I had given DtCB to one of my neighbors to read, around the time TTT was published. I had described it to him as having a heavy Tolkien influence, but as if it was reflected in a cracked funhouse mirror.

Even the map of Earwa is extremely evocative of the maps of Middle-earth.

After reading the series, he observed the same relationship between Bakker and Tolkien as in the Phillip Pullman books (Golden Compass, etc) and Paradise Lost - not just influence, but a level of response that is almost symbiosis.

Since almost all of the readers of Bakker's work have been consuming Tolkien for decades, he is able to use our preconceptions as an additional delivery mechanism for his story.  You might even say we had been... conditioned... to be receptive in this manner.