What is the general Christian view on fantasy works such as Tolkien's Silmarillion? I've just read Silmarillion for the second time in my life. The last time was 20 years ago. In short, it's basically a "fantasy bible", starting out extremely abstract with how God creates these beings called "Ainor" which produce "music", and one of them, Melkor, makes his own, disharmonic music, and developers from there into the "Lord of Darkness"/Devil.

Interesting to note is that the author, J. R. R. Tolkien, was very much Christian. Apparently. But how does that fit with this fantasy vision of the world? Because, as he says himself in an interview, it is meant to be about the early history of this, our planet/world -- not some kind of distant alien planet or an alternative dimension.

This really got me thinking. After all, one of the commandments is all about how you aren't supposed to "depict other gods", but he very much does so with Silmarillion, which doesn't at all fit with the old or new testaments of the Christian/Jewish/standard bible.

I'm probably going to attempt to read the bible again soon, but I stopped when they got to the point, pretty early on, where they just started listing names for pages upon pages. Silmarillion has a very similar issue; it becomes extremely "heavy" to read due to the numerous names and aliases for everyone and everything.

Another major "problem" (or potential point of conflict) is that, in Tolkien's vision, humans are not the first creatures created after the initial beings/gods (called Ainur/Valar/Maior) -- instead, it's the elves, and only much later do humans appear, and when they do, they are made out to be very easily lured into evil deeds and horribly traitorous acts by Melkor, the Satans of Silmarillion.

This got me thinking a lot: what do Christians in general think of a work such as Silmarillion? Is it "disgusting heresy" or "an interesting fictional alternative history which of course isn't true but nevertheless interesting to read about, much like the other actual religions/beliefs which are obviously false but still have some interesting storytelling"?
Some time after I had read The Lord of the Rings I bought a copy of Tolkien’s The Silmarillion.  I recognised the cover of the book as shown in the Wikipedia article above [1].  

Unlike The Lord of the Rings, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I never did get to the end of the Silmarillion.  In fact, I don’t recall reading beyond the first chapter.  Another book I enjoyed was C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.  Tolkien was at one time a close friend of C. S. Lewis.  They met while Lewis was teaching at Magdalen College. [2]

Tolkien reputedly said “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”  He also wrote that “the chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks." [3]

I have taken that advice to heart, and since I became a Christian, I have given up on mythical characters and fantastic plots.  I realise this is the personal opinion of one Christian, but I was quite unable to find any Christian sources that mentioned The Silmarillion – which speaks volumes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silmarillion

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien#Religion