The Eighty-eighth Roving Ranger

IMPORTANT! TODAY!

A revised and enlarged edition of Tolkien's Letters will be published (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
PLEASE NOTE: TODAY.
A live stream by the TolkienGuide team (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on this and their Letters project!
Noon PDT; 2 PM CDT; 3 PM EDT; 8 PM BST; 9 PM CEST.

The Tolkien family was out in force with today's reveal of the Middle-earth Map as another gorgeous tapestry in Aubusson (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), including Baillie, Adam and Royd Tolkien.

Events & Shows

The Lord of the Rings Musical has announced a wide range of programs alongside its production as well as cast and crew (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The Tolkien Society's Seminar is coming up in July (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The Dutch Tolkien Society Unquendor will be celebrating its Slotfeest (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Sentieri Tolkieniani (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is happening in the Turin area (no, Italy, not the guy!)

The British Library will have a major fantasy exhibition and is offering a fantasy study day (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) including Dimitra Fimi.

The Conference on the Performance of Old Norse-Icelandic Poetry at St. Hugh's in Oxford sounds like a blast (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

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

Do look out for Pity, Power, and Tolkien’s Ring (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The Prancing Pony Podcast had Brian Sibley as a guest, possibly thanks to Fall of Númenor (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). (Any reason is a good reason to invite him!)

David Bratman has written on R.W. Reynolds (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Franchise and Merchandise

The LotR: Return to Moria video game has a story trailer (Öffnet in neuem Fenster); and yes, the voice is Gimli from the PJ films, indeed - John Rhys Davies.

RoP (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) director Bayona has said in an interview (Öffnet in neuem Fenster):

I know the ending. I know where everything is heading to, and I'm super excited to see the whole thing, not only one story, in the whole story." [ComicBook.com]

Given the fact that Prime Video is also considering an ad-supported tie (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)r for their services future successes of the streaming content seems necessary. [WSJ]

The Tolkien Estate is now countersuing (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) the fanfiction writer Demetrious Polychron after he had sued Prime Video and the Estate for supposedly stealing his storylines for Rings of Power. [Bloomberg Law]

I completely missed Brandon Sanderson's podcast 'I have thoughts about Rings of Power (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)' from November 2022. At the 11 mins mark (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) he said:

"My end opinion of it was ... meh."

Why Sanderson's opinion should matter you? Who knows but he did break the Kickstarter record (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) last year with $40+ million for four upcoming novels and may be the most successful fantasy novel writer of our times (you may have never heard of.)

Lord of the Rings: Gollum has had a disastrous launch and Metacritic scores for PC (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) are at 39/100 and 34/100 for PS5 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). The dev team have apologised (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and promised to provide patches asap. While this was happening German magazines noted that development team Daedalic have already started on a second title - with national funding (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Don't forget: Magic will have its Middle-earth field day on June 23rd (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Inter alia & Back in the day

Good Omens 2 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) now has an official trailer. And yes, if you are an actual Terry Pratchett fan you will know that Pterry and Gaiman actually plotted part 2 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Youtube]

And let's not forget the Ahsoka trailer (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Youtube]

Star Wars: The Old Republic seems to be on the move (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [IGN]

And Mark Hamill mentioned in an interview: (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) "(...) they don't need Luke anymore." [CBS News]

An increasingly negative side effect to massive fantasy and science fiction shows is the fan tourism - Dubrovnik, which played a major part in Game of Thrones, is now limiting visits (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). Fun fact: you can look up visitor predictions online (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). And you can read up on this sensitive topic with the Dubrovnik Times (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

John D. Rateliff mentioned a new journal (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) called UKL.

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]

For the month of June: Trial memberships at Steady

If you feel like having a look at what I am doing you can now opt for a trial membership (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - available for the next couple of weeks!

Additional news provided in recent weeks to my members at Steady

RR+: A new and revised edition (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) of 'Letters'
RR+: Tolkien Lectures - and yes, two of them (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)
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