The One hundred and twenty-first Roving Ranger

Events & Shows

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

The Tolkien Society has announced Carl Phelpstead as this year’s guest speaker (Abre numa nova janela) with their annual.

Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim will be shown in the UK - in its Japanese version (Abre numa nova janela). [TORn]

Hobbit House champs of British School Meet (Abre numa nova janela) [Daily News; Sri Lanka]

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Abre numa nova janela) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Abre numa nova janela).

Scholarship & Fandom

Nominations open for Tolkien Society Awards 2025 (Abre numa nova janela) (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 (Abre numa nova janela).

John Garth has A birthday post for Tolkien’s ‘second father’, Francis Morgan. (Abre numa nova janela) [Steady]

Some excellent speakers with From Myth to Manuscript: Exploring Inklings Archival Collections (Abre numa nova janela), including Bill Fliss (Marquette), Catherine McIlwaine (Bodleian Libraries), and Laura Stanifer (Wheaton College) [Vimeo]

Gerry Canavan (Abre numa nova janela) has The lesson of J.R.R. Tolkien’s abandoned Lord of the Rings seque (Abre numa nova janela)l [Washington Post]

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

Tom Hillman has A Point about Elf Ears (Abre numa nova janela).

Andrew Higgins has Early Elvish Pronouns in Action (Abre numa nova janela).

Jason Fisher has J.A.W. Bennett on Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela).

The Archivist’s Nook: Robert T. Meyer – “Bespectacled Linguist” and Friend of J.R.R. Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela) [Catholic University of America; h/t Tolkien Gleanigs]

The Silver Key has Blogging the Silmarillion (Abre numa nova janela).

The Wade Center has announced the Walter Hooper Papers (Abre numa nova janela).

Vol. 11 No. 1–2 of Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research has a number of Tolkien items (Abre numa nova janela).

Nick Polk has Skeleton Crew and the Scouring of the Shire (Abre numa nova janela). [Substack]

Merchandise & Franchise

A new board game is coming: The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship (Abre numa nova janela) [BGG; game designer Substack (Abre numa nova janela)]

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Inter alia & Back in the Day

New plans for the Eagle & Child (Abre numa nova janela) in Oxford have been approved. [This is Oxfordshire]

The amazing Una McCormack is in Oxford with an An Evening of Science Fiction (Abre numa nova janela) [Eventbrite; at Trinity College]

The Hobbit - Rap Battle of the Five Armies (Abre numa nova janela) [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” (Abre numa nova janela)[Res Obscura; the Sword of Gouijan (Abre numa nova janela)

Greta Gerwig’s ‘Narnia’ Adaptation for Netflix Gets Imax Release (Abre numa nova janela) [Variety]

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

Film Courage: Day I Realized That CGI Was Taking Over Hollywood – Craig Caton-Largent (Abre numa nova janela) [INDAC]

Charles Williams’s War in Heaven (Abre numa nova janela) [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 (Abre numa nova janela).

The 45th Razzie® Award Nominations (Abre numa nova janela) are out.

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

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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