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thanks for the pointer -- looks interesting, along with his other 'adult' stories : http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_dahl_bestof.html

If Peter Jackson has anything to do with Saul Zaentz, he should take care. Zaentz treated a certain other Peter rather poorly in conjunction with the production of the Lord of the Rings animated film.

I do agree with you however that Gibson & Sterling paved the way.

Bzzt, wrong. I don't know what the first reference to this type program would be, but I do know that Roger Zelazney used something very similar to a virtual "earth" as a plot device in Home is the Hangman, written in 1975:

'Home is The Hangman' is part of a series of novellas where the premise is that when the world databases are unified, a programmer takes the opportunity to completely erase his existence. He pursues a career as a trouble-shooter, taking on those assignments no one else will do.

There's also a fairly recent book entitled _Grendel_ that looks at the entire story from the monster's point of view

I was hoping someone would mention that. That'd be John Gardner's Grendel , published in 1971. Which I guess is recent compared to the 8th century.
"I was Grendel, Ruiner of Meadhalls, Wrecker of Kings! But also, as never before, I was alone."

I really would like to see this made. Also, my favorite would be The Dark is Rising series from Susan Cooper. Others that would be great:

Forever War (sci-fi)
The Titan, Wizard + Demon series (sci-fi/fantasy)
On a pale horse series (?) Piers Anthony

-Sean

You need to read Mary Gentle's Grunts . Imagine Lord of the Rings written from an orc's point of view... by someone with a mind so twisted you could use them as a corkscrew.

Every year for 23 years, Tolkien wrote his children a letter from Father Christmas, from the late 20's into the 40's. The great depression and WWII get mentioned in passing, but Father Christmas always triumphs.

This one is good for reading to children, with wonderful pictures by Tolkien. For older children, you can sprinkle in a bit of history by telling why Father Christmas had such trouble delivering toys in 1932, and so on. For the Tolkien fancier, the book gives some insight into the author's mind. For example, my edition has samples of the ``elvish writing'' which Father Christmas sent to the children.

In the barren landscape that is the fantasy movie genre, this stands out in my mind as a great movie that not many people know about. I'm hoping Disney brings it to DVD eventually . . .

It seems to me that the toughest thing facing an author today is an industry that's going to ask for one compromise after another

That's crap. Good editors -- and there are plenty of them out there -- are a writer's best friend, where the quality of the work is concerned. (They may not be where the money's concerned, but that's why you have an agent. Which you don't need until you already have an unsigned contract in your hand, by the way.)

The toughest thing facing an aspiring author today is getting the damn book written. (All of you would-be writers in this forum wondering if Xlibris would be the way to go if, as, and when you get around to writing that book are putting the cart before the horse.)

The second toughest thing is writing a good book. Interestingly, probably 95% of the aspiring writers and up-and-coming writers I've met fall into one of two categories: Either they write really well but don't get much done, or they already have two manuscript the size of phone books that they're trying to get published, and they're crap. (The other 5% are Tim Pratt, who doesn't seem to have either problem.)

Writers of the first sort have trouble because their drive for quality makes them spend more time on their stuff, more time revising, and even yet still more time throwing it out and starting over. ("Writer's block isn't not being able to write. It's thinking that everything you write is shit." -- Maureen McHugh)

Writers of the second sort have trouble because they don't understand why they can't sell their stuff, and so they blame the editors, the publishers, the slush pile readers and the reading public, instead of putting the blame where it belongs: on themselves, for not working to improve their writing.

(P.S. Yes, IAAPW. Barely. But ask one who's been around a while. You'll get the same answer.)

Personally, I enjoyed the section on Bombadil. Even as creative as Tolkien is, his world sometimes appears to be a bit cramped. (How is that the Shire was so unheard of when everything was within a few weeks by foot?) The section on Bombadil expands his conception of Middle Earth in both space and time.

There is an wonderfully written writeup on Bombadil over here. I quote :

"Likewise, Tom Bombadil was originally a Dutch doll also belonging to Michael Tolkien. John, his brother, put the doll down a lavatory. Bombadil was rescued and Tolkien wrote The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, originally published in Oxford Magazine in 1934. Tolkien later offered to his publishers the idea that Bombadil's story could be expanded into a sequel to The Hobbit, but they didn't bite, so Tom appeared anyway in The Lord of the Rings. Tom makes his debut in the form found in this collection.

The author's method reminds me of the ways in which painful losses are explained in many other cultures. Examples include some Native American mythologies explaining the disappearance of American bison, and German legends about the disappearance of magical creatures from the world. Tolkien's explanation also seems similar to stories told about the rise of iron and technology and the passing away of old traditions, or of the disappearance of the unicorn (it missed the ark), and the rise of the dichotomy that rends myth from objective "reality." One can see the theme at work in the poem "The Last Ship," present in this collection, and in Tolkien's later writing -- elves sailing out of Middle Earth forever, making way for the age of men.

Bombadil's Adventures, however, is a heroic comedy in part about his capacity to escape disappearance -- to endure. One kind of disappearance is that of loneliness, where one fades from the view of others, becomes "mythical," alien, other -- larger than life and yet too small to see, casting no shadow. It is the solitude of being attached to other worlds, worlds where story is more than pastime, worlds where real objects have more than one kind of life and significance, and the loneliness of being unable to weave the other worlds and this one seamlessly together, to make everyone understand."

Bob