Slashdot Mirror
New Tolkien Book Released 'The Children of Hurin'
Zoolander writes "Christopher Tolkien has completed the last book of J.R.R. Tolkien from notes left from his father." The ultimate question is how much of a quality difference will there be; for instance the difference between Dune and Dune: House Atriedes is a pretty big gap. But in my experience, Christopher Tolkien has always taken a good, cautious approach when it comes to his father's work so here's to hoping.
I have always thought Chris has done a good job compiling his father's stuff. I can't wait to pick this up!
Shiny. Let's be bad guys.
I always liked the Hurin's Children story, the one in Silmarillion, and also the version with more details in the collection "Unfinished tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth".
:)
Anyway, the story has quite a lot of similarities with the Finnish folklore Kalevala, spefically Kullervo's story. Knowing how much Tolkien liked Finnish, some of the stuff might be intentionally taken
From the wiki article:
Cantos 31-36: The Kullervo cycle: Untamo kills his brother Kalervo's people except for the wife who begets Kullervo; Untamo gives Kullervo several tasks but he sabotages them all; Kullervo is sold as a slave to Ilmarinen; after being tormented by Ilmarinen's wife, he exacts revenge and the wife gets killed; Kullervo runs away and finds his family unharmed near Lapland; Kullervo seduces a maiden and later finds out she is his sister; Kullervo destroys Untamola (the realm of Untamo) and upon returning home finds everyone killed; Kullervo kills himself.
Well... parallels to Túrin are there.
Heard about this on the radio. According to 'the experts' it features several large battle scenes, and "would make a good movie".
Go figure.
I read the three Lord Of The Rings books and The Hobbit. Can someone tell me what other Tolkien books take place in the same Middle Earth "universe", and how do they relate to the ones I read? That is, are they prequels, sequels, or parallel stories?
Do any of the hobbits, Gandalf, the Shire, or any other "Rings" characters appear in the other books?
She's his sister.
(Oh come on, you weren't expecting to get through this discussion without finding that out.)
After this, Chris is forming an all-star team to create the epic The Dragonweyrs of the Dragon Reborn with the One Ring in Shannara, a Blood of the Fold novel.
Herbert that is...............
I loved all the Dune series....but haven't even bothered to buy the last few that Brian has written.
He's not in the same class as his father was.
Good analogy. The difference between, say, The Fellowship of the Ring and any Christopher Tolkien followup (except perhaps the Silmarillion) is about as big.
JRR Tolkien and Frank Herbert were visionaries. Their books are legendary because they're so complete, so consistent, they're practically holographic. While those authors were also brilliant editors, especially Tolkien whose main gig was (as is well known) Oxford English Dictionary editor. Their (genetic, and thereby literary) heirs are undistinguished from a vast host of other second or lower tier of "visionary" authors, and have no special editing talent - nor have acquired any at their cashin publishers. While they also operate at a disadvantage while writing outside the original cultural contexts that produced those seminal works for a different audience.
Ironically, both Middle Earth and Dune are epic tales of the original forefathers of our times (Dune less obviously, sorry for the spoiler). A magical time when a unique individual arrived to set the worlds on the path that led to today's mundane, if relatively safe, existence. Both Tolkien and Herbert themselves portrayed themselves as mere humble quoters of the original stories, originally told by the great actors themselves. Their stories resonate with generations of the public partly because we understand that great storytellers are part of great stories which are part of great ages, come once in a long while, and cannot bequeath their talents and opportunities to their children.
On the bright side, both The Lord of the Rings and the Dune trilogies are so good that they can be reread often over a lifetime, delivering new rewards each time. Reading those later "extensions" is a waste of time that could better be spent rereading the original.
--
make install -not war
i prefer the newer Dune House books to Frank Herberts later works.
i think there was more of a drop in quality there.
How about some non-marketing related links... links that are more descriptive about the topic:
- Dune (novel)
- Dune: House Atreides
Karma: NaN
The Lord of the Rings reads well. The Hobbit reads well. They show that JRR Tolkien had a good ear for a tale. Everything composited from notes by Christopher Tolkien shows that this wasn't a genetic Tolkien family trait.
