The One hundred and twenty-first Roving Ranger

Events & Shows

The Lure of Middle-earth (Opens in a new window) is happening in March (largest METW TCG convention in the world; 25th anniversary GoH is Ted Nasmith; set in a German medieval castle (Opens in a new window)).

The Tolkien Society has announced Carl Phelpstead as this year’s guest speaker (Opens in a new window) with their annual.

Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim will be shown in the UK - in its Japanese version (Opens in a new window). [TORn]

Hobbit House champs of British School Meet (Opens in a new window) [Daily News; Sri Lanka]

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Opens in a new window) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Opens in a new window).

Scholarship & Fandom

Nominations open for Tolkien Society Awards 2025 (Opens in a new window) (until Jan 31).

Nota bene: Yes, you can nominate thetolkienist.com and/or the Roving Ranger for ‘best online content’ 😇 *winkwink*

Also, the Tolkien Society is publishing the proceedings of the 2019 conference on February 28 (Opens in a new window).

John Garth has A birthday post for Tolkien’s ‘second father’, Francis Morgan. (Opens in a new window) [Steady]

Some excellent speakers with From Myth to Manuscript: Exploring Inklings Archival Collections (Opens in a new window), including Bill Fliss (Marquette), Catherine McIlwaine (Bodleian Libraries), and Laura Stanifer (Wheaton College) [Vimeo]

Gerry Canavan (Opens in a new window) has The lesson of J.R.R. Tolkien’s abandoned Lord of the Rings seque (Opens in a new window)l [Washington Post]

Erik Mueller-Harder has posted a quick update of recent months. Please note he has done “more work on Anduin™ (Opens in a new window)”, which researchers visiting Marquette have the pleasure of using.

Tom Hillman has A Point about Elf Ears (Opens in a new window).

Andrew Higgins has Early Elvish Pronouns in Action (Opens in a new window).

Jason Fisher has J.A.W. Bennett on Tolkien (Opens in a new window).

The Archivist’s Nook: Robert T. Meyer – “Bespectacled Linguist” and Friend of J.R.R. Tolkien (Opens in a new window) [Catholic University of America; h/t Tolkien Gleanigs]

The Silver Key has Blogging the Silmarillion (Opens in a new window).

The Wade Center has announced the Walter Hooper Papers (Opens in a new window).

Vol. 11 No. 1–2 of Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research has a number of Tolkien items (Opens in a new window).

Nick Polk has Skeleton Crew and the Scouring of the Shire (Opens in a new window). [Substack]

Merchandise & Franchise

A new board game is coming: The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship (Opens in a new window) [BGG; game designer Substack (Opens in a new window)]

The Roving Ranger and other of my ventures are reader-supported publications. To receive additional posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
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Inter alia & Back in the Day

New plans for the Eagle & Child (Opens in a new window) in Oxford have been approved. [This is Oxfordshire]

The amazing Una McCormack is in Oxford with an An Evening of Science Fiction (Opens in a new window) [Eventbrite; at Trinity College]

The Hobbit - Rap Battle of the Five Armies (Opens in a new window) [Warp Zone; Youtube]

A 2,500 years old sword from China is “like something from the J.R.R. Tolkien universe that has entered the actual historical record” (Opens in a new window)[Res Obscura; the Sword of Gouijan (Opens in a new window)

Greta Gerwig’s ‘Narnia’ Adaptation for Netflix Gets Imax Release (Opens in a new window) [Variety]

The most popular books in public libraries in the US (Opens in a new window) as a bar chart rade (Canada, Australia and UK will be added, too) [Syndetics; h/t LibraryThing (Opens in a new window)]

Film Courage: Day I Realized That CGI Was Taking Over Hollywood – Craig Caton-Largent (Opens in a new window) [INDAC]

Charles Williams’s War in Heaven (Opens in a new window) [Aquila et Infans]

UKL: The Journal of Ursula K. Le Guin Studies has Violence and Taoist Ethics in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest (Opens in a new window).

The 45th Razzie® Award Nominations (Opens in a new window) are out.

Thinking about starting a newsletter, podcast, Patreon, Substack etc.?

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According to German law I have to inform you all links to enterprises, artists, products etc. are [unpaid advertisements.] Some purchase links may earn me a small commission from Blackwell's (Opens in a new window), Bookshop.org (Opens in a new window), or Genialokal (Opens in a new window), the (independent) bookshops of my personal trust (one with a Tolkien connection!)

If you are interested in my other Tolkien-related work please have a look:
The Tolkienist Blog (Opens in a new window) : Facebook (Opens in a new window) : Bluesky (Opens in a new window) : Instagram (Opens in a new window) : Threads (Opens in a new window) : Mastodon (Opens in a new window).
Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Opens in a new window)

As this is 2025 I would like to note that this newsletter is 100% human-made, curated by me, Marcel R. Bülles. This also holds true for everything I write with my blog and here at Steady. Also, the average time of curating this newsletter ranges from 12-16 hours for the bi-weekly edition and 6-8 hours for the weekly one.

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