My decade-old Tolkien book

Ladies and gentleman. This is the oldest Tolkien book in my collection.

It’s been 10 years since I bought my first book on Middle-earth. No The Lord of the Rings, nor The Hobbit would introduce me to the J.R.R. Tolkien’s storytelling.

I dived straight into the tales of the First Age.

On Were-worms

Hunting the elusive creature

You pick up a copy of The Hobbit and start reading the first chapter.

Halfway through you encounter the following statement made by Bilbo Baggins:

“Tell me what you want done, and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert.”

The Battle of The Five Armies Extended Edition Review!

An Extended Cut that fixes many issues but remains slightly inconsistent

Here it is folks! The long-awaited review of the extended edition of The Battle of the Five Armies is here.

Don’t expect a long discussion for now; just a quick look at each extended scene.

A few mild spoilers follow, in case you haven’t yet seen it.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition – Review (Part II)

The reviewing continues …

Well, here it is. Almost two years later, here follows the continuation of the massive The Lord of the Rings review.

I’m ashamed to state it took me so long. But finally, here it is.

Mind you, this is only Part 2 of 3 of The Fellowship of the Ring, which I’m hoping won’t take as long to write. In the meantime, you’ve got much reading to do in this second part.

I hope you enjoy 🙂 …

Tolkien Week: Day 2

Questions Time!

I love Tolkien-related questionnaires. They’re always so difficult to respond and to pinpoint a specific character of text to like; but they’re fun and a great way to learn about yourself and your love for Middle-earth.

So, in honour of the second day of Tolkien Week, here’s a nice little set of questions put forward by fellow blogger, Hamlette on her blog.

TTRT: The Silmarillion – Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age

In which these tales and this series come to an end

The fourth and final of the short works that make up The Silmarillion, deals primarily with the events taking place in the Third Age, most of which are recounted in The Lord of the Rings.

It’s fascinating to know that Tolkien wanted to include this work along with the others, thereby producing a book that stretched all the way from the beginning of Arda (in the Ainulindalë) right through the end of the Third Age.

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The Hobbit Trilogy Extended Edition Trailer! New Scenes!

In case you missed it . . .

Yes, so a certain trailer for a certain trilogy was released online in anticipation of the cinema release of all three extended editions of The Hobbit. Here’s the result.

Below we take a look at the new shots in store.

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In the meantime, here are some of the extended/new scenes we can expect in The Battle of the Five Armies.

TTRT: The Silmarillion – Akallabêth

The Downfall of Númenor

As already stated at the beginning of the TTRT series, although the Akallabêth is a separate account from the History of the Silmarils, it is nonetheless part of The Silmarillion as a book: presenting us with the continuation of events at the end of the First Age, with a perspective on the island of Númenor.

It is a fact that from all the works related to Middle-earth, the Second Age is perhaps the least accessible due to the lack of any substantial information.

Our primary sources as to what happens during this 3000-year period consist of a timeline in Appendix B of The Lord of the Rings, a brief account and story in Unfinished Tales, and the ‘Akallabêth’.

My view is that the ‘Akallabêth’ is our most comprehensive account we have available of the Second Age, and is the key to filling up the gap between the events at the end of the ‘Quenta Silmarillion’ and the earliest histories of the Third Age as recounted in The Lord of the Rings.

TTRT: The Silmarillion – Chapter Twenty-Four

“We come to it at last … the Great War of our time”

Believe it or not, we’ve come to the end of the ‘Quenta Silmarillion’ account that brings with it the end of the First Age.

Cataclysmic events are about to unfold and one of the greatest characters in Middle-earth will make his introduction.

TTRT: The Silmarillion – Chapter Twenty-Three

The Third of the Great Tales

We’ve come to the climax of the ‘Quenta Silmarillion’ story. ‘Of the Ruin of Doriath’ started the ball rolling which led to the events in this coming chapter.

However, the seed had long been planted way back in ‘Of Maeglin’, the elf who was one of the causes of this disaster.

Through its vast geography, politics and characters, Tolkien manages to fuse one seemingly unrelated event a 100 pages earlier and expand on the consequences of that occurrence later on.

‘Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin’ marks the continuing tremendous decline of the Free Peoples in Beleriand.