The One hundred and fifteenth Roving Ranger
Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Opens in a new window)
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 (Opens in a new window) writes a letter (Opens in a new window) to Tolkien's children.
Dec 1, 1913. Tolkien is elected president of the Stapledon Society, a student body at Exeter College (Opens in a new window).
Dec 3, 1955. Tolkien's poem Imram (Opens in a new window) is published in Time and Tide (Opens in a new window).
Dec 4, 1947. Essays Presented to Charles Williams (Opens in a new window), including "On Fairy-Stories (Opens in a new window)", is published.
Dec 6, 1961. Tolkien writes Letter 235 (Opens in a new window) (Pauline Baynes & Adventures of TB).
Dec 11, 1953. Tolkien writes Letter 142a (Opens in a new window) (on Sir Gawain and LotR).
Dec 12, 1967. Tolkien writes Letter 299 (Opens in a new window) (Green’s review on Smith).
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Events & Shows
More Perilous and Fair: Women and Gender in Mythopoeic Fantasy (Opens in a new window) (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 (Opens in a new window)is coming [May 2025; Kansas City]
The Fall of Doriath (Opens in a new window) musical stream will happen Nov 30/ Dec 1.
'The ‘Key-spring’ of The Lord of the Rings?' (Opens in a new window) is on with Stuart Lee in Oxford. [Eventbrite]
Tolkien Society Hybrid Seminar 2024 – Tolkien as Heritage (Opens in a new window) with TS of Serbia.
LotR: War of the Rohirrim (Opens in a new window). Dec 13th.
— IMAX Premiere and fan screening at Lucerne (CH); the Tolkienist as GoH (Opens in a new window).
The Lubbock Community Theatre in Texas will do the Hobbit in March 2025 (Opens in a new window).
Theatre review: The Hobbit is an inventive love letter to the joy of pretending (Opens in a new window) [Stir; Vancouver]
The Hobbit will be played in Lithopolis, Ohio (Opens in a new window) in April 2025 (Opens in a new window). [Broadway World]
The Hobbit (Opens in a new window) will also hit Philly in April/ May 2025.
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
Ardacraft: Ten years of building Middle-earth in Minecraft (Opens in a new window)[Youtube]
Diana Glyer has “From Enemies to Allies: The Unlikely Friendship of Lewis & Tolkien” (Opens in a new window) [Youtube]
Tom Hillman has The Repentance of Angels: a Curious Departure in Tolkien (Opens in a new window).
Miriam Ellis has Christopher Tolkien: Steward of a Star (Opens in a new window).
https://www.miriamellis.com/post/christopher-tolkien-steward-of-a-star (Opens in a new window)doubtfulsea has You’ve Got Mail (Opens in a new window).
David Bratman has a short review of the CJRT Centenary Conference (Opens in a new window).
A review of Nólë Hyarmenillo. An Anthology of Iberian Scholarship on Tolkien (Opens in a new window) [Fafnir]
A sculpture in support of reading - in the form of a bench - uses Tolkien’s Hobbit as one of its legs (Opens in a new window). [LA Times]
Some of the papers presented with the CJRT Conference are already available with the Journal of Tolkien Research (Brown and Larsen) (Opens in a new window).
Merchandise & Franchise
A new board game: Duel for Middle-earth (Opens in a new window) [Repos Production; similar to 7 Wonders Duel - review (Opens in a new window) with BGG]
Also a “trick taking game” from Office Dog/ Asmodee (Opens in a new window).
The Lord of the Rings™ Roleplaying for 5e Now Available on D&D Beyond (Opens in a new window) [Free League]
Elevenses is delayed until January (Opens in a new window) [Portland Herald]
You can now get your very own War of the Rohirrim weapon in the cinema (Opens in a new window) [MSN] | see also WotR: "An All New Story" Featurette (Opens in a new window) [Youtube] | see the full NYCC WotR panel (Opens in a new window) [Youtube] McFarlane Toys has WotR swag as well (Opens in a new window); see Boxoffice Theory forecast (Opens in a new window).
The Hobbit Folio Society (Opens in a new window) edition sold - 1,000 copies - in less than 10 mins [Instagram]
Have a look at this VFX breakdown (Opens in a new window) 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 (Opens in a new window) [Daily Mail; media bias (Opens in a new window)]
Tolkien Tourism has exploded in recent years; a recent example is to be found in Kelvin Edge, Whiting Bay, Isle Of Arran, North Ayrshire (Opens in a new window) [Scotland]
Audiobooks are booming, thanks to streaming subscriptions (Opens in a new window) [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 (Opens in a new window). [Lakota Times]
https://www.lakotatimes.com/articles/cherokee-nation-to-dub-prime-video-content-in-cherokee/ (Opens in a new window)Excellent interviews on Star Trek with Nana Visitor (Opens in a new window) [trekmovie.com (Opens in a new window)]
Tom Emmanuel has: George MacDonald's Post-Christian Imagination (Opens in a new window).
Kirk and Spock get a final farewell (Opens in a new window) in “AI” rendition. [Youtube]
Research on the situation in the US but let's assume it holds true everywhere: Misinformation exploits outrage to spread (Opens in a new window)online [Science]
Only when the assisted dying bill passes will I stop feeling angry about Terry Pratchett’s final years (Opens in a new window) [Independent]
Fingolfin’s Findings LXVI: Moorcock never really read LotR (Opens in a new window) [The Tolkienist with Steady; paywall]
Ansible 449 (Opens in a new window) has been published.
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