The Silmarillion and others read like background information, which is what they were. JRR built up a whole mythos to draw from when writing LoTR. This gave him a good base to produce a rich story. I see the continued publication of these tarted up notes as a poor distraction from the original tale.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
A much better combarison would be the new Dune novel, Hunters of Dune, rather than the Dune prequels, since it's supposed to be based on the notes by Frank Herbert, while the prequels (Dune: Houses and Butlerian crap) were written completely from scratch and are often contradicting the original Frank Herbert books. I find that Chris Tolkien has really done as much as possible to preserve his fathers legacy, which cannot be said for Brian Herbert, who is trying to ruin his fathers franchise by putting out large numbers of half-baked books.
You know they have really old out when... ... the crosover books start appearing, how about 'Harry Potter and the Children of Hurin' or 'Dune: House Huffelpuff'.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
the children of slashdot.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I just saw Clerks 2 (b/c sometimes I like to punish the Ebert within) and while it itself is a terrible flick, it has perhaps the most perfect summation of my feelings on the LOTR trilogy, albeit the film form. As far as I'm concerned Tolkien Jr. would do well to stray somewhat and make a good action/adventure story (as TFA hints at) instead of the plodding tale his father took too many pages to tell. It had a great setting/world but god what a dull pedantic road trip LOTR was. We get it, the rings is evil. Really evil. Just drop the fucking thing in the volcano already.
1) Who/What was Tom Bombadil?
2) Do Balrogs have wings?
In other news, Led Zepplin reforms, stating that they have come across some new material.
Task Mangler
I found all of the dune prequels and Butlerian Jihad books to be well written and engaging. Of course they were not the same style but I wouldn't say there was a quality gap. They each had their own strengths. I just finished the sequel to Chapterhouse and have to admit it is a nice continuation of the story.
One thing I appreciate about Brian Herbert and his co-writer is they tend to show events rather than mention them in retrospect. This was something FH used to do that I sometimes found disturbing. This was especially true in the last few books of the original series.
As for tolkien... I think anything that his son produces would be interesting reading at the least and most likely a welcome addition to the mythos of middle earth. Especially anything dealing with Hurin... truly one of the most dramatic stories of the Silmarillion.
OK, I got into trouble by mentioning that aspect of the story, so I'll mention a
SPOILER WARNING
before proceeding. Hopefully this is enough advance/whitespace.
The story is set 100,000 years in the future. But it's the story of a messiah who can see the future, talk with the past, of all humanity. His life's work is to adjust the path of humanity to avert an impending, otherwise inevitable disaster that would destroy us. To do so, he becomes a god-emperor, total control of all our possible courses of action. And delivers us onto a path that leads to today. Dune time is at least spiral, if not entirely cyclic.
This idea is not explicit in the trilogy. It might be explored in some of the later books, which I stopped reading towards the end of the second trilogy, because they weren't that good. It is explored in the Dune Encyclopedia, in particular by the author of one of the "Paul Muad'Dib" entries. Under whom I studied science fiction literature for my English major. His insight was clear, and apparently popular among other Dune scholars by the mid-1980s. It also provokes the question of whether Muad'Dib's life actually steered humanity onto precisely the course he saw as a terrible vision to be averted, or whether it locked us into a loop or spiral that either locked in the eventual appearance of Muad'Dib, or finally excluded it.
Man that story is a mindblower.
--
make install -not war
Judging the book by its cover, the book will involve a guy who climbs a hill faster than some other guys who also are climbing that hill. Then, he will look at something. Maybe he will tell us about what he sees. Sounds thrilling!
Sounds like I need to get my hands on the Dune Encyclopedia, then. Thanks for the info!
