The Eighty-sixth Roving Ranger

Life and Works

May 13, 1964. Tolkien writes Letter 256 (Opens in a new window), mentioning 'A new shadow'.

I could have written a 'thriller' about the plot and its discovery and overthrow – but it would be just that. Not worth doing. [Letters, #256]

May 19, 2006. The Ring of Words (Opens in a new window) is published; on Tolkien's work with the OED.
May 20, 1969. Tolkien writes Letter 310 (Opens in a new window), attempting to answer the question 'what is the purpose of life?'
May 23, 2013. The Fall of Arthur (Opens in a new window) is published.
May 23, 1973. Tolkien writes a letter (Opens in a new window) to his old friend Christopher Wiseman, adding the letters TCBS after his name.

Events & Shows

It's a minute detail but incredibly important to any exhibition: Preparing JRR Tolkien’s drawings for display (Opens in a new window). [Bodleian Libraries]

You may never have heard of him but there is a pretty good chance you have heard his music: David Arkenstone (Opens in a new window) (no joke, that's his name!) On tour with his latest album Music Inspired by Middle-earth, Vol. II. [Vancouver Sun]

The Tolkien Reserve Summer Bang (Opens in a new window) is happening (again).

The Sioux City Community Theatre (Opens in a new window) in Iowa has showings of their staging of The Hobbit in May and June.

Kalamazoo is happening and John D. Rateliff (among many others) is there (Opens in a new window).

A review of the Marquette exhibition (Opens in a new window) [PDF]

The Tolkien Lecture (Opens in a new window) will be your chance to have a pint with me - if you happen to be in Oxford at the time. Lamb & Flag, of course! And right after that we can meet up in Berlin with MetropolCon (Opens in a new window)! I know one or two decent places to have drinks there.

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Opens in a new window) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Opens in a new window).

Scholarship and Fandom

ANDUIN will change Tolkien research (Opens in a new window).

Artist Donato Giancola is having an open day in his studio (Opens in a new window) in Brooklyn, New York, on May 13th, including his Middle-earth inspired work. For those who can't be there you can win some nice things online.

A group of butterflies (Opens in a new window) have been named after Sauron; he is rather flighty, isn't he? The paper appeared with the Journal of Systematic Entomology (Opens in a new window). More background with the Guardian (Opens in a new window).

'It shows that, even among a group of very similar-looking species, you can find beauty among the dullness.'
[Dr Blanca Huertas (Opens in a new window), Natural History Museum, London]

The Middle-earth Reenactment Society (Opens in a new window) has just published its Summer 2023 issue of their newsletter, Edge of the Wild (Opens in a new window).

Franchise and Merchandise

Easton Press (Opens in a new window) have done a number of intro vids (Opens in a new window) over on Youtube.

WB Games are having a Spring in the Shire Sale (Opens in a new window) with Steam until May 15th.

ARRI (Opens in a new window) behind the scenes (Opens in a new window) video of Amazon’s LotR:RoP. [Youtube]

As far as I know The Rings of Power is the first production to be fully cloud-based.
[Producer Ron Ames]

VFX seem to be the news push recently with the show, see this interview (Opens in a new window) with Ron Ames and costume designer Kate Hawley.

LotR: Gollum is also showcasing its work, this time in Unreal Engine (Opens in a new window). Also, the game will take about 20 hours to play through (Opens in a new window).

The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth is available in all mobile stores, here is an in-depth talk (Opens in a new window) with one of the game's developers [trailer (Opens in a new window); Youtube]

• [With Google Play (Opens in a new window) it has a 2.5 out of 1,5k+ reviews so far.]

A list of fantasy and science fiction shows impacted by the Writers' Strike (Opens in a new window) [Gizmodo AU] And yes, LotR:RoP does not need its writers (Opens in a new window) to finish season 2. [Variety]

TORn has an interview (Opens in a new window) with WotC (Opens in a new window) art director Ovidio Cartagena on the upcoming MTG (Opens in a new window) LotR expansion. To understand how a trading card game implements the 'mechanic' of the One Ring see this post (Opens in a new window).

A lot of video games never get made. Timothy Cain of Troika Games (Opens in a new window) has finally released a demo (Opens in a new window) of a LotR game they suggested to Sierra in 2001.

Mattel is offering its Little People Collector LotR Weathertop Set (Opens in a new window).

LotR: Moria mentioned the upcoming Summer Game Fest (Opens in a new window) in its Discord - maybe we'll get some news on them dwarves then!

Inter alia & Back in the day

Always lovely to see when a new bookstore opens - Bound Books (Opens in a new window) in York, PA, put up the Hobbit and LotR (Opens in a new window) on opening day.

George R.R. Martin has a few things to say on the Writers' Strike (Opens in a new window).

The start of season 2 of Good Omens has been announced via Twitter - it's July 28th (Opens in a new window). And if you need to know why there is a second season in the first place do read Neil Gaiman's take (Opens in a new window) on it.

If you are feeling Trekkie today this new portal with 3d renditions of all Enterprises (Opens in a new window) might be for you. [Roddenberry Archive]

How to do Star Wars in about a minute - Robin the Frog (Opens in a new window) knows. [Youtube]

Hard to believe but at least this is good news: Babylon 5 (Opens in a new window) is returning as an animated movie.

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 (Opens in a new window) : Facebook (Opens in a new window) : Twitter (Opens in a new window) : Instagram (Opens in a new window) : Tolkien-Discord (Opens in a new window) [de/en]

Additional news provided in recent weeks to my members at Steady

RR+: LotR: Gollum has a Precious Edition (Opens in a new window)
RR+: The Bod is archiving tweets (Opens in a new window) - including me 🤩
RR+: Tolkien Society Awards (Opens in a new window) - vote now open!
RR+: 70 years after (Opens in a new window) - Tolkien's lecture on Sir Gawain in Glasgow
RR+: Tolkien and Smith Conference (Opens in a new window), Corpus Christi College, Oxford
RR+: 'Lord of the Rings' (Opens in a new window) musical tickets now available
RR+: New Illustrated Edition (Opens in a new window) of 'The Hobbit' Announced
RR+: "Tolkien letters (Opens in a new window) 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