The Ninety-second Roving Ranger

For three months I have not been able to send you the next edition of the Roving Ranger, for a number of reasons. I will try and get back into the bi-weekly swing of things and do a special edition on the months I have missed.

Events & Shows

A play on Lewis & Tolkien (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is on in Hollywood, CA.

The Exeter Tolkien Society is organising a fantasy Christmas ball (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on Nov 24th.

The Tolkien Society is having an online seminar on Tolkien and Religion in the Twenty-first Century (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on Nov 26 - an excellent outlook on it can be found with Anna Smol (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The Tolkien Collector’s Guide (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) did a live stream (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on the revised Letters; a review of the release event (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in Oxford; and do join their subreddit (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

In Exeter College’s on-going seminar series Laura Varnam will talk about Tolkien & Beowulf (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) at the college’s ‘new’ Cohen Quad on Nov 15 and Simon Horobin on ‘J.R.R. Tolkien: The Making of a Philologist’ on Nov 22.

Weta Workshop will be doing a special screening of LotR: Return of the King (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in Auckland on Dec 5, including Richard Tayleor and Tania Rodger. The NZ Post (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is issuing another set of celebratory stamps as well.

Wadham College (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)’s members of the MCR and SCR will be getting a Tolkien, Lewis and the Inklings tour.

The British Library has opened its massive Fantasy: Realms of Imagination (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) exhibition - two early (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) reviews (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
[Please note: the BL’s website has come under attack (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) so you might not see the exhibition page; all exhibitions are running and you can book tickets here (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).]

Pembroke College has an event on the OED (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) at Nov 17.

The C.S. Lewis podcast Pints with Jack is trying to establish a CSL Reading Day (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - on Nov 29 (CSL’s birthday).

Don’t forget - John Howe’s exhibition (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in Brittany is still on until January.

Scholarship and Fandom

Reviews of Letters: Tolkien Guide (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | Telegraph (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [paywall]; The Times (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [paywall].

A great write-up on recent Tolkien events & publications by Robin Reid (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). Anna Smol ist offering some of the books coming up (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

For those of you who have not heard of Tom Hillman’s book Pity, Power, and Tolkien’s Ring you can listen to some of the chapters read by the author (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on Youtube.

Verlyn Flieger has left Tolkien Studies (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - thanks and kudos to Verlyn! - and Yvette Kisor (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) will pick up her baton. Read more about Its Origins and Evolutions (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) with Douglas A. Anderson.

List, list, O, list! is a column with the Times Literary Supplement, including the subtitle 100 Novels, Tove Jansson’s Hobbit, Reviews misrepresented (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and being a little acidic about top 100 reading lists and the British Library exhibition.

For the sake of Jansson’s other work, we are glad that she never had to endure a return to Middleearth (sic!). But because she portrayed Gollum as a paunchy giant, we are told, Tolkien later clarified that this particular creature of the imagination was “small” and “slimy”. We know whose fantasy we prefer. [List, list, o, list!]

Peter Grybauskas - the editor of Tolkien’s Battle of Maldon (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - will be offering a course called Advanced Composition: Tolkien in Oxford (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) at the University of Maryland.

A professional writing course exploring the life and works of J.R.R. Tolkien, professor and author of The Lord of the Rings. 

To some people it may come as a surprise, it is nothing new to Tolkien scholars - the Italian right have been abusing his writings since the 1970s and today’s prime minister is only another name in a very long list: How did The Lord of the Rings become a secret weapon in Italy’s culture wars? (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Guardian]; Inside Giorgia Meloni’s Hobbit fantasy world (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Politico]; Why a Lord of the Rings exhibition matters to Italy's far-right PM Giorgia Meloni (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [euronews.culture]; Is a Tolkein Exhibition in Rome Part of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Far-Right Agenda? (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [artnet]; Meloni e Tolkien, la stampa inglese all’attacco (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Repubblica]; Rome to host Italy's first major Tolkien exhibition (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Wanted in Rome; only general tourist info]

It is unfortunate that the politics involved in this question offer a skewed picture of an exhibition that will be outstanding: TOLKIEN. UOMO, PROFESSORE, AUTORE (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) has been curated by none other but Tolkien scholar Oronzo Cilli (Tolkien’s Library (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)). There also was a special event during Italy’s reading week for schools, Libriamoci (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), at Milan, on Tolkien’s Hobbit. See this video for the opening (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), supported by the Italian Ministry of Culture and with the cultural minister Sangiuliano (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) present, as well as Tolkien scholar Giuseppe Pezzini (Corpus Christi College (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)) who recently organised the exceptional conference Tolkien's Words and Worlds (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in Oxford.

The Apocalypse According to J.R.R. Tolkien (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) by Robert Lazu Kmita [European Conservative]

Diana Glyer’s C.S. Lewis Bibliography (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) contains a number of titles relevant to Tolkien scholarship. Do look out for her latest publication, The Major & The Missionary (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

John Garth started a series of posts with Steady on Wetwang (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [I am still incredibly pleased to say I convinced John of joining me at Steady.]

Franchise and Merchandise

Lord of the Rings: Online is back with another expansion: Corsairs of Umbar (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [YT, launch trailer]

A list of reviews on LotR: Return to Moria: Metacritic (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | IGN (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | Checkpoint Gaming (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | Polygon (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | Game Tyrant (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | TechRaptor (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | Empire (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). Here is an outlook on (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) future patches and DLCs by the developers. Luckily enough, the game is not as overwhelmingly bad as LotR: Gollum (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

In the age of celebrities Chanel’s In the Library series is a prime specimen: Margot Robbie likes - among many others - The Hobbit (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

It really does not come as a surprise that Jeff Bezos (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is a Tolkien fan, too, like Peter Thiel (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and Elon Musk (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

An Australian ‘traveller’ seems to have missed out on franchise tourism the world over: Oh Lord: I visited a bizarre, fake Hobbit-theme park in a cloud forest (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Inter alia & Back in the day

I am not sure whether Esquire should be asking the question but here we are: What’s the future of books? (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Greta Gerwig is doing Narnia (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) for Netflix.

Sir Anthony Hopkins stays true to form and returns to C.S. Lewis - but this time as Sigmund Freud, talking to Lewis, in the film Freud’s Last Session (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The Eagle & Child (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) has been sold to a tech institute expanding into Oxford University - we’ll see what will come of it (see also with the BBC (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)) [I have written extensively on Tolkien’s pubs with Steady (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and am in the process of writing more about this development.]

Star Wars author Timothy Zahn weighs in on ‘his’ character, Thrawn, his books and what might be in store (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) for one of the best characters in that universe.

Strange but true: The original model of Star Trek’s spaceship Enterprise was considered lost but might have resurfaced now (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), many decades later.

One of the most hilarious pieces I saw this week: the Economist titled The business of mining literary estates is booming (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [paywall] and the website Fior Reports simply copied it fully (as far as I can see), retitling it The business of exploiting literary estates is booming (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

If you need fresh reading material the Hugo award winners (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - and all the nominees - make for a great TRL. Or the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). Or the World Fantasy Awards (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Ansible 436 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) has been published.

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]