The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

There's a reason why this is the granddaddy of Fantasy literature. Some people think that its pretty much the first of its kind, but that neglects to take into account the likes of William Morris, E R Eddison and Lord Dunsany, all of whom are great fantasy writers and deserve more respect than they currently get. Tolkien's achievement in this field was to humanise the narrative. The earlier works were very much on the level of high fantasy - as if King Arthur and his knights were looking for a holy grail and its all written in ye olde englishe for good measure. Tolkien sees the possibility of bringing his own thoughts to a wide audience in a fantasy context ...

The Lord Of The Rings was recently voted the book of the century. What is it about JRR Tolkien’s epic tale of swords and sorcery that has made it so popular with so many readers? Now that a film adaptation of the book has been made I thought it would be a good time to take a closer look at the original text. WARNING THIS IS A LONG OPINION! it should be considered more of a guide to Tolkien’s middle earth, than a review of the books. I don’t expect you to read all of it and I have organised it in self contained sections that you can mix and match these depending on your interests. ****BACKGROUND**** ABOUT THE AUTHOR ...

The greatest fantasy epic of all time? Oh yes. As someone who has read plenty of fantasy epics, all of which written since Tolkien effectively created the genre, all of which were compared more in hyperbole than truth to the ‘Lord of the Rings’, I feel as qualified as any to judge, and Tolkien’s surpasses by a country mile those of Eddings, Gemmell, Feist, Tad Williams (although he comes closer than most). The best book of the last century? Well… Asinine question really, as neither I nor anyone else has read more than a fraction of them, and even if they had they wouldn’t remember half of them well enough to judge. So, now that’s ...