I don't know about you, but my servers run on the power of cotton candy and happy thoughts. -Anonymous Coward
"It will be interesting to see how it stands up today alongside all the Tolkien-alike literature that we've become familiar with," said David Bradley
In my world there's nothing like what you could call "Tolkien-alike". Many have tried to ride the waves his writings have raised, still very few come even close to what he's accomplished. Maybe it's his background, maybe it's his decades' long knowledge in mythology, languages and literature, maybe it's his natural writing skill, maybe it's the timing, maybe it's all of these together that have resulted in a physical form that it's unique in so many ways. How will this new compilation be judged ? Supposing it's really good, it still will require a great effort to make it stand out from the oceans of fantasy bestseller wannabes these days.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Bored of the Rings is a short satirical novel by Henry N. Beard and Douglas C. Kenney, first published in 1969 by Signet for the Harvard Lampoon. This parody follows the general plot of The Lord of the Rings, including the Preface, Prologue, poetry, and songs, while making light of all that Tolkien made very serious (e.g. "He would have finished him off then and there, but pity stayed his hand. It's a pity I've run out of bullets, he thought, as he went back up the tunnel..."). Map
Genius! Or goddam awful. Something starting with g anyway.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
1) Tom Bombadil is the personification of Neutral (ie he is switzerland).
2) Yes, but they are vestigial.
herbert's son isnt all that bad a writer but i would agree that the butlerian jihad series sucked ass compared to house atreide, house harkkonen, and house corrino, of course his father's work is an all together range of writing but we cant expect two person to have the same writting skills or style.
Dan simmons would be the closest author (that i have read) who kind of have similar depth when writing sci-fi books
Whish Herbert would do the last book of dune or at least give us something, the last Dune book left me wanting for so much more.....
Frankly, it's amazing that people can continue to turn out standard fantasy following Pratchett's demolition job.
Pining for the fjords
Not to mention who was Queen Beruthiel and what was so special about her cats?
Here is Wikipedia's article on the book.
I dearly hope Christopher, with all the material at hand about Húrin and Túrin, produces a book whose quality is close to his father's writings. If so, the unavoidable buzz that'll happen in our post-Jackson-movies world would be a huge boost to help popularize all books dealing with Arda before the War of the Rings (The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales,...). That'd be nice: too many people watched the movie, eventually read the related trilogy, and then nothing else.
Being a young man myself I at least can appreciate the wisdom that comes from age and experience. And not least that intellectual capacity increases with time; Einstein did some of his most interesting work after his twenties.. Ghandi was no fool and neither was Mandela. Please, grow up.
P.S. You don't have to like Streisand, but at least you will soon see how utterly blind you were. Can't wait till you get kids! Don't worry, they will help you turn on that strange computer.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
...does this add much? I loved reading the Lord of the Rings novels, but I'm not much of a Tolkein follower unfortunately; I read the books after I saw the movies.
Being set long before the LotR, in contexts set by other 'history' books, will a casual reader such as I be able to really follow the action? I mean, the book is wonderful from a hardcore follower's perspective, but to someone like me, I think a lot of the allusion is going to just fly over my head.
It is well-known that Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic. Just out of curiosity, does his son follow the same beliefs?
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics
The communing with their ancestors is not itself altering history. But the idea is that Paul and Leto II's lives (especially Leto II, but by extension everyone ever living) forced humanity onto a closed loop, or perhaps out of one, into today's state. The "Golden Path" is debatably the path onto or off of the cycle that either produces/ed Leto II, or stops producing him. It's inferrable from the text, and is explained more in the Dune Encyclopedia, which Frank Herbert both approved and contradicted.
Eternity and paradox are funny that way.
--
make install -not war
If someone is interrested in the original http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kullervo, here is a translation to english: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/kvrune31.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/kvrune32.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/kvrune33.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/kvrune34.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/kvrune35.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/kvrune36.htm
Specially interresting is how Kullervo kills himself, in the last part, somehow familiar to those who have read the Silmarillion...
Tolkien even copied the final dialogue between the hero and his sword:
But then, Tolkien never published the story so it's not fair to accuse him of plagiarism.
Frank Sinatra Jr. has completed a new album.
