The Eighty-eighth Roving Ranger

IMPORTANT! TODAY!

A revised and enlarged edition of Tolkien's Letters will be published (Opens in a new window).
PLEASE NOTE: TODAY.
A live stream by the TolkienGuide team (Opens in a new window) on this and their Letters project!
Noon PDT; 2 PM CDT; 3 PM EDT; 8 PM BST; 9 PM CEST.

The Tolkien family was out in force with today's reveal of the Middle-earth Map as another gorgeous tapestry in Aubusson (Opens in a new window), including Baillie, Adam and Royd Tolkien.

Events & Shows

The Lord of the Rings Musical has announced a wide range of programs alongside its production as well as cast and crew (Opens in a new window).

The Tolkien Society's Seminar is coming up in July (Opens in a new window).

The Dutch Tolkien Society Unquendor will be celebrating its Slotfeest (Opens in a new window).

Sentieri Tolkieniani (Opens in a new window) is happening in the Turin area (no, Italy, not the guy!)

The British Library will have a major fantasy exhibition and is offering a fantasy study day (Opens in a new window) including Dimitra Fimi.

The Conference on the Performance of Old Norse-Icelandic Poetry at St. Hugh's in Oxford sounds like a blast (Opens in a new window).

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

Do look out for Pity, Power, and Tolkien’s Ring (Opens in a new window).

The Prancing Pony Podcast had Brian Sibley as a guest, possibly thanks to Fall of Númenor (Opens in a new window). (Any reason is a good reason to invite him!)

David Bratman has written on R.W. Reynolds (Opens in a new window).

Franchise and Merchandise

The LotR: Return to Moria video game has a story trailer (Opens in a new window); and yes, the voice is Gimli from the PJ films, indeed - John Rhys Davies.

RoP (Opens in a new window) director Bayona has said in an interview (Opens in a new window):

I know the ending. I know where everything is heading to, and I'm super excited to see the whole thing, not only one story, in the whole story." [ComicBook.com]

Given the fact that Prime Video is also considering an ad-supported tie (Opens in a new window)r for their services future successes of the streaming content seems necessary. [WSJ]

The Tolkien Estate is now countersuing (Opens in a new window) the fanfiction writer Demetrious Polychron after he had sued Prime Video and the Estate for supposedly stealing his storylines for Rings of Power. [Bloomberg Law]

I completely missed Brandon Sanderson's podcast 'I have thoughts about Rings of Power (Opens in a new window)' from November 2022. At the 11 mins mark (Opens in a new window) he said:

"My end opinion of it was ... meh."

Why Sanderson's opinion should matter you? Who knows but he did break the Kickstarter record (Opens in a new window) last year with $40+ million for four upcoming novels and may be the most successful fantasy novel writer of our times (you may have never heard of.)

Lord of the Rings: Gollum has had a disastrous launch and Metacritic scores for PC (Opens in a new window) are at 39/100 and 34/100 for PS5 (Opens in a new window). The dev team have apologised (Opens in a new window) and promised to provide patches asap. While this was happening German magazines noted that development team Daedalic have already started on a second title - with national funding (Opens in a new window).

Don't forget: Magic will have its Middle-earth field day on June 23rd (Opens in a new window).

Inter alia & Back in the day

Good Omens 2 (Opens in a new window) now has an official trailer. And yes, if you are an actual Terry Pratchett fan you will know that Pterry and Gaiman actually plotted part 2 (Opens in a new window). [Youtube]

And let's not forget the Ahsoka trailer (Opens in a new window). [Youtube]

Star Wars: The Old Republic seems to be on the move (Opens in a new window). [IGN]

And Mark Hamill mentioned in an interview: (Opens in a new window) "(...) they don't need Luke anymore." [CBS News]

An increasingly negative side effect to massive fantasy and science fiction shows is the fan tourism - Dubrovnik, which played a major part in Game of Thrones, is now limiting visits (Opens in a new window). Fun fact: you can look up visitor predictions online (Opens in a new window). And you can read up on this sensitive topic with the Dubrovnik Times (Opens in a new window).

John D. Rateliff mentioned a new journal (Opens in a new window) called UKL.

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]

For the month of June: Trial memberships at Steady

If you feel like having a look at what I am doing you can now opt for a trial membership (Opens in a new window) - available for the next couple of weeks!

Additional news provided in recent weeks to my members at Steady

RR+: A new and revised edition (Opens in a new window) of 'Letters'
RR+: Tolkien Lectures - and yes, two of them (Opens in a new window)
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