Collider writer Safwan Azeem has published a recommendation list of six fantasy novels for readers who enjoyed J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The piece argues that the best follow-up reads for Tolkien fans are not simply imitations of his quest narratives, but books that share his sense of a deep, aged world full of songs, ruins, loss and strange beauty — some predating Tolkien and shaping the tradition he loved, others written afterwards under his influence.

The extract details two of the six titles. E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros (1922) is described as a wild, archaic ancestor of epic fantasy, ceremonial and theatrical in its treatment of pride and glory, though lacking Tolkien's tenderness and moral clarity. Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter (1924) is praised as a short but important work whose power lies in the sorrow of enchantment entering mortal life, capturing the ache of immortal beauty touching a mortal world.