I can’t disagree, but such succinct description is robbing the story from its value.
For me it was coherent (and back then I knew Tolkien lore well). Stark contrast between believable realities gave me plenty of space for wandering thoughts.
E.g. both are work of fiction, so no ultimate proof of truth can be found, but what are the elements that make world real; who stumbled more in their story?
Each story was very much a product of the society in which its author lived.
Tolkien grew up in a country with a state-funded news agency which had honest information as a core driver and was trusted by the population, while Yeskov's country instead had the goals of the party and was viewed with distrust and disdain and resulted in widespread cynicism.
Tolkien was a scholar with a mastery of language few have reached which has been widely translated, while Yeskov's work is only available to Russian readers and the one translation is not available for want of authorization, so arguably doesn't really get out the gate.
(which is everything except _Letters_ --- I have the new edition on my Kindle and am waiting on a corrected new edition --- if someone knows of an academic/publisher who would be interested in either a reprinting or a new edition of _The Book of Exodus_ please contact me, I'm most of the way through resetting it in LaTeX, but was rebuffed by Turville-Petre's son who holds the copyright on the commentary)
Late response but a clarification - The Last Ringbearer was translated to couple languages, and it seems that only English didn’t get proper release due to the authorization (yet its still available for free and approved by Yeskov).
I checked because I have official print somewhere and last time I checked I couldn’t read Russian ;)
Still it’s somewhat interesting that French, German and Spanish editions can exist freely in their native laws while English publisher holds the gates.
For me it was coherent (and back then I knew Tolkien lore well). Stark contrast between believable realities gave me plenty of space for wandering thoughts.
E.g. both are work of fiction, so no ultimate proof of truth can be found, but what are the elements that make world real; who stumbled more in their story?