The Eighty-sixth Roving Ranger

Life and Works

May 13, 1964. Tolkien writes Letter 256 (Si apre in una nuova finestra), mentioning 'A new shadow'.

I could have written a 'thriller' about the plot and its discovery and overthrow – but it would be just that. Not worth doing. [Letters, #256]

May 19, 2006. The Ring of Words (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is published; on Tolkien's work with the OED.
May 20, 1969. Tolkien writes Letter 310 (Si apre in una nuova finestra), attempting to answer the question 'what is the purpose of life?'
May 23, 2013. The Fall of Arthur (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is published.
May 23, 1973. Tolkien writes a letter (Si apre in una nuova finestra) to his old friend Christopher Wiseman, adding the letters TCBS after his name.

Events & Shows

It's a minute detail but incredibly important to any exhibition: Preparing JRR Tolkien’s drawings for display (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Bodleian Libraries]

You may never have heard of him but there is a pretty good chance you have heard his music: David Arkenstone (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (no joke, that's his name!) On tour with his latest album Music Inspired by Middle-earth, Vol. II. [Vancouver Sun]

The Tolkien Reserve Summer Bang (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is happening (again).

The Sioux City Community Theatre (Si apre in una nuova finestra) in Iowa has showings of their staging of The Hobbit in May and June.

Kalamazoo is happening and John D. Rateliff (among many others) is there (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

A review of the Marquette exhibition (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [PDF]

The Tolkien Lecture (Si apre in una nuova finestra) will be your chance to have a pint with me - if you happen to be in Oxford at the time. Lamb & Flag, of course! And right after that we can meet up in Berlin with MetropolCon (Si apre in una nuova finestra)! I know one or two decent places to have drinks there.

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Scholarship and Fandom

ANDUIN will change Tolkien research (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Artist Donato Giancola is having an open day in his studio (Si apre in una nuova finestra) in Brooklyn, New York, on May 13th, including his Middle-earth inspired work. For those who can't be there you can win some nice things online.

A group of butterflies (Si apre in una nuova finestra) have been named after Sauron; he is rather flighty, isn't he? The paper appeared with the Journal of Systematic Entomology (Si apre in una nuova finestra). More background with the Guardian (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

'It shows that, even among a group of very similar-looking species, you can find beauty among the dullness.'
[Dr Blanca Huertas (Si apre in una nuova finestra), Natural History Museum, London]

The Middle-earth Reenactment Society (Si apre in una nuova finestra) has just published its Summer 2023 issue of their newsletter, Edge of the Wild (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Franchise and Merchandise

Easton Press (Si apre in una nuova finestra) have done a number of intro vids (Si apre in una nuova finestra) over on Youtube.

WB Games are having a Spring in the Shire Sale (Si apre in una nuova finestra) with Steam until May 15th.

ARRI (Si apre in una nuova finestra) behind the scenes (Si apre in una nuova finestra) video of Amazon’s LotR:RoP. [Youtube]

As far as I know The Rings of Power is the first production to be fully cloud-based.
[Producer Ron Ames]

VFX seem to be the news push recently with the show, see this interview (Si apre in una nuova finestra) with Ron Ames and costume designer Kate Hawley.

LotR: Gollum is also showcasing its work, this time in Unreal Engine (Si apre in una nuova finestra). Also, the game will take about 20 hours to play through (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth is available in all mobile stores, here is an in-depth talk (Si apre in una nuova finestra) with one of the game's developers [trailer (Si apre in una nuova finestra); Youtube]

• [With Google Play (Si apre in una nuova finestra) it has a 2.5 out of 1,5k+ reviews so far.]

A list of fantasy and science fiction shows impacted by the Writers' Strike (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Gizmodo AU] And yes, LotR:RoP does not need its writers (Si apre in una nuova finestra) to finish season 2. [Variety]

TORn has an interview (Si apre in una nuova finestra) with WotC (Si apre in una nuova finestra) art director Ovidio Cartagena on the upcoming MTG (Si apre in una nuova finestra) LotR expansion. To understand how a trading card game implements the 'mechanic' of the One Ring see this post (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

A lot of video games never get made. Timothy Cain of Troika Games (Si apre in una nuova finestra) has finally released a demo (Si apre in una nuova finestra) of a LotR game they suggested to Sierra in 2001.

Mattel is offering its Little People Collector LotR Weathertop Set (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

LotR: Moria mentioned the upcoming Summer Game Fest (Si apre in una nuova finestra) in its Discord - maybe we'll get some news on them dwarves then!

Inter alia & Back in the day

Always lovely to see when a new bookstore opens - Bound Books (Si apre in una nuova finestra) in York, PA, put up the Hobbit and LotR (Si apre in una nuova finestra) on opening day.

George R.R. Martin has a few things to say on the Writers' Strike (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The start of season 2 of Good Omens has been announced via Twitter - it's July 28th (Si apre in una nuova finestra). And if you need to know why there is a second season in the first place do read Neil Gaiman's take (Si apre in una nuova finestra) on it.

If you are feeling Trekkie today this new portal with 3d renditions of all Enterprises (Si apre in una nuova finestra) might be for you. [Roddenberry Archive]

How to do Star Wars in about a minute - Robin the Frog (Si apre in una nuova finestra) knows. [Youtube]

Hard to believe but at least this is good news: Babylon 5 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is returning as an animated movie.

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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Facebook (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Twitter (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Instagram (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Tolkien-Discord (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [de/en]

Additional news provided in recent weeks to my members at Steady

RR+: LotR: Gollum has a Precious Edition (Si apre in una nuova finestra)
RR+: The Bod is archiving tweets (Si apre in una nuova finestra) - including me 🤩
RR+: Tolkien Society Awards (Si apre in una nuova finestra) - vote now open!
RR+: 70 years after (Si apre in una nuova finestra) - Tolkien's lecture on Sir Gawain in Glasgow
RR+: Tolkien and Smith Conference (Si apre in una nuova finestra), Corpus Christi College, Oxford
RR+: 'Lord of the Rings' (Si apre in una nuova finestra) musical tickets now available
RR+: New Illustrated Edition (Si apre in una nuova finestra) of 'The Hobbit' Announced
RR+: "Tolkien letters (Si apre in una nuova finestra) shine new light on writer’s life and work"

What to look forward to in 2023 if you like Tolkien and all things Tolkienian

Meet and greet with the Tolkienist in 2023