This probably requires a bit of an explanation.
One of the sites I frequent on the 'net is the Straight Dope Message Board. A few months ago one of our regular posters, who goes by the handle Fingolfin, started an innocent-seeming thread in which he speculated on what the Lord of the Rings trilogy might have looked like had it been written by someone other than J.R.R. Tolkein. To start things off, he provided a brief excerpt from the novels as written by Ernest Hemmingway.
The thread took off. It quickly became the most posted-to thread in the history of the SDMB and references to it were posted across the 'net. SlashDot linked to it at one point and the resulting influx of viewers nearly crashed the servers. They also posted their own versions of the story. At last report, the thread was approaching 2000 messages and still going strong.
I personally contributed three entries to the thread; The Lord of the Rings as if it were a Reality TV show (The Amazing Race, to be specific), as if it were a Doc Savage pulp adventure and as if it had been written by science fiction and fantasy author Roger Zelazny. I present these below.
- The Amazing Wraiths - Episode 3: Rivendell to Lothlorian
- Doc Strider: Ranger of Bronze - The Czar of the Rings - as inspired by Kenneth Robeson/Lester Dent
- Nine Rings in Mordor - as inspired by Roger Zelazny