[PatrickHenry]

Lord Of The Rings is fantasy. All you've been exposed to is sci-fi and fantasy. Millions love the stuff, so I'm not knocking it. But you seem to get a kick out of having your imagination stimulated. Genuine SF is the way to go.

[Long Cut]

Not completely. One of the first books I ever read was 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, the complete version, when I was in the fourth grade. I learned to read when I was three.

Score one for a private, Catholic primary education.

You should SEE my library...I save most all of the books I read, and I read about two a month.

[f.Christian]

Lord Of The Rings is fantasy.

Lord Of The Rings is an allegory of the statist liberal atheist left using darwin(evolution) and marx(social evolution) to establish the global NWO tyranny.

[Junior]

Good fantasy, like good science fiction, needs to be self consistent (which Star Trek most definitely is not). LoTR has already been mentioned; one should also consider the trilogy (so far) by Gregory Keyes that starts with Newton's Cannon. It also sort of doubles as alternative history.