The One hundred and thirty-first Roving Ranger

Events & Shows

Hobbit auditions coming up in January 2026 with TAC at the Lake (Abre numa nova janela) [Liberty Lake, WA]

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

Jason Fisher is on a roll with: Humphrey Carpenter was a professional jazz musician (Abre numa nova janela) [see also: Tolkien’s Biographer Was Also a Pro Jazz Bassist (Abre numa nova janela)], Like father like son (Abre numa nova janela), and A newly discovered primary account of Arthur Tolkien’s death (Abre numa nova janela).

Tolkien scholar and organiser of the many excellent talks and seminars in Oxford (Abre numa nova janela) in recent years, Giuseppe Pezzini, will have a book out, April 30: Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation [Bookshop.org (Abre numa nova janela) | Blackwell’s (Abre numa nova janela)]

doubtfulsea has Rad Aghast (Abre numa nova janela).

Mercury Natis has Reading Sam and Frodo through the Greek Loves (Abre numa nova janela). [Substack]

Stephen C. Winter has “Frodo, I Think You Do Very Unwisely in This… I Do Not Think You Should Go With This Creature. It is Wicked.” Frodo and the Wisdom of Unwisdom (Abre numa nova janela).

Dimitra Fimi has On Tolkien's Letter 131 (1): Capturing "timeless Elvish enchantment." (Abre numa nova janela) [Substack]

Robin Reid has Tolkien Studies Area, PCA, Program (Abre numa nova janela).

Merchandise & Franchise

Amazon shakes up streaming leadership team (Abre numa nova janela) [TechCrunch; see also Hollywood Reporter (Abre numa nova janela)]

Apparently, Middle-earth Enterprises are litigious as ever and are trying to go against a ruling in Australia where “Lord of the Fries” was allowed to keep and use its trademark (Abre numa nova janela), clearly arguing “Lord of the X” is not a snowclone (Abre numa nova janela) owned by MEE. [New South Wales case registry (Abre numa nova janela)]

Take a closer look at LEGO 10354 The Lord of the Rings: The Shire’s minifigures (Abre numa nova janela) [BrickFanatics]

Warner Holme Review: The One Ring: Moria: Through the Doors of Durin (Abre numa nova janela) [File770]

Sotheby’s has Lord of the Rings to The Hobbit: The Most Valuable Tolkien Works of All Time (Abre numa nova janela).

The La Bohème in Washington has a Tolkien Dinner (Abre numa nova janela).

Lord Of The Rings Turned Into Studio Ghibli AI Slop Looks Like Garbage (Abre numa nova janela) [Kotaku]

Inter alia

In the last week two actors who were of influence to me (via SHOGUN and WILLOW] passed away: Val Kilmer [BBC (Abre numa nova janela) | BFI (Abre numa nova janela) | NPR (Abre numa nova janela) ] and Richard Chamberlain [ BBC (Abre numa nova janela) | BFI (Abre numa nova janela) | CBC (Abre numa nova janela)]

The people at Tolkien Guide have Selling your Book Collection (Abre numa nova janela). [Youtube]

Ansible 453 made mention of the upcoming 451 Fahrenheit by J.R.R. Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela) [April 1st]

George R.R. Martin has a lovely write-up on Glasgow (Abre numa nova janela).

Warner Bros. Cancels New ‘Harry Potter’ Project After Deciding It’s Not Worth the Money (Abre numa nova janela) [Inside the Magic]

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, season 3, has an Official Teaser. (Abre numa nova janela)

Thinking about starting a newsletter, podcast, Patreon, Substack etc.?

Then do consider using Steady (Abre numa nova janela) - it is an exceptionally easy to use option for all needs. Built originally for an independent journalists’ collective, Krautreporter (Abre numa nova janela), it is run by creative minds for creative minds. Think Patreon, just better. It is based in Germany, free of enshittification (Abre numa nova janela) and nazis.

Do use my invite link (Abre numa nova janela) and start with three months fee-free.
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According to German law I have to inform you all 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), Bookshop.org (Abre numa nova janela), or Genialokal (Abre numa nova janela), the (independent) bookshops of my personal trust (one with a Tolkien connection!)

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.