[Kalimac]

Thank you, Arthur C. Clarke [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]. It's a good question, Kin-strife, but my guess is pretty mundane - that Tolkien's world is so scientifically believable/consistent is that he was a very good writer and had a depth of intelligence and imagination that not too many of us can come close to. I don't think it had much to do with the age that he lived in (if I understood your question correctly, apologies if I didn't) except insofar as the novel was the form he chose as opposed to a lay poem or epic, which he probably would have told the story in if he'd lived centuries ago.