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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.
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.