What if Mordor wasn't the evil place LotR led you to believe?

[Dan]

15 years ago, a Russian scientist named Kirill Yeskov wrote for his own amusement a sequel to Lord of the Rings from the point of view of the "bad guys" based on the idea that history is written by victors. So maybe, Mordor isn't so evil after all?

Kirill's friends loved the book and it was published. An official English translation hasn't been attempted at the time because the Tolkien estate is quite a litigious bunch. However, fortunately for us, fans recently wrote (with the author's blessing) a translation which is distributed for free.

There's no copyright issue with the work because it's an original text (it doesn't reuse Tolkien's prose). There's no trademark issue because trademark is only infringe when the reuse of text, image, characters, etc. misleads people about the source of the work and this text is clearly marked as not being from Tolkien. The estate could still sue because when you have lots of money you can easily legally bully people but they have no interest because since the work is distributed for free, there's no money to be gained out of legal actions.

You can download the PDF on this page and a mobi (for Kindles and other book readers) on this page.