Topic: Unfinished Tolkien work to be published in '07

[Sirgod]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/books/09/18/books.newtolkien.ap/index.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- An unfinished tale by J.R.R. Tolkien has been edited by his son into a completed work and will be released next spring, the U.S. and British publishers announced Monday.

Christopher Tolkien has spent the past 30 years working on "The Children of Hurin," an epic tale his father began in 1918 and later abandoned. Excerpts of "The Children of Hurin," which includes the elves and dwarves of Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and other works, have been published before.

"It has seemed to me for a long time that there was a good case for presenting my father's long version of the legend of the 'Children of Hurin' as an independent work, between its own covers," Christopher Tolkien said in a statement.

The new book will be published by Houghton Mifflin in the United States and HarperCollins in England.

J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings Trilogy" has sold more than 50 million copies and was also adapted into a blockbuster, Academy Award-winning trio of films. A stage version is scheduled to open next year.

[Khalee1]

Cool might just have to get the books again.

[Sirgod]

IT's been awhile since I've been excited over a new book coming out. Penthouse don't count.

Stephen

[S'Raek]

I don't know.  Personally I think Christopher Tolkien has made a ton of money off of his father's work.  Tolkien wrote a bunch of back story stuff and while some of it, like the Silmarillion, is good reading do we really need any more of those History of Middle Earth type books?  This reminds of of Brian Herbert, Frank's son.  He is making a butt load of money off of the Dune books.  And now I hear that he isn't content with writing the history part of that series, now he wants to continue the story after Chapterhouse.   

[Capt_Bearslayer_XC]

And now I hear that he isn't content with writing the history part of that series, now he wants to continue the story after Chapterhouse.

What do you mean 'wants'?  It is out already....sawit a week or so ago at the mall.

[762_XC]

Sheesh, that will be a depressing book.

Incest and suicide, yay!

[RazalYllib]

JRRT was an unlikely author. His intent was not to become an writer, it was an accident. The material that comprises the Sil, UT, BOLT, HOME etc are bits and pieces that JRRT tinkered with as a diversion, pre-hobbit years. In a true sense, his affinity for linguistics was the true impetus for his writing output at this time. He created languages and needed a context for them to exist in. He had to invent it and like early tales in other languages of fairies, dwarves, dragons, magic wizards, titanic struggles of good and evil, all that kind of stuff.

The bits he wrote to support the underlying linguistics at this time did not alway aggree with other bits he had written they were exercises in using his new toy and JRRT changed his mind often over the years as he tinkered with it. Post LOTR he promised publishers to make sense of the "notes" and fragments that were to become the Silmarrillion, but never did much til his death other than move papers around and organize into "piles". Chris took the task of reading everything and with the aid of some ghost writers completed the Silmarrillion and it was released. Years passed and Chris eventually worked his way through the absolute mess that the unpublished work was in, and has been doing his best to get the text to the public, with attendant commentary. It probably is no easy chore indeed....vast sections of text differ, names and places changed; A real beotch to basically make sense of it because a lot of it was in fragments.

I am looking forward to picking up the children of hurin - top rate tragedy therein! If it is handled well, it could be a very good read.

I was impressed with the writings of Herbert's son.  The volumes that I have read were quite satisfying to read. Just an opinion.

[GDA-S'Cipio]

I don't know.  Personally I think Christopher Tolkien has made a ton of money off of his father's work.  Tolkien wrote a bunch of back story stuff and while some of it, like the Silmarillion, is good reading do we really need any more of those History of Middle Earth type books?  This reminds of of Brian Herbert, Frank's son.  He is making a butt load of money off of the Dune books.  And now I hear that he isn't content with writing the history part of that series, now he wants to continue the story after Chapterhouse.   

He didn't even begin working on the prequels until he'd found his father's notes and knew the story for the next book after Chapterhouse.  Which is what the new book is based upon.  He said he couldn't tell the beginning of the story until he knew how it was supposed to end.

I liked Brian Herbert's prequels, especially the Duke Leto ones, even though he doesn't have the wordcraft skills that his father did.  The Impeial Dune universe with a Landsraad is a much more interesting place than the one after the Atreides Jihad.  I don't know how interested I am in the new 'new' book.  Dune is still one of my favorite books ever; but each of Frank Herbert's sequels grew progessively worse.

-S'Cipio

[Lepton]

Dumb question.  If JRRT was a linguistic and created these languages for his books, can you actually learn to speak and communicate in Elvish?

[Sirgod]

Dumb question.  If JRRT was a linguistic and created these languages for his books, can you actually learn to speak and communicate in Elvish?

I've seen people at conventions and such that claim they do, let me see what I can find.

Here's a start Lepton... http://www.elvish.org/

Stephen

[Capt_Bearslayer_XC]

LOL... I have a friend who taught all of his dog's commands in Elvish.

Was a pain in the butt to watch that dog... thankfully, he like to follow my dog around....

[Lepton]

Can't be spoken like a living language.  JRRT never fleshed the language out the whole way.  Oh well.

[dragoon]

Still a release of 'new' Tolkien material is as far as i'm concerned a major litery event.
I bought a special leather bound edition of LotR printed on fine India paper with gold golted edging on the paper...

I didn't need it, but the sheer indulgence of such a book was too much, and I had it 70% off 

While i'm more of A Reymond E Feist and Robin Hobb fan, I will undoubtebly buy this when it comes out.

[S'Raek]

Don't get me wrong, Tolkien and Herbert are probably my two favorite authors.  I just get bothered when their sons make so much money off of their fathers work.  The Silmarillion is probably my favorite book of all of the Tolkien works.  And while I agree Christopher worked to smooth that up it is my understanding that most of it was in place already.  Other that Sil, none of the other "Tolkien" books have really interested me.  (Well, I did read "The Tolkien Reader" and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Sir Orfeo" but those are all stories written by J.R.R. himself or his translations of other works.)  Basically, I don't see the reason to release all of Tolkiens notes and thoughts-on-paper to the public.  If Christopher had released the Silmarillion and stopped I would have been eternally grateful, but enough is enough.  Just my opinion of course.

Kind of the same with the Dune saga.  I had read one or two of Brian Herberts books before his father died and they were not very good.  He takes a world that someone else created and wrote passable stories set there.  Again, I just think he is riding in his father's coattails.  I would disagree that all of the books after Dune went down hill.  Some were better than others of course but I personally was a little pissed (yes, selfish I know) that he died when he did.  lol 

If I can find these at the library then I will probably read them.  I have some of the other Dune books in paperback but honestly I got stopped in the middle of one and never finished them.  Can't remember which book lost my interest though, Machine Crusade perhaps?

[RazalYllib]

The Silmarillion never existed in anything other than notes and fragment of poetry and unfinished text, some times in the middle of a sentence...what we know as Silmarillion, was compiled by Chris and his team.  It was far from complete and many changes had to be made because JRRT's original material did not agree with itself nor did it comprise a single cohesive narrative.