I wasn't sure how Beren and Luthien was going to be presented before it was published. I'm not unhappy with it at all, but it's a book that would be off-putting to the casual reader, imho. But I don't think any of the recent books (those since Hurin) are really intended for the casual reader.
I would love a standalone Gondolin book, but the most complete version of that story was written as part of The Book of Lost Tales a century ago.
I have to say that I was disappointed that it wasn't a novelization like CoH as I was really excited for it. For whatever reason, a few years ago I finally "got" Tolkien and have since become a true fan of the work, especially The Silmarillion, my favorite Middle Earth book. One of the things that sort of bothered me was the dearth of Middle Earth books, and I had hoped, as I became more familiar with the Legendarium, that we'd get "Beren and Luthien" and "The Fall Of Gondolin" in novel form. I really wanted Christopher to do this, but he seems to have been really reluctant to really add anything to the mythos himself.
I know he took a "beating" on The Silmarillion (don't know all the details, but I'm sure there was something that wasn't lining up, though how the fans would know I don't know) and so it seemed like he contented himself to publishing the more scholarly "History of Middle-Earth" instead of attempting to complete his father's primary tales of the First Age. Now, I'm sure he feared another backlash, but I think the fandom isn't the same as it was in the 60's-80's because so much more time has passed, and so many more fantasy works exists now. Plus I think fandom would be more accepting of Christopher's own contributions when it comes to trying to craft a single tale out of various tales, like he did with CoH.
Maybe he felt like he didn't know what his father's final intentions were and didn't want to be bold enough to assume he knew. But JRR didn't know what his final intentions were, and Christopher is probably the next best person in the world to take a guess. Plus he could've simple stated something to the effect in a "forward" and say that the "canonicity" of the tale is nebulous because of this. Or something. Brian Herbert doesn't seem to have that problem. LOL. I always wondered if, in addition to his own probably needless fears over fan outrage, he was concerned with LotR becoming, not the central work, but simply one chapter in a larger series.
So now I wonder if we might get novels of "Beren and Luthien" and "The Fall Of Gondolin", and the best we can hope is that they are done by some author who has a love for the material and who can craft the best possible tale after fastidious study of the works. "The Fall Of Gondolin" would be the easier of the two I should think as I've run across one guy who said he did just this decades back, and I believe a friend of JRR also did this decades back. "Beren and Luthien" would be the more difficult due to a lack of sufficient detail to make it novel length, though I think some creative soul could pull it off. Again, I wish that it would've been Christopher.
The downside to this is that we might find ourselves in a Star Wars situation. For me, all I ever wanted was the nine movies. That's it. Nine movies about three generations of Skywalkers. Didn't care about "extended universes" because 'The Saga" just becomes one small chapter in an otherwise larger series, as we're about to start seeing as Disney runs Star Wars into the ground. Likewise, it would be weird if the Tolkien estate authorizes new works set in the world of Middle-Earth by big name writers...I wonder who would jump at the chance and who would refuse....because we would be at that same point we now are with Star Wars. An increase in new Middle-Earth works decreases the prominence of LotR, and makes it just one more chapter in a huge sprawling series. Well, the endpoint anyway.
