The Eighty-eighth Roving Ranger

IMPORTANT! TODAY!

A revised and enlarged edition of Tolkien's Letters will be published (Si apre in una nuova finestra).
PLEASE NOTE: TODAY.
A live stream by the TolkienGuide team (Si apre in una nuova finestra) on this and their Letters project!
Noon PDT; 2 PM CDT; 3 PM EDT; 8 PM BST; 9 PM CEST.

The Tolkien family was out in force with today's reveal of the Middle-earth Map as another gorgeous tapestry in Aubusson (Si apre in una nuova finestra), including Baillie, Adam and Royd Tolkien.

Events & Shows

The Lord of the Rings Musical has announced a wide range of programs alongside its production as well as cast and crew (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The Tolkien Society's Seminar is coming up in July (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The Dutch Tolkien Society Unquendor will be celebrating its Slotfeest (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Sentieri Tolkieniani (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is happening in the Turin area (no, Italy, not the guy!)

The British Library will have a major fantasy exhibition and is offering a fantasy study day (Si apre in una nuova finestra) including Dimitra Fimi.

The Conference on the Performance of Old Norse-Icelandic Poetry at St. Hugh's in Oxford sounds like a blast (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

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

Do look out for Pity, Power, and Tolkien’s Ring (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The Prancing Pony Podcast had Brian Sibley as a guest, possibly thanks to Fall of Númenor (Si apre in una nuova finestra). (Any reason is a good reason to invite him!)

David Bratman has written on R.W. Reynolds (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Franchise and Merchandise

The LotR: Return to Moria video game has a story trailer (Si apre in una nuova finestra); and yes, the voice is Gimli from the PJ films, indeed - John Rhys Davies.

RoP (Si apre in una nuova finestra) director Bayona has said in an interview (Si apre in una nuova finestra):

I know the ending. I know where everything is heading to, and I'm super excited to see the whole thing, not only one story, in the whole story." [ComicBook.com]

Given the fact that Prime Video is also considering an ad-supported tie (Si apre in una nuova finestra)r for their services future successes of the streaming content seems necessary. [WSJ]

The Tolkien Estate is now countersuing (Si apre in una nuova finestra) the fanfiction writer Demetrious Polychron after he had sued Prime Video and the Estate for supposedly stealing his storylines for Rings of Power. [Bloomberg Law]

I completely missed Brandon Sanderson's podcast 'I have thoughts about Rings of Power (Si apre in una nuova finestra)' from November 2022. At the 11 mins mark (Si apre in una nuova finestra) he said:

"My end opinion of it was ... meh."

Why Sanderson's opinion should matter you? Who knows but he did break the Kickstarter record (Si apre in una nuova finestra) last year with $40+ million for four upcoming novels and may be the most successful fantasy novel writer of our times (you may have never heard of.)

Lord of the Rings: Gollum has had a disastrous launch and Metacritic scores for PC (Si apre in una nuova finestra) are at 39/100 and 34/100 for PS5 (Si apre in una nuova finestra). The dev team have apologised (Si apre in una nuova finestra) and promised to provide patches asap. While this was happening German magazines noted that development team Daedalic have already started on a second title - with national funding (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Don't forget: Magic will have its Middle-earth field day on June 23rd (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Inter alia & Back in the day

Good Omens 2 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) now has an official trailer. And yes, if you are an actual Terry Pratchett fan you will know that Pterry and Gaiman actually plotted part 2 (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Youtube]

And let's not forget the Ahsoka trailer (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Youtube]

Star Wars: The Old Republic seems to be on the move (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [IGN]

And Mark Hamill mentioned in an interview: (Si apre in una nuova finestra) "(...) they don't need Luke anymore." [CBS News]

An increasingly negative side effect to massive fantasy and science fiction shows is the fan tourism - Dubrovnik, which played a major part in Game of Thrones, is now limiting visits (Si apre in una nuova finestra). Fun fact: you can look up visitor predictions online (Si apre in una nuova finestra). And you can read up on this sensitive topic with the Dubrovnik Times (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

John D. Rateliff mentioned a new journal (Si apre in una nuova finestra) called UKL.

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]

For the month of June: Trial memberships at Steady

If you feel like having a look at what I am doing you can now opt for a trial membership (Si apre in una nuova finestra) - available for the next couple of weeks!

Additional news provided in recent weeks to my members at Steady

RR+: A new and revised edition (Si apre in una nuova finestra) of 'Letters'
RR+: Tolkien Lectures - and yes, two of them (Si apre in una nuova finestra)
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