Having put the final dot in “The Lord of the Rings,” Professor Tolkien closed the door to the world of elves and dwarves, orcs and goblins, hobbits and people that he had created, and threw away the magic key. Only one writer—Niq Perumov—managed to find the guiding thread into the mysterious and fragile world of Middle-earth. The task turned out to be difficult, because every wrong step threatened losing the path, and every inaccurate word could destroy the magic. But talent won. Tolkien’s world came alive, transformed, sparkled with new—and previously unknown—colors, and… became the world of Niq Perumov. And what was conceived as a free continuation of “The Lord of the Rings” grew into a vivid, exciting epic—one of the most notable in Russian and world science fiction.