IF OTHER AUTHORS HAD WRITTEN THE LORD OF THE RINGS ... This has gotten me inspired enough so I added one of my own. Here are some excerpts. See if you can guess which one of these it is -- without looking up the original page.

Ian Fleming:

Aragorn placed his hand on the cool, ivory hilt of his 6.38 Andúril sword, half-holding it in as casual manner as possible. His eyes swept the room of the Prancing Pony, eyeing up the potential threats. He took out his pipe, made from the warmed heartwood of a mature oak. In the palm of his left hand, he unwrapped his leather tobacco pouch filled, as he preferred, with Gondorian Silk Cut. Aragorn preferred it to the harsher, stronger Númenorean blend...

PG Wodehouse:

"Sam, I've decided to go and overthrow the Dark Lord by tossing his jewelry into a volcano".

"Very good, sir. Should I lay out your crazy adventure garb? I presume that this will pose a delay to tea-time. I would remind your Hobbitship that your Great Aunt Lobelia Sackville-Baggins is expected for tea".

"Blast! I say, bother! How can a chap overthrow the Dark Lord? I suppose I will have to delay my campaign".

"Very good, sir. I believe you will be free in about a decade".

"I'll do it then. Make a note, Sam"...

Oscar Wilde:

"He bested me in a riddle contest".

"A riddle contest?"

"It was so. And he cheated".

"To cheat in a riddle contest is a riddle in itself, and is therefore not cheating, but just another riddle"...

CS Lewis:

... By this time, Bilbo was in a frightful state, for by now he was quite upset with himself that he had given over the Ring to Frodo, and with Gandalf as well for "making me do it". I expect that a good many of you may often have felt like this, after you've done something you were told was the proper thing to do. You don't like it half so much the next day, and by end of term you're absolutely certain you've been cheated out of something dear to you. As a result of all of this, by the time Bilbo saw the Ring on Frodo's chest, he felt dreadfully jealous all of a sudden.

"I say, Baggins, I do think you're being perfectly beastly about this whole letting me hold the Ring again thing", said Bilbo crossly.

"Oh, do shut up, Baggins", retorted Frodo. "Don't you understand? The Ring is my burden. Not anyone else's. That's what He told us. You-Know-Who. The Wizard"...

Gene Roddenberry:

"The Halflings, cap'n, they will na take the strain"

"Strider, we've got to get out of this snow. Legolas, did you get a reading on that creature?"

"Fascinating, Captain. It appears to be an unknown creature that lurks in the pool waiting for passing strangers. Ecologically implausible, captain".

"Do you know what it is?"

"I believe I said it was unknown, Dr Gimli. Logically, if I knew what it was, then it wouldn't be unknown".

"Cap'n, we're in some sort of temporal warp, stretching and deforming the plot. The snow should take place a day before our encounter with this beastie".

"Captain, what are we going to do?"

"Boromir, put on that red armour"....

Ernest Hemingway:

Frodo Baggins looked at the ring. The ring was round. It was a good ring. The hole at the heart of the ring was also round. The hole was clean and pure. The hole at the heart of the ring had an emptiness in it that made Frodo Baggins remember the big skies of the Shire when his father had taken him out and taught him to tear the heads off the small, furred things that walked there, even though he hated blood in those days and the stink of the blood was always part of the emptiness for him then and ever after. Frodo Baggins could put the ring on his finger now. The stink of the blood and the hole and the emptiness could never leave him now. Frodo Baggins looked at the ash-heap slopes of Mordor and remembered the Cuban Orc who had kept the ash on his cigar all the way to the end. The Orc just drew on the cigar and smoked the cigar calmly and kept the ash in a long grey finger, a hard finger, right to the moment that the Rangers beat hit to death with clubs. He was mucho Orco, the Cuban...

There's more. Go on, go check out the page. Thanks to one of Mark Shea's lurkers for that tip.