Tag: tolkien

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A reread of Lord of the Rings is imminent ebook roundup

The Children of Hurin
The Children of Hurin

Picked up from Kobo recently:

  • Please Do Not Taunt the Octopus, by Mira Grant. Because, well, duh, Mira Grant. This is the latest novella in the Newsflesh universe, and as I have in fact already plowed through it, I can attest that it was delightful. It clues us in on the fate of two particular notable characters following the conclusion of the main trilogy, and it does not disappoint. And there is in fact an octopus.
  • The Lord of the Rings, The Children of Húrin, Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth, and The Silmarillion, all of course by J.R.R. Tolkien. Picking all these up in ebook form on the general grounds that I’ve just finally finished re-watching The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, and it’s kindled in me a MIGHTY NEED to re-read LoTR. And since my print copy of the trilogy is a single-volume huge honking brick of a book, it’s a bit much to carry to work and back with me. So onto the ereaders it goes! And while I’m at it, I snarfed up the others since UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES am I taking my beautiful hardback of Children of Hurin out of the house, and my paperback of The Silmarillion is pretty ragged! And I need to re-read Unfinished Tales, too!

This puts me at 45 for the year.

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Tri-lingual Hobbit re-read: Chapter 18

HOLY ILUVATAR, has it really been over a year since I originally drafted this post? Apparently! This is what happens when I’m so caught up in working on my own books, and then trying to finish up all the backlogged stuff that got shunted aside while I was writing the Rebels of Adalonia trilogy, that I wasn’t able to finish these Reread posts. But now with The Battle of the Five Armies having finally having come out and indeed now hitting digital home release, it’s about time I cleared my slate of the last of the Hobbit Reread posts!

It’s weird, after the longer chapters at the beginning of The Hobbit, to see how fast the final chapters go. Chapter 17 is not very long at all–and barely after the Battle of Five Armies has begun, you get into the aftermath, where Bilbo (and the reader through him) learns what he missed. And in which, finally, Thorin stands down from being an asshole.

I’m not going to get into comparing how this chapter ties into all the bits in the movie–because I talk about that in my movie review posts! But that said, there’s a lot here over which I must go *sniff*. This is the aftermath of the Battle of Five Armies, and it’s a hard aftermath for the survivors, with Bilbo front and center among them.

In-depth notes behind the fold!

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Tri-lingual Hobbit re-read: Chapter 17

It has taken me ages to get through my edits for Victory of the Hawk, you guys. But now that the end is in sight, I’ve had some cycles free up finally. Which means I can get back to the last few bits of my Trilingual Hobbit Reread!

And Chapter 17 of The Hobbit, “The Clouds Burst”, is pretty much where the Battle of Five Armies gets down to Serious Business. Which is a good place to be, given the movie that’s about to come out next month, yes?

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A few things make a post

Some good reading on the Intarwebz today! First up, I bring you today’s Big Idea column over at the Whatever, where Mr. Scalzi brings word of Brad Meltzer’s new children’s books about Amelia Earhart and Abraham Lincoln. Parents of small children, especially daughters, go check this out. Especially if you’re fans of Calvin and Hobbes. The art for the Amelia book looks adorable.

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Meanwhile, Jim Hines has put up a good post today going over a writing advice question I hear time and again: i.e., whether you should try to write to the market. I said over there, and I’ll say here too, that even though “don’t try to write to the market” and “be aware of the market” seem contradictory on the surface, for me they’re actually kind of not. You want to be aware of what people who aren’t you are writing, so you aren’t writing in a complete and utter vacuum, and accidentally writing stuff that people lost interest in reading five or ten or even more years ago. Plus, you never know what awesome ideas you may have spark for your next book.

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Fellow Carina fantasy author Shawna Thomas is talking up her work over at Eleri Stone’s place, and in particular about coming-of-age fantasy. Go give her a look, ’cause fantasy by Carina is love!

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I’ve been following the news posts on TheOneRing.net for a while now, because hi, yeah, Tolkien geek, yo. But this post of theirs made me up and join their message forums for the express purpose of voicing my appreciation to their forums member who wrote some nice fanfic about Dís, the mother of the dwarves Kíli and Fíli, the only female dwarf Tolkien ever named. Looks like Cirashala’s getting her epic on with further fanfic about the character, too, based on what she’s saying in the thread that the news post links to. I approve!

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And last but least, speaking of Tolkien, I’m posting about reading fantasy in other languages over on Here Be Magic today! I talk up the Trilingual Hobbit Reread, but also a couple of the novels I want to read out of Quebec SF/F as well, like the ones by Élodie Tirel I’ve been talking about, as well as Esther Rochon.

C’mon over and tell me about nifty non-Anglophone genre works English speakers should know about, won’t you?

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Tri-lingual Hobbit re-read: Chapter 16

When last we left Thorin’s company in the Lonely Mountain, Bard’s army and that of the Elvenking had shown up to deliver them a Siege-o-gram. Postage due: a share of the treasure of Smaug. Not terribly surprisingly, this didn’t go over well at all. Particularly given how Thorin’s getting crankier what with the lust for the Arkenstone being well and thoroughly on him.

Chapter 16, “A Thief in the Night”, kicks in with that very question. ‘Cause yeah, Thorin, about that Arkenstone? Bilbo might know something about that…

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Tri-lingual Hobbit re-read: Chapter 15

Well, all this fun with dragons strafing Lake-town is all very well and good, but I know what you’re thinking, Internets: what’s going on with Bilbo? Good question, for which I’m sure that Chapter 15, “The Gathering of the Clouds”, will have answers!

And since I’m so far behind on getting these posts done, I’ve actually read the rest of the English edition as I write this. This post, however, will stay focused on Chapter 15.

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Tri-lingual Hobbit re-read: Chapter 14

Fell behind on this again due to being in MASSIVE DEADLINE mode with Vengeance of the Hunter–for the past several months. But now that Vengeance is signed off on text-wise, and with the coming of The Desolation of the Smaug VERY NIGH, I feel a mighty need to return to this project.

So let’s get cracking with Chapter 14, shall we? Esgaroth has a pissed-off dragon to contend with, after all!

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