Hey kids of famous artists: get a job.
It's not so much that Bombadil is neutral, just that the affairs of the mortals are so far below his care. It's not that he doesn't care about mortals themselves, he saves the lives of the Hobbits after all, but that they are as children to him with their little squabble over some bauble. Bombadil *could* get involved with the ring issue, but they have a Wizard and some other strong guys, and people can't come running to the gods or the spirits of nature or whatever the heck Bombadil is every time they have a little problem to deal with. They need to deal with this thing themselves. He turns out to right, doesn't he?
It's like how after the Ring is destroyed how Gandalf just laughs about everything. Gandalf *could* help the hobbits with their little problem in the Shire, but he knows they can handle it, and the world can't go running to him whenever it has a problem. He turns out to be right, too.
See, in this mythology that Tolkein put together it's very important that each set of players confront and defeat its own direst enemy. The humans and hobbits must defeat Saruman in the Shire. Gandalf and the humans must defeat Saruman's boss, Sauron. When you start reading the appendices and other materials, you find out how far back this pattern goes. Gandalf's folk were minor players in the fight against Sauron's boss. As the humans are to Gandalf, so Gandalf is to his superiors, the gods.
Thus we see what Bombadil *must* be. He is the corporal manifestation of a god. Supposedly, there are even enough clues to figure out which gods he and Goldberry are.
Only when we see how the pattern of conflict reaches back into deepest history to the creation of Middle earth does it mean anything that it ends in the Shire with the death of Wormtongue.
It's pretty expensive to buy (used only), and hasn't been in print in forever. Brian Herbert has disowned it, too, so don't expect a new print run.
I understand that there may be ways to get it more easily, though.
Incidentally, Emule is a great program, isn't it?
Gandalf's folk were minor players in the fight against Sauron's boss. As the humans are to Gandalf, so Gandalf is to his superiors, the gods.
Right. In fact, IIRC, there's even something like "THE God", which doesn't interfere in the conflict between the various gods. It's clear from the stories that God (upper-case, THE god) has planned the conflicts to have a purpose which no one but himself can see.
And this is part of why Gandalf holds back his full power. He is acknowledging that he can't just go around solving other people's problems for them, since the problems, conflicts, fighting, and resolution all play a part in this unknown plan. He doesn't know what the plan is, but he knows it exists. This is part of the reason he doesn't stop Gollum, for example. He knows Gollum still has a part to play. It's also very related to the metaphor of the ring, and why Gandalf can't take possession of the ring. He must restrain himself from abuse of power in order to play his proper role. The ring represents undue power and the thirst for undue power, and so taking possession of it would represent the sort of abuse of power many characters in the story are trying to avoid.
When Bombadil fails to be affected by the ring or tempted by it, he is displaying a closeness to God which would be impossible were he not a greater being than he seems. This is also relevant in terms of Hobbits, since they show a remarkable resistance to the ring, indicating that they, too, are greater than they appear.
(Sorry. Geeking out.)
i.e. like Switzerland.
"There is nothing nice about Steve Jobs and nothing evil about Bill Gates." - Chuck Peddle
If only Frodo had thought to do that...Gollum would never have had a chance to take the ring!
Blar.
- done the best editing job he was able to and publish them (did he have help? Presumably he has an editor at the publisher's, and I wouldn't hand this project to just anyone.)
- released them as-is (where they would have been ignored as unreadable or mined for ever worse atrocities by ever worse (screen)writers. Better a RingWraith than to be fouled the way the later Dune books did Frank Herbert.)
- shredded them all to avoid being accused of daring to profit from his father's estate (if JRRT had left cash, that would be fine, but writings...!)
Which would you prefer? I'm very happy to get the chance to see Tolkien's remaining writings, but I don't have the time to study the originals and no reason to think anyone else would be better at editing it for me.For some reason I always end up thinking of Aule when reading about Bombardil.
