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Not all those who wander are lostJust like the otherworldly maps which often grace the inner covers of these wondrous books, the realm of fantasy novels is surprisingly wide-ranging, with numerous sub and hybrid genres existing within. From full-blown fantasy featuring witches, dragons, magic and mayhem, to dystopian takes that offer an almost satirical commentary on contemporary reality – the choices are endless and rather daunting, making it difficult to know where to start. An enduring genre nonetheless, it’s particularly fascinating that so much of our adoration for fantasy novels comes from our experience of them as children. When reread...

Hobbits, elves and Middle-earthlings across the globe will mark the 50th anniversary of J.R.R. Tolkien’s death this weekend. The English scholar and author best known for the worlds he created in “The Lord of the Rings” and other books died of pneumonia on Sept. 2, 1973, at age 81. Tolkien had a remarkable career, one which continues to touch lives, not only in his literature, but through the relationships he fostered, including one with his fellow Oxford don C.S. Lewis. Last year, an article in the lifestyle magazine Town & Country said “It is impossible to overstate how much Lewis...

A furious dispute has erupted among fans of The Lord of the Rings over a decision to make the fictional character Aragorn black in a new collectible card game. The new Aragorn will feature on a collectible card which will make up part of a series of Lord of the Rings-themed cards by Magic: The Gathering. Artwork featuring the character was unveiled in a tweet on Monday from an account run by the franchise, which was released in 1993 and is now a subsidiary of Hasbro.

It must be miserable to be a citizen of the United Kingdom these days. To be an unwilling participant in a nation’s slide into tyranny must be an awful thing. I know that we are witnessing it in the States, but they’ve been at it for a while now in the United Kingdom, which is tumbling with near-terminal velocity toward the bottom of the slippery slope. The UK, let us not forget, mobilized its citizens to evacuate troops from Dunkirk during the Second World War and to stand firm against Nazi Germany during the Blitz. But it would seem that...

“Lord of the Rings” fans are less than thrilled about the Thursday announcement from Warner Bros. that indicates the company plans to make more films based on the franchise. The decision comes less than a year after the big-budget Amazon TV series “The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power” was released to mixed reviews. The television project and all previous film adaptations are based on the epic high-fantasy book series by British author J.R.R. Tolkien. Warner Bros. Pictures announced Thursday that they signed a multi-year agreement with Swedish media company Embracer Group to revisit Tolkien’s work. Director Peter Jackson...

She has won the good opinion of countless readers with her sparklingly witty prose. And now – in something of a snub to the Bard – Jane Austen has been voted the greatest British author of all time. The Georgian-era novelist beat Shakespeare to take top spot, with 44 per cent of the vote.

olkien made this narration before The Lord of the Rings had found a publisher. He was rather disillusioned, even despairing about it's prospects, and had lost faith in his ability as a writer. He was visiting the house of a friend, and this friend had bought a fairly newfangled device: a tape recorder. After messing with it a bit, recording The Lord's Prayer (to exorcise any evil spirits in it, for Tolkien was a bit suspicious of new tech), his friend suggested that he record his favourite passage from his new book. Tolkien did so, and on replaying it, the...

Two first-time showrunners who landed TV’s biggest series give THR a behind-the-scenes tour as they navigate challenges even scarier than Mordor — from "patently evil" online trolling to massive industry expectations.“This is where everything happens,” says showrunner Patrick McKay. “The War Room.” The large, windowless room’s centerpiece is a lengthy conference table, but your eyes are immediately transfixed by what’s covering the walls. You’re surrounded by concept art laying out major set pieces for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season two. Showrunners McKay and J.D. Payne give a walk-through of the sequences. They plan to introduce...

Where’s a wizard to fight trolls when you need one? The mega-budget fantasy series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is under fire from some of its viewers. A day after the first two episodes of Amazon’s billion-dollar baby debuted on Prime Video, the show’s average audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is a “rotten” 37 percent, and reviews on Amazon have been outright suspended. Compare that score to TV critics giving the show a very fresh 83 percent average, and many of the reviews were highly enthusiastic (“It’s great: a gorgeously immersive and grandly ambitious spectacle, packed...

Rings of Power is glorified fan fiction with a multi-million dollar budget.The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is commercialism in all its glory—and gore. It is a billion-dollar visual feast built from the breadcrumbs left behind by J.R.R. Tolkien. Amazon Prime Video’s new offering—described as Jeff Bezos’ vanity project—promises to slake our thirst for high fantasy. But it takes creative liberties that make purists cringe. In 2017, Amazon bought the television rights to The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy, The Hobbit and the appendices for $250 million, and then poured another $465 million into the first...

