The Eighty-sixth Roving Ranger

Life and Works

May 13, 1964. Tolkien writes Letter 256 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), mentioning 'A new shadow'.

I could have written a 'thriller' about the plot and its discovery and overthrow – but it would be just that. Not worth doing. [Letters, #256]

May 19, 2006. The Ring of Words (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is published; on Tolkien's work with the OED.
May 20, 1969. Tolkien writes Letter 310 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), attempting to answer the question 'what is the purpose of life?'
May 23, 2013. The Fall of Arthur (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is published.
May 23, 1973. Tolkien writes a letter (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) to his old friend Christopher Wiseman, adding the letters TCBS after his name.

Events & Shows

It's a minute detail but incredibly important to any exhibition: Preparing JRR Tolkien’s drawings for display (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Bodleian Libraries]

You may never have heard of him but there is a pretty good chance you have heard his music: David Arkenstone (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (no joke, that's his name!) On tour with his latest album Music Inspired by Middle-earth, Vol. II. [Vancouver Sun]

The Tolkien Reserve Summer Bang (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is happening (again).

The Sioux City Community Theatre (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in Iowa has showings of their staging of The Hobbit in May and June.

Kalamazoo is happening and John D. Rateliff (among many others) is there (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

A review of the Marquette exhibition (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [PDF]

The Tolkien Lecture (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) will be your chance to have a pint with me - if you happen to be in Oxford at the time. Lamb & Flag, of course! And right after that we can meet up in Berlin with MetropolCon (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)! I know one or two decent places to have drinks there.

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Scholarship and Fandom

ANDUIN will change Tolkien research (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Artist Donato Giancola is having an open day in his studio (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in Brooklyn, New York, on May 13th, including his Middle-earth inspired work. For those who can't be there you can win some nice things online.

A group of butterflies (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) have been named after Sauron; he is rather flighty, isn't he? The paper appeared with the Journal of Systematic Entomology (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). More background with the Guardian (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

'It shows that, even among a group of very similar-looking species, you can find beauty among the dullness.'
[Dr Blanca Huertas (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), Natural History Museum, London]

The Middle-earth Reenactment Society (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) has just published its Summer 2023 issue of their newsletter, Edge of the Wild (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Franchise and Merchandise

Easton Press (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) have done a number of intro vids (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) over on Youtube.

WB Games are having a Spring in the Shire Sale (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) with Steam until May 15th.

ARRI (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) behind the scenes (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) video of Amazon’s LotR:RoP. [Youtube]

As far as I know The Rings of Power is the first production to be fully cloud-based.
[Producer Ron Ames]

VFX seem to be the news push recently with the show, see this interview (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) with Ron Ames and costume designer Kate Hawley.

LotR: Gollum is also showcasing its work, this time in Unreal Engine (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). Also, the game will take about 20 hours to play through (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth is available in all mobile stores, here is an in-depth talk (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) with one of the game's developers [trailer (Öffnet in neuem Fenster); Youtube]

• [With Google Play (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) it has a 2.5 out of 1,5k+ reviews so far.]

A list of fantasy and science fiction shows impacted by the Writers' Strike (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Gizmodo AU] And yes, LotR:RoP does not need its writers (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) to finish season 2. [Variety]

TORn has an interview (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) with WotC (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) art director Ovidio Cartagena on the upcoming MTG (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) LotR expansion. To understand how a trading card game implements the 'mechanic' of the One Ring see this post (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

A lot of video games never get made. Timothy Cain of Troika Games (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) has finally released a demo (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) of a LotR game they suggested to Sierra in 2001.

Mattel is offering its Little People Collector LotR Weathertop Set (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

LotR: Moria mentioned the upcoming Summer Game Fest (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in its Discord - maybe we'll get some news on them dwarves then!

Inter alia & Back in the day

Always lovely to see when a new bookstore opens - Bound Books (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in York, PA, put up the Hobbit and LotR (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on opening day.

George R.R. Martin has a few things to say on the Writers' Strike (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The start of season 2 of Good Omens has been announced via Twitter - it's July 28th (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). And if you need to know why there is a second season in the first place do read Neil Gaiman's take (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on it.

If you are feeling Trekkie today this new portal with 3d renditions of all Enterprises (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) might be for you. [Roddenberry Archive]

How to do Star Wars in about a minute - Robin the Frog (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) knows. [Youtube]

Hard to believe but at least this is good news: Babylon 5 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is returning as an animated movie.

According to German law I have to infom you all links to enterprises, artists, products etc. are [unpaid advertisements.] Some purchase links may earn me a small commission from Blackwell's, the bookshop of my personal trust.

If you are interested in my other Tolkien-related work please have a look:
The Tolkienist Blog (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Facebook (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Twitter (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Instagram (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Tolkien-Discord (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [de/en]

Additional news provided in recent weeks to my members at Steady

RR+: LotR: Gollum has a Precious Edition (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)
RR+: The Bod is archiving tweets (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - including me 🤩
RR+: Tolkien Society Awards (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - vote now open!
RR+: 70 years after (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - Tolkien's lecture on Sir Gawain in Glasgow
RR+: Tolkien and Smith Conference (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), Corpus Christi College, Oxford
RR+: 'Lord of the Rings' (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) musical tickets now available
RR+: New Illustrated Edition (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) of 'The Hobbit' Announced
RR+: "Tolkien letters (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) shine new light on writer’s life and work"

What to look forward to in 2023 if you like Tolkien and all things Tolkienian

Meet and greet with the Tolkienist in 2023