The One hundred and thirty-first Roving Ranger

Events & Shows

Hobbit auditions coming up in January 2026 with TAC at the Lake (Opens in a new window) [Liberty Lake, WA]

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

Jason Fisher is on a roll with: Humphrey Carpenter was a professional jazz musician (Opens in a new window) [see also: Tolkien’s Biographer Was Also a Pro Jazz Bassist (Opens in a new window)], Like father like son (Opens in a new window), and A newly discovered primary account of Arthur Tolkien’s death (Opens in a new window).

Tolkien scholar and organiser of the many excellent talks and seminars in Oxford (Opens in a new window) in recent years, Giuseppe Pezzini, will have a book out, April 30: Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation [Bookshop.org (Opens in a new window) | Blackwell’s (Opens in a new window)]

doubtfulsea has Rad Aghast (Opens in a new window).

Mercury Natis has Reading Sam and Frodo through the Greek Loves (Opens in a new window). [Substack]

Stephen C. Winter has “Frodo, I Think You Do Very Unwisely in This… I Do Not Think You Should Go With This Creature. It is Wicked.” Frodo and the Wisdom of Unwisdom (Opens in a new window).

Dimitra Fimi has On Tolkien's Letter 131 (1): Capturing "timeless Elvish enchantment." (Opens in a new window) [Substack]

Robin Reid has Tolkien Studies Area, PCA, Program (Opens in a new window).

Merchandise & Franchise

Amazon shakes up streaming leadership team (Opens in a new window) [TechCrunch; see also Hollywood Reporter (Opens in a new window)]

Apparently, Middle-earth Enterprises are litigious as ever and are trying to go against a ruling in Australia where “Lord of the Fries” was allowed to keep and use its trademark (Opens in a new window), clearly arguing “Lord of the X” is not a snowclone (Opens in a new window) owned by MEE. [New South Wales case registry (Opens in a new window)]

Take a closer look at LEGO 10354 The Lord of the Rings: The Shire’s minifigures (Opens in a new window) [BrickFanatics]

Warner Holme Review: The One Ring: Moria: Through the Doors of Durin (Opens in a new window) [File770]

Sotheby’s has Lord of the Rings to The Hobbit: The Most Valuable Tolkien Works of All Time (Opens in a new window).

The La Bohème in Washington has a Tolkien Dinner (Opens in a new window).

Lord Of The Rings Turned Into Studio Ghibli AI Slop Looks Like Garbage (Opens in a new window) [Kotaku]

Inter alia

In the last week two actors who were of influence to me (via SHOGUN and WILLOW] passed away: Val Kilmer [BBC (Opens in a new window) | BFI (Opens in a new window) | NPR (Opens in a new window) ] and Richard Chamberlain [ BBC (Opens in a new window) | BFI (Opens in a new window) | CBC (Opens in a new window)]

The people at Tolkien Guide have Selling your Book Collection (Opens in a new window). [Youtube]

Ansible 453 made mention of the upcoming 451 Fahrenheit by J.R.R. Tolkien (Opens in a new window) [April 1st]

George R.R. Martin has a lovely write-up on Glasgow (Opens in a new window).

Warner Bros. Cancels New ‘Harry Potter’ Project After Deciding It’s Not Worth the Money (Opens in a new window) [Inside the Magic]

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, season 3, has an Official Teaser. (Opens in a new window)

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

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Do use my invite link (Opens in a new window) and start with three months fee-free.
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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.