New Tolkien book?

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Anybody heard anything about a new book by J.R.R. Tolien about to be published - unfinished manuscript, completed by his son, someone told me?

Bet it comes out in Britain first, if it's for real.

 

Huh, so my friend was right. Should have known to Wiki the idea.
Thanks for the info, Montresor. I'll be waiting with interest!

 

I doubt I'll read it. Herbert's son wasn't even a candle to his father's flame -- and Herbert was no Tolkien.

 

Thank you T2, you beat me to the Herbert comment.

/edit - removed distasteful comment about Christopher Tolkien /edit

[ April 23, 2007, 17:20: Message edited by: Jack Funk ]

 

i will read it, i liked silmarillion and enjoyed the new dune books ( im easy to please i guess )

 

I was a fan of the Hobit and The Lord of the Rings, but this book is not strictly speaking a Tolken work.

No kidding. I couldn't stand them.

 

Depends on who you ask. I found it a challenging, almost tiring, read at points. It lacked the polish of the texts that his father actually published. I suppose that is because it wasn't really finished. I was glad that I read it though. Most of it was the work of his father.

My feeling is that he has published anything that he could (Unfinished Tales?) to make a buck. If this text was close to complete, he would have published it long ago.

My above quote is a bit crude and distasteful. Many people want to read anything that Tolkien wrote, even if it isn't finished.

 

Please, please, tell me this was irony.

 

Nice catch. I missed that the first time.

All aboard for the Irony Express!

 

Well if anybody can do justice to Tolkien's work it's his son (He was against the movie adaptation so I believe he is as much a purist as anyone).
Don't forget that he was very close to his father who asked him for feedback while writing the LotR.
He dedicated his life to his father's work and I don't think he made such a bad job with the Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales or the History of Middle Earth.

...And that must have been a lot of hard work, I believe he could have made some easy money without so much work by writing his own sequels if he had wanted to (like Herbert's son). Who would read the whole series of books he published? Only fans would. Most readers and fantasy addicts who enjoyed the LotR or Bilbo are not going to go through all these volumes.
If he had wanted to make a quick buck he could easily have written a sequel to LotR telling about the reign of Aragorn or tying loose ends in the main story instead of going back to the First Age.

Judging from what I read on the net, this new book has been a very long project in the making and it is based on Tolkien's notes and some unpublished material. The story of the feud between Morgoth and Hurin is already part of the Silmarillion, so we can't expect another LotR but IMHO it would be unfair to criticize his work without having read it.

 

Oooh...this is the first I've heard of this! I'll have to remember to keep an eye out for it. I haven't gotten around to reading The Simarillion yet, but I enjoyed LOTR, The Hobbit, Unfinished Tales and the book about Rover the dog who could fly or something. That was such a cute story. ^^

 

Actually the movie rights to the Hobbit were sold decades ago.

Personally I don't have much interest in the new book. I will agree that it seems that Christopher has a great deal of respect for his father's work but that doesn't mean that the book will be worth reading.

Based upon everything I know about JRRT he was a perfectionist when it came to his published works and I think he would be embarrased that all of these "unfinished" background materials, that he in all likelihood never intended for anyone else to read, were being published.

 

That's certainly true although he was planning to publish the Silmarillion before he passed away. If he had the time to finish his work it's likely it would have been a different book.

 

I'll be cautiously optimistic. I started collecting the History of Middle Earth books but gave up at book 5. The first three were really good, four and five were dull and repetitive.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070417/ap_en_re/book_review_tolkien_2

It might not be too bad. I'll read it.

 

Well being a Tolkien fan I'll read this book as soon as I can get my hands on it. This will probably be the last book with "J.R.R. Tolkien" name on it since Christopher is in his eighties. It might be interesting, I heard that it's a pretty dark story.

Those of you that live in London might want to go to the Forbidden Planet bookstore tomorrow, Alan Lee will be there signing "Children of Hurin" books there.

And there are also talks about filming a movie to this book, you can read the article here.

 

I don't see Christopher Tolkien selling the rights. If it happens it'll be after he dies.