A special Roving Ranger edition: Ninety-second “A”
Between the ninety-first and ninety-second Roving Ranger there was break from the end of July until the beginning of November 2023. I have now curated a list of all things Tolkienian of this time span in case you missed out on them.
Life and Works
In an Amazon UK / Amazon Literary Partnership poll on the best opening lines in literature Tolkien’s Hobbit placed fourth (Abre numa nova janela).
Events & Shows
Fantasy: Realms of Imagination, the British Library exhibition is on until February 25, 2024. Reviews: Guardian (Abre numa nova janela) | Reuters (Abre numa nova janela) | Telegraph (Abre numa nova janela).
Joseph Purdue has returned with another Tolkien-inspired musical: A Tale of Fellowship (Abre numa nova janela)
(I wrote about his Unfolding Tales (Abre numa nova janela) extensively for my members here at Steady.)
The Lord of the Rings musical has a sold-out run - and more or less ‘saved’ the Watermill Theatre (Abre numa nova janela)’s future plans.
Colorado saw The Hobbit come alive on stage (Abre numa nova janela); impressions (Abre numa nova janela) [Facebook].
The No Strings Marionette Company (Abre numa nova janela) did The Hobbit as well at the Doctorow Centre of the Arts (Abre numa nova janela) in the Catskill Mountains.
The Muse Theatre Company (Abre numa nova janela) in Jefferson, MO, did The Hobbit (Abre numa nova janela).
Scholarship and Fandom
Joseph Pearce Further In and Further Up: 50 Years with J.R.R. Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela) [European Conservative]
Harps in Tolkien: What Would They Sound Like? (Abre numa nova janela)
“The Long Defeat”: Reading Tolkien in the Time of Climate Change (Abre numa nova janela) [TOR.com]
Tolkien's Incredible Map of Middle-Earth | Great Maps Explained (Abre numa nova janela) [Mapster, Youtube]
The rather lovely local tradition of well dressing has had a Tolkien-inspired addition (Abre numa nova janela).
Switzerland has certainly stepped up its Tolkien game with Tolkien stamps (Abre numa nova janela) by John Howe.
Franchise and Merchandise
Payne & McKay (Abre numa nova janela) of LotR: Rings of Power have signed a deal with the Creative Artists Agency (Abre numa nova janela) (CAA (Abre numa nova janela)) for representation. [Deadline]
“Fewer shows will be made for less money”: International producers on the future of scripted drama (Abre numa nova janela) [Screen Daily].
It is really sad to see Guillermo del Toro had another project ‘canceled’, this time a Star Wars movie on Jabba the Hutt (Abre numa nova janela). [Collider] If only he had done the Hobbit…
LotR: Gollum was such a disaster Steam player numbers in September often dropped to zero (Abre numa nova janela) - and the peak never seemed to exceed ~500.
First Vin Diesel, now… How John Wick and Lord of the Rings Connect, According to a Director of Both Franchises (Abre numa nova janela) [Movieweb]
Peter Jackson is becoming a real estate mogul (Abre numa nova janela) in New Zealand.
Legion M and others teamed up to bring the film “Return to the King” to US theatres for its 20th anniversary (Abre numa nova janela) and to no surprise it was a success (not as originally written 25th).
Private Division and Weta Workshop announced a new cosy game, Tales of the Shire (Abre numa nova janela).
Sound engineer Jordan Rannells has composed - successfully supported via Kickstarter (Abre numa nova janela) - and brought together soundscapes on The Lord of the Rings (Abre numa nova janela).
The incredibly entertaining story of a fanfiction writer suing the Tolkien Estate and Amazon over infringing his copyrights with Rings of Power seems to have come to an even more entertaining close (Abre numa nova janela); the case has been dismissed (Abre numa nova janela).
Lord of the Rings soundtrack (Abre numa nova janela) voted nation’s favourite film music [Independent, UK]; full list with vote organiser Classic FM (Abre numa nova janela) and a breakdown of the music itself (Abre numa nova janela).
War of the Rohirrim (Abre numa nova janela) has been postponed until December 2024.
Almost unbelievable but true: Zelda - Ocarina of Time - could have had a character called Hobbit (Abre numa nova janela).
The Embracer Group which has taken over Middle-earth Enterprises is partially funded by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (Abre numa nova janela); the $2 billion deal that fell through would have increased their interactions.
Why not gift a membership to the Tolkienist at Steady for Christmas?
Hullloooo ☺️
I’m very excited about this: you can now gift memberships to the Tolkienist’s Roving Ranger and beyond!
Share your support of me with friends and family—it’s very easy.
Some gift ideas:
Your favourite colleague (for better work chats)
Your clients
Your friend who lives abroad
Your cousin who shares your interest
And? No shipping costs + environmentally sustainable + no auto-renewal. Win win win.
How do gift memberships work?
✨ Purchase a gift membership directly on my page here:
(Abre numa nova janela)✨ The gift membership will begin immediately, on the day of purchase.
✨ An email will be sent to the recipient informing them about their new gift from you, and how to access it (no price tag listed, don’t worry).
✨ The gift membership does not auto-renew.
Find out more about gift memberships in this helpful FAQ (Abre numa nova janela).
If you have further questions, please contact the lovely people at Steady who help me run my membership programme. You can reach them at: support@steadyhq.com (Abre numa nova janela)
(Abre numa nova janela)All the best from Jena,
Marcel
Inter alia & Back in the day
Slate has delivered a truly decent write-up on one of the most important people for the modern literary fantasy and science fiction genres you may never have heard of - Lester del Rey (Abre numa nova janela) (see also Wikipedia (Abre numa nova janela)).
You may not have heard of Glashammer (Abre numa nova janela) either but the band has been playing ‘prog rock’ for thirty years, often with a Tolkien twist: “I’ve always said it’s not just ‘progressive anything’. It’s progressive rock and it needs to rock." How Glass Hammer turned it up to 11 with Skallagrim – Into The Breach” (Abre numa nova janela)[Louder]
Michael Gambon (Abre numa nova janela) passed away. [Independent]
A rather fascinating piece with the Rolling Stone: How Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg Distort Reality to Sell Fantasy (Abre numa nova janela).
George R.R. Martin and many other successful authors are suing ChatGPT (Abre numa nova janela) et al. [NY Post] |; also Forbes (Abre numa nova janela).
The attempts at banning books in the US are continuing, see the example of Texas (Abre numa nova janela) (and yes, The Lord of the Rings was among those titles.)
This might be one of the best Youtube videos I have ever seen:
https://youtu.be/5tmxfVWDgMM?si=0AW7Z4oM_ZrIMlhb (Abre numa nova janela)Lovely to see characters written by Tolkien continue to inspire: Rosario Dawson explains how Ahsoka was inspired by Gandalf (Abre numa nova janela) [Entertainment Weekly]
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 (Abre numa nova janela) : Facebook (Abre numa nova janela) : Twitter (Abre numa nova janela) : Instagram (Abre numa nova janela) : Bluesky (Abre numa nova janela)
