The One-hundred and sixth Roving Ranger
Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Abre numa nova janela)
Events & Shows
Register now (Abre numa nova janela) for the Austrian Tolkien Society (Abre numa nova janela)’s Lasse Lanta. (Sept 13-15)
Same for this year’s EstelCon (Abre numa nova janela) of the Spanish Tolkien Society. (Dec 4-8)
The Hobbit is coming to Philadelphia (Abre numa nova janela). (April-May, 2025)
Boston’s Crystal Ballroom will have A Long-Expected Party (Second Breakfast!) (Abre numa nova janela) in September.
The Hobbit is being played at a youth theatre in Iowa (Abre numa nova janela)
For all events (Abre numa nova janela) check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Abre numa nova janela) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Abre numa nova janela).
Scholarship and Fandom
The Tolkien Society’s Education Officer, Lucy Angel, has provided materials on The Hobbit (Abre numa nova janela).
Tom Hillman - talking to John Garth - has some thoughts on Mani Aroman, Tolkien's Beardless Men (Abre numa nova janela).
Artist Miriam Ellis is now with Patreon (Abre numa nova janela).
Digital Tolkien has a video on How to use Search Tolkien and Cite Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela). [Youtube]
Tom Bombadil and the Anti-Matter of England: A Proposal to Explain an Insolubility (Abre numa nova janela) by J.G.A. Pocock (Abre numa nova janela). (first published Sept 2020; unp. letter, 1982). I particularly love this quote in an obituary (Abre numa nova janela):
He was also mildly addicted to the fantasy realms of J.R.R. Tolkien; evoking then another realm of the British post-colonial imaginary, our sadly depleted Middle Earth has said a final farewell to Treebeard.
An interesting piece with Literary Hub: A Visa for a Hobbit: How the Tools of Fantasy and Speculative Fiction Can Help Immigrant Writers (Abre numa nova janela).
Surely of interest to many: Fantasy Aesthetics. Visualizing Myth and Middle Ages, 1880–2020 (Abre numa nova janela), including articles by scholars Thomas Honegger & Judith Klinger. [Free download as PDF (Abre numa nova janela) thanks to the DFG (Abre numa nova janela)’s SFB 1472 (Abre numa nova janela)]
Do watch this Maedhros animatic (Abre numa nova janela) by French animation student Flavie Schmitz.
An interview (Abre numa nova janela) with Guy Gavriel Kay with a paragraph on helping CJRT with The Silmarillion. (h/t Tolkien Gleanings (Abre numa nova janela))
(…) The model in [Christopher’s] mind, I suspect, was that of the academic and his graduate student assistant. The actual process turned out to be radically otherwise, but that’s a long, other tale.
Tolkien fandom will have to face even worse right-wing attempts at appropriation if this man becomes vice-president: How Lord of the Rings Shaped JD Vance’s Politics (Abre numa nova janela) [Politico]; see Rachel Maddow’s comments (Abre numa nova janela)[NY Post]
Please do note: “Given his abhorrence of modernity in general…” is one of those lines on “J.R.R. Tolkien” that you should always take with a grain of salt.
Franchise and Merchandise
The SDCC trailer for LotR: Rings of Power has been published (Abre numa nova janela). [Youtube]
Amazon has bought Bray Film Studios (Abre numa nova janela), home to Hammer Films (Abre numa nova janela).[BBC]
Viggo Mortensen has some very clear positions on franchises in this extensive Vanity Fair interview (Abre numa nova janela).
Inter alia & Back in the day
Looking back Jackson to talk Hobbit ( (Abre numa nova janela)with Del Toro); Jan 2009.
Star Trek: Section 31 has a trailer (Abre numa nova janela). [Youtube]
See Stratofanatic for D&D Fantasy Fiction by TSR Publications (Abre numa nova janela).
The shortlist for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fictionhas been announced (Abre numa nova janela).
Star Trek: Voyager documentary to be out on DVD/Blu-ray sooner than you think (Abre numa nova janela) [Redshirts always die]
An opinion piece: Tourists have wrecked Edinburgh – they need to feel uncomfortable (Abre numa nova janela) [Express]
George R.R. Martin has a lot to say on dragons (Abre numa nova janela).
Fantasy needs to be grounded. It is not simply a license to do anything you like. Smaug and Toothless may both be dragons, but they should never be confused. Ignore canon, and the world you’ve created comes apart like tissue paper.
According to German law I have to infom you al (Abre numa nova janela)l links to enterprises, artists, products etc. are [unpaid advertisements.] Some purchase links may earn me a small commission from Blackwell's (Abre numa nova janela) or Bookshop.org (Abre numa nova janela), the bookshops of my personal trust.
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As this is 2024 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.