YouTube reviewer and scooper Grace Randolph recently released her review for Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and she took Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel to task and claimed that Elrond and a number of the male Elves are gay. Randolph uploaded her review for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and noted the review only looks at the first two episodes of the series. In a section of the video that she labels “Worst Character” she specifically takes issue with Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel. Randolph states, “As for characters that I didn’t like. Well,...

The Beatles attempted to make a big-screen adaption of "Lord of The Rings" in 1968, but the band was denied rights to the fantasy books by J.R.R. Tolkien, according to filmmaker Peter Jackson. Jackson — who is best known for his sprawling trilogy based on Tolkien's "Lord of The Rings" series — is currently on the press run for his latest work "The Beatles: Get Back," a docuseries crafted from footage of the band recording their last album, "Let It Be," when he told the BBC that he had discovered the fab four had been keen on adapting Tolkien. "I've...

I was in an online debate on artificial intelligence when Robert Arvanitis brought up something he’d written referencing Lord of the Rings. From the title “The Orcs that ran away”, I thought it was a short fantasy story. In reality, it was a financial paper on the economic impact of the production of the Lord of the Rings movies in New Zealand and how AI was used to solve it.

This weekend, the Tolkien Society is hosting a virtual Summer Seminar, a short academic conference on a theme pertaining to scholarship about J.R.R. Tolkien, the British scholar and author of The Lord of the Rings. This year, most of the seminar has taken a clear turn for the “woke” — complete with multiple papers on LGBT themes and “anti-racism,” a movement inspired by Marxist critical race theory. The Tolkien Society invited academics and others to submit papers to present at the seminar, specifically encouraging the “theme of diversity” and representation. “While interest in the topic of diversity has steadily grown...

“The Tolkien Society has announced that the theme of its 2021 Summer Seminar, held July 3 – 4, will be ‘Tolkien and Diversity,’” reports the Daily Wire. This is not a parody. It only sounds like a parody, which is what makes observing the Woketard Gestapo in action from safe, sane, and tolerant Rural MAGA Land such a blast. Here’s a sampling of what Woketard Tolkien Fanboys can expect — you know, those whose lives are so empty, this is how they choose to spend a weekend: Gondor in Transition: A Brief Introduction to Transgender Realities in The Lord of...

While interest in the topic of diversity has steadily grown within Tolkien research, it is now receiving more critical attention than ever before. Spurred by recent interpretations of Tolkien’s creations and the cast list of the upcoming Amazon show The Lord of the Rings, it is crucial we discuss the theme of diversity in relation to Tolkien. How do adaptations of Tolkien’s works (from film and art to music) open a discourse on diversity within Tolkien’s works and his place within modern society? Beyond his secondary-world, diversity further encompasses Tolkien’s readership and how his texts exist within the primary world....

A historic pub in the centre of Oxford that has served students, scholars and literary greats for over 450 years is to close. The Lamb and Flag, once frequented by the likes of Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien and his friend C.S. Lewis, who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, has suffered a disastrous loss of revenues since the start of the pandemic. It first opened in 1566 and moved to its present location on St Giles, a broad thoroughfare in the city centre, in 1613. It is owned by St John’s College, one of 45 colleges and private...

Amazon Prime’s “Lord of the Rings” series set to release in 2021 has been eagerly anticipated by devoted LOTR fans around the world. The $1 billion series will be set in the Second Age of Middle Earth, which spans 3441 years, before the events of the LOTR movies. Unfortunately, it looks like the creators of the series, which they claim is based on J.R.R Tolkien’s original work, may be trying to imitate “Game of Thrones”-type nudity and “rapey” storylines. This, no doubt, will delight the left, who have long detested Tolkien’s writing and distinctive Christian influence on popular culture.According...

Amazon Studios’ LOTR Series Heads Into Uncharted Carnal Waters with Casting Call for Nudity and an “Intimacy Coordinator” This might be a singularly surprising or even upsetting concept to present to Tolkien fans. If I were to address this reality to Star Wars, or Harry Potter, or even Miyazaki fandom it would raise eyebrows or outright alarm. But gather ’round the campfire and hear my tremulous words:“Prepare for a newly-sexualized version of your favorite fantasy world.”... Fact check: We can confirm Amazon Studios has hired Jennifer Ward-Lealand, a well-known New Zealand Intimacy Coordinator, for the Lord of the Rings production......

Maybe it’s because of Amazon’s upcoming TV series, but lately we seem to be learning a lot of hitherto unknown facts about The Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien, or at least, some old facts are getting spread around anew. Just recently, author John M. Bowers posited that Tolkien may have written his genre-defining trilogy while procrastinating on his academic work. (Would that all our procrastinations were that fruitful.) Now, the @SecretsOfDune Twitter account has posted a page from Tolkien’s Library: An Annotated Checklist by Oronzo Chili, which seeks to understand this literary titan by perusing his bookshelf. And...