I love that, and only wanted to nitpick that not only are there "at least five rings" in the story, but a full score (20): 9 for men, 7 for dwarves, 3 for elves and the one ring.
Damn you're right, it's been too many years since I read it. I was following on from the previous comment talking about splitting the ring in two.
Maybe we'll actually be able to say things like: write me a trilogy in the style of Lord of the Rings but with these changes:
* Make it scifi
* Add more female characters with greater depth
* At least five rings
* Hobbits are the bad guys
... Or whatever, specifying a version of the story tailored to your intersts, and that you would get out really high quality results, similar in quality to the source materials.
Imagine you could do the same with movies, games, music.
I'm not trying to assign a value judgement here. There's good and bad sides. However, this reality is becoming easier to imagine with each new model released.
For sure, anyone who is a writer or artist will see this as bad. But perhaps our whole concept of what art is will become more fluid and personalized.