In the prequel Toklein tells the tales of the creation, angelic protectors called the Valar, but like the greek and norse gods, the origins of Elves and Men, and some important romantic tales. Toklein kind of "christianized" the greek gods. He puts The One God way above them, and makes them not as naughty as the greeks. His fellow Oxford prof C.S. Lewis did a similar thing with Narnia and planet series- took interesting germanic myths and made them more christian-like.
Tolkien is like Tupac, he's been releasing material for years after his death.
what's with the affiliate links in the Dune and Dune: House Atriedes links?
It's not so much that Bombadil is neutral, just that the affairs of the mortals are so far below his care. It's not that he doesn't care about mortals themselves, he saves the lives of the Hobbits after all, but that they are as children to him with their little squabble over some bauble. Bombadil *could* get involved with the ring issue, but they have a Wizard and some other strong guys, and people can't come running to the gods or the spirits of nature or whatever the heck Bombadil is every time they have a little problem to deal with. They need to deal with this thing themselves. He turns out to right, doesn't he?
What I find extremely interesting is that Robert E. Foster in his compendium A Tolkien Companion describes Tom Bombadil and Goldberry as possibly Maias "gone native." Which, when you think about it, is actually a pretty accurate description.
What I'm wondering if Bombadil really is Eru in retirement...
Bombadil isn't a Maia, strictly speaking - Maia is a caste of the Ainur of Valinor. He's probably of their kind, but would not have been part of their society. He was there in the Forest before the Elves reached Eriador, which means he wasn't in Valinor in the time of the Trees. He's not Aule, as has been suggested by some - the Elves knew Aule well, and Aule was in Valinor when the Elves of old met Iarwain ben-Adar.
My guess is that he's an outsider - a spirit not of the original group, but who entered Arda later, as did for example Tulkas and Ungoliant. He arrived in Middle-earth during the darkness after the fall of Almaren and had nothing to do with the Valar - hence his position outside their classification, and absence from most ancient Elven lore.
He's settled in this location, being very much a moss-gatherer, and I think the Old Forest has become Bombadil's Ring. Just as Morgoth dissipated his power and indeed his personal essence into gaining control over the matter of Arda at large and into his monstrous hordes, and Sauron concentrated his into the Ring, Bombadil has merged himself into the Old Forest. He does not leave the forest - indeed I would guess he cannot leave the forest, that he simply would not exist beyond its borders. He's a personification now of the wood and the water and the stone.
I'm not sure the world outside even exists as a reality for him - people wander through the Forest from time to time and tell him stories of it, that's all. Hence Elrond's fear that Bombadil simply would not understand the need of keeping the Ring safe - the terror of Sauron would be just another funny story to him, and he'd care little for the Ring.
As for his immunity to any effect of the Ring itself, that also makes sense. The Ring plays on the will to power. Bombadil has no interest whatever in the world outside his forest, and within his forest his power is already total. What has the Ring to offer him? Nothing he'd want.
Still, Sauron could probably have destroyed Bombadil, again as Elrond feared. Fling flame into the forest from far afield, fill the river with poisons. Blight the land and burn the Old Forest and you destroy Bombadil's Ring, and he falls just as Sauron did.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Don't be sorry! You're on
And your analysis is interesting, I liked reading it.
You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.
But back to him being the personification of neutral. His arch-enemy is Old man willow. Tom could seemingly without any trouble get rid of him once and for all, and what does he do? He sings him to sleep -- and only when the guy is actually making trouble! What's more neutral than that? He has this enemy which seemingly only exists as a foil to demonstrate his lack of real conflict.
I don't remember whether Illúvatar (the god) said later that it was his intention all along, but I distinctly remember Morgoth messing up the other gods' "creation song" so badly that Illúvatar had to intervene to avoid the whole universe being completely messed up.
For those who wish to win a deluxe Children of Hurin signed by Christopher Tolkien and Alan Lee, make sure to attend the on line Children of Hurin Release Party, where the whole world will join in to celebrate the release of the new Tolkien book. There are fantastic prizes to be won and all major Tolkien scholars and artists will attend the celebration! Don't miss this event: www.tolkienlibrary.com