Have any literary authors managed to create a secondary world as well thought out as tolkien's middle earth?

Have you read The Simarillion mate?

Oh come on. I used it properly and I can't think of a better way to express that thought besides "in itself" and that takes longer to type and doesn't even get the full meaning across.

Yeah his prose isn't very slick or shiny. It takes a special player to play every position. His writing isn't torturous. It just isn't very attention-getting. I'd say it's servicable.

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A third of the planet got fucking Atlantisfied, twice.

Now that's a man who knows how to do business. Maybe I should speak more eloquently, at least if it's going to make me mad dosh per se

Veeky Forums‘s the one board you can get away with being pretentious, dick. If you don’t like it don’t participate.

Guin Saga has 100+ volumes. Too bad none of you will ever get to read it.

Unfortunately it's still not well written. There I'd very little explanation to the reader about the actual lore

For example, in Fellowship, the first time Aragorn mentions that he is of the Numenor, it hasn't been mentioned in the book thus far, and no further explanation is given by the character as to what that actually means.

Half the shit in Lord of the Rings you have to supplement by wiki search to even understand the impact.

vndb.org/v2016

Infodumps a day expositions kill narratives. Tolkien did the right thing. Offhand references to things you don't understand creates an aesthetic effect of reading a text that was produced in an unfamiliar setting.

Okay I see your point there. But could we not have something in the middle between infodump and vague reference?

I think your method would work well in a world that isn't as lore-heavy as Middle Earth. But based on the depth of the books, you have to get close to infodump level for the reader to understand.

I think reading the Silmarillion should be enough. The genre of work that Tolkien was imitating with LOTR (poetic epics) operated the same way with vague intertextuality giving the reader a sense of experiencing a narrow slice of a much vaster culture. I liked the disorientation that sometimes caused. Reading LOTR or watching Star Wars is like visiting Japan for the first time. You become aware of how little you understand and it's a thrilling experiencing being steeped in a culture that's totally new and different. It gives a sense of depth that is glossed over in the process of immediate experience. I think that's one of fantasy's and science fiction's strengths. It just feels alien.

Good explanation. I'll have to check out the Simalrillion first next time I give it a shot.

If you count collaborative efforts -- and you should, since Tolkien only created a fraction of Middle Earth lore --, then yes. The old Star Wars EU, while containing much bullshit, was vast and described in great detail.

This is how plebs review films, there was something said to someone at some point that I didn't understand, fuckin plotholes! lol

Bakker's world is more thought out.