Why is it so difficult?

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by blantyr

This almost makes me wonder if a 'good parts' version of the Silmarillion ought to be written. Spider Robinson wrote a posthumous Heinlein novel, Variable Star, based on Heinlein's outline and notes from 1955. We have a scholarly presentation version of Silmarillion. Is there a modern writer anyone would trust to turn it into fiction?

Eh, I think what we've got works well enough as fiction– is fiction, actually. I could wish Tolkien had completed some of the longer and fuller versions of the stories, though, but that's not to say a modernised pastiche would answer. As for the specific example you mention, it seems to me quite a different case, as it looks like Robinson had very little material to work from in the first place.