwarf who are trying to stop the Evil Dark Lord from taking over the world and enslaving or killing everybody. In a world whose name means "middle world."

Yeah, I read it before. And it was a lot better when J.R.R. Tolkien wrote it.

Okay, backstory: Dennis McKiernan apparently began writing when he was in a bad motorcycle crash and was immobilized for some months, so he wrote a sequel to Lord of the Rings. Shockity-shock-shocks, you can't actually publish a literal sequel because the Tolkien estate will shut you down so fast your head spins, so he changed the names and a few details.... and then wrote a prequel trilogy with the same basic plot but a few new details, like a sugary princess and a COMET OF DEATH. And no ring. Plus the bad guy is carved out of Cheez.

Anyway, he wrote some actual original stories after that, but whatever.

The Dragonstone - Some incredibly tiny elf chick foresees that she has to get a bunch of cliched people/objects together or the world is going to end. Or maybe it will anyway. It's all very confusing.

 Hel's Crucible Duology - No, that is not a typo.  Into The Forge -  A halfling goes across the world with a tiny round object that may or may not be able to save the world. Wait, I've heard this one before. Also: elf perverts.  Into the Fire -  Apparently war is long, boring, and repetitive. Also, the plague may break out at any random time.

 The Eye of the Hunter </li></ul>

 Tales of Mithgar </li></ul>

 The Iron Tower Trilogy -  Think Lord of the Rings, but whinier and weirder and with more crying. The Dark Tide</li>  Shadows of Doom </li>  The Darkest Day </li></ul></li></ul>

Voyage of the Fox Rider - In which elves, dwarves, faeries and a wizard sail around doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.</li></ul>

The Silver Call Duology - Originally written as a sequel to Lord of the Rings, but when it was shot down by J.R.R. Tolkien's estate, McKiernan turned it into a purely derivative work. Trek to Kraggen-Cor </li> The Brega Path</li></ul></li></ul>

<ul><li>Once Upon A Winter's Night - A fairy tale adaptation, with some fairly explicit sex, a Purity Sue and much meanderings around in Faery.</li> <li>Once Upon a Summer's Day -</li> <li>Once Upon an Autumn Eve -</li> <li>Once Upon a Spring Morn -</li> <li>Once Upon a Dreadful Time - Time for happily ever after! Or whatever!</li></ul>

<ul><li>Caverns of Socrates- It's got fantasy, but it's actually sci-fi. Eh, just read it. It makes more sense. Think a not-very-good RPG game combined with the off-brand 2001: A Space Odyssey.</li> <li>The Halfling House - A supposed tribute to Tolkien that isn't anything of the kind, in which in a lot of tiny people go on an unsatisfying adventure through time and space.</li></ul>

What To Read Instead of Dennis L. McKiernan