The One hundred and fifteenth Roving Ranger
Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)
Due to the increase in interesting and entertaining pieces of news on all things Tolkienian the Roving Ranger will return to a weekly schedule on January 3rd, 2025, the birthday of the Professor.
Life and Works
Nov 30, 1932. Father Christmas (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) writes a letter (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) to Tolkien's children.
Dec 1, 1913. Tolkien is elected president of the Stapledon Society, a student body at Exeter College (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
Dec 3, 1955. Tolkien's poem Imram (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is published in Time and Tide (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
Dec 4, 1947. Essays Presented to Charles Williams (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), including "On Fairy-Stories (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)", is published.
Dec 6, 1961. Tolkien writes Letter 235 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (Pauline Baynes & Adventures of TB).
Dec 11, 1953. Tolkien writes Letter 142a (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (on Sir Gawain and LotR).
Dec 12, 1967. Tolkien writes Letter 299 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (Green’s review on Smith).
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Events & Shows
More Perilous and Fair: Women and Gender in Mythopoeic Fantasy (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (OMS 2025 by the Mythopoeic Society)
The UK Tolkien Society is now branching out - event-wise - into the West, that is, the United States: Westmoot 2025 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)is coming [May 2025; Kansas City]
The Fall of Doriath (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) musical stream will happen Nov 30/ Dec 1.
'The ‘Key-spring’ of The Lord of the Rings?' (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is on with Stuart Lee in Oxford. [Eventbrite]
Tolkien Society Hybrid Seminar 2024 – Tolkien as Heritage (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) with TS of Serbia.
LotR: War of the Rohirrim (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). Dec 13th.
— IMAX Premiere and fan screening at Lucerne (CH); the Tolkienist as GoH (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
The Lubbock Community Theatre in Texas will do the Hobbit in March 2025 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
Theatre review: The Hobbit is an inventive love letter to the joy of pretending (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Stir; Vancouver]
The Hobbit will be played in Lithopolis, Ohio (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in April 2025 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Broadway World]
The Hobbit (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) will also hit Philly in April/ May 2025.
For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
Scholarship & Fandom
Ardacraft: Ten years of building Middle-earth in Minecraft (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)[Youtube]
Diana Glyer has “From Enemies to Allies: The Unlikely Friendship of Lewis & Tolkien” (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Youtube]
Tom Hillman has The Repentance of Angels: a Curious Departure in Tolkien (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
Miriam Ellis has Christopher Tolkien: Steward of a Star (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
https://www.miriamellis.com/post/christopher-tolkien-steward-of-a-star (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)doubtfulsea has You’ve Got Mail (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
David Bratman has a short review of the CJRT Centenary Conference (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
A review of Nólë Hyarmenillo. An Anthology of Iberian Scholarship on Tolkien (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Fafnir]
A sculpture in support of reading - in the form of a bench - uses Tolkien’s Hobbit as one of its legs (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [LA Times]
Some of the papers presented with the CJRT Conference are already available with the Journal of Tolkien Research (Brown and Larsen) (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
Merchandise & Franchise
A new board game: Duel for Middle-earth (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Repos Production; similar to 7 Wonders Duel - review (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) with BGG]
Also a “trick taking game” from Office Dog/ Asmodee (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
The Lord of the Rings™ Roleplaying for 5e Now Available on D&D Beyond (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Free League]
Elevenses is delayed until January (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Portland Herald]
You can now get your very own War of the Rohirrim weapon in the cinema (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [MSN] | see also WotR: "An All New Story" Featurette (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Youtube] | see the full NYCC WotR panel (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Youtube] McFarlane Toys has WotR swag as well (Öffnet in neuem Fenster); see Boxoffice Theory forecast (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
The Hobbit Folio Society (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) edition sold - 1,000 copies - in less than 10 mins [Instagram]
Have a look at this VFX breakdown (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) of LotR: RoP, season 2. [Youtube] | The $808M series that's the biggest flop in TV history... and there's still three seasons to go (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Daily Mail; media bias (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]
Tolkien Tourism has exploded in recent years; a recent example is to be found in Kelvin Edge, Whiting Bay, Isle Of Arran, North Ayrshire (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Scotland]
Audiobooks are booming, thanks to streaming subscriptions (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Economist; paywall]
The most popular musicians on Spotify this week included plenty of familiar names, from Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars to Billie Eilish. But also riding high in the streaming platform’s charts were some unexpected stars, including Jane Austen, J.R.R. Tolkien and Boris Johnson. [my emphasis]
Inter alia & Back in the Day
LotR: RoP to be translated into Cherokee (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Lakota Times]
https://www.lakotatimes.com/articles/cherokee-nation-to-dub-prime-video-content-in-cherokee/ (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)Excellent interviews on Star Trek with Nana Visitor (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [trekmovie.com (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]
Tom Emmanuel has: George MacDonald's Post-Christian Imagination (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
Kirk and Spock get a final farewell (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in “AI” rendition. [Youtube]
Research on the situation in the US but let's assume it holds true everywhere: Misinformation exploits outrage to spread (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)online [Science]
Fingolfin’s Findings LXVI: Moorcock never really read LotR (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [The Tolkienist with Steady; paywall]
Ansible 449 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) has been published.
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