You've done it!
You've finished reading The Lord of the Rings!
Perhaps you've read the whole of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales
And now you think:
What do I read next?
You've just spent a fair amount of time immersed in such a beautiful world, the world of elves, and Gandalf, and the Shire and Hobbits, dwarves in underground kingdoms and more
What do I read next?
Perhaps you've searched far and wide for another modern fantasy series that has that beauty, that mythic depth, that sense of the sacred... in vain!
Perhaps I can help.
For I know three things that can indeed live up to Tolkien.
First, the Chronicles of Narnia.
This is not just a series for children.
Here you can find all that elusive beauty that you found in Tolkien.
Here you can find sacred depth.
And something else: start with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Read them in the original publication order. (look it up; it'll come up.) But for now, simply start with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (Prince Caspian is next after that.)
You were meant to discover Narnia the way the Pevensies do.
This is the original publication order.
It follows the stories of Narnia as Lucy and Edmund Pevensie experiences them.
You want to gradually discover the secrets of Narnia with Lucy and Edmund, not learn them all at once in The Magician's Nephew.
It's more fun that way, and more beautiful.
But there are two other stories that I know that have all the beauty and sacred depth of Tolkien.
They are not modern fantasy.
In modern fantasy, as books (there is also The Dark Crystal, which is a movie), only Tolkien and C.S. Lewis have that beauty, that sacred depth. Only Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and one other- Andre Norton.
Check out Andre Norton. But her books are as much like Steven Spielberg's E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind emotionally (only often fantasy)- intensely emotional, in an awe-and-wonder kind of way. Not as long, not a thousand pages, but concentrated with an immense experience. Fans of Tolkien will probably love her; but it is not quite the same thing, it's a slightly different experience. Just slightly.
But there is one other set of stories with all the feel of traditional fantasy which does indeed have all the beauty and sacred depth of Tolkien.
And it's not modern.
It's the two great Sanskrit epics of India, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
If after Tolkien a lot of fantasy disappoints because it does not contain the same beauty, the same depth and sense of the sacred as Tolkien, this is where to turn.
The beauty is incredible.
The sense of sacred depth, like in Lothlorien with Galadriel, is at least as strong as in Tolkien.
In English I recommend Ramesh Menon's retellings. In English, so far as I know, there is no substitute. All the beauty and depth- you can find it in Ramesh Menon's retellings.
The only alternative is to learn Sanskrit, or a language like Hindi that has a classic retelling.
The other English-language translations and retellings don't even come close.
And both are nice and long- but in Ramesh Menon's retellings, easy to read. Nice and long, and full of story, and beauty, and depth!
That's it- my recommendations for where to get that post-Tolkien fix!
God loves you! Look to the light!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson