New Tolkien Book Released 'The Children of Hurin'

Zoolander writes "Christopher Tolkien has completed the last book of J.R.R. Tolkien from notes left from his father." The ultimate question is how much of a quality difference will there be; for instance the difference between Dune and Dune: House Atriedes is a pretty big gap. But in my experience, Christopher Tolkien has always taken a good, cautious approach when it comes to his father's work so here's to hoping.

Excellent!~

I have always thought Chris has done a good job compiling his father's stuff. I can't wait to pick this up!

Re:Excellent!~

I "read" silmarilion when I was in high school, didn't like it at all and failed to spend the time slowly going through it to take everything in. Going through it again in my mid-twenties and having an exponentially greater appreciation of it, even more so than Lord of the Rings.

Like a wine fine, you have to let it age a bit.

TÚRIN TURAMBAR DAGNIR GLAURUNGA

Re:Excellent!~

"Like a wine fine, you have to let it age a bit."

Or aging is lowering/fucking up your standards.

By your sixties you may actually like to listen to Barbra Streisand albums...

Re:Excellent!~

You are aware, I hope, that this is actually Tolkien's writing. Christopher Tolkien's role has been as an editor. In only one instant did he actually compose anything for his father's works, and that was The Fall of Doriath for the published Silmarillion, because Tolkien had actually only written one completed version, and that was way back in about 1920, when the mythos was still in a very early stage of evolution, and did not match the post-Lord of the Rings Silmarillion.

Re:Excellent!~

It's his notes. There is a huge difference.

There are lots of notes. There are also lots of completed works. The Lost Tales is largely complete. The Annals of Beleriand and the Grey Annals are largely complete.

Just how much of the History of Middle Earth series have you even read?

Re:Excellent!~

Christopher Tolkien was a philologist at Oxford like his father before him. He had work, he is an old man now.

As to Tolkien's wishes, he made them very clear during his lifetime. He wanted the Silmarillion completed and published. When he knew he could no longer do it, he left it to Christopher Tolkien to complete it.

And I'd love for you to cite where Tolkien despised his greatest fans. Because you know what, he didn't, and spent countless hours answering their letters. You're just talking out of your ass.

Re:Excellent!~

He's definitely out to make a buck on his father's work.

So was his father. That's why you can buy Lord of the Rings in a store. People work to make money...

Re:Excellent!~

Chris Tolkien annoys the crap out of me, though, admittedly, more for "original" tripe like The Treason of Isengard than for compilations like the Silmarillion...

The Treason of Isengard is just as much a compilation as the Silmarillion -- in this case, it's early drafts of The Two Towers. The only original content CRT provides is notes on when various sections were written and how they relate to others.

He's definitely out to make a buck on his father's work.

Making a buck by publishing twelve volumes of early manuscripts and notes that are of interest to scholars, and editing some of those manuscripts so they can be published as completed novels for general fans, is vastly preferable to creating novels from whole cloth like Frank Herbert's son.

Re:Excellent!~

I hope you are aware that The Lord of the Rings IS the sequel. Tolkien didn't write LOTR first. It came much later after he wrote almost all of the Silmarillion. He had been working his way up to that novel for years before he ever sat down to write it. His wife also added quite a lot to all of his work, though her name is often forgotten. LOTR was edited and edited until it was something people could try to read in under a month. But the fact is, Tolkien is not that type of writer. If you look at any of his other novels, he meant for the world to take LOTR slow. He wanted you to get lost in the world that he and his wife created. His books should take you years to read, and after you've read them, he wanted you to go back and read them again. At least, that is the impression I got when reading through the histories of Middle Earth. This isn't about opportunism. It's about Tolkien's world. If you don't have the patience for his novels, I don't recommend them.

Re:Excellent!~

His wife also added quite a lot to all of his work, though her name is often forgotten.

Good thing you are here to remind us that it's Edith Mary Tolkien (born Bratt) [wikipedia.org].

Oh no, wait, you didn't...

Aaa...Narn Hin Hurin

I always liked the Hurin's Children story, the one in Silmarillion, and also the version with more details in the collection "Unfinished tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth".

Anyway, the story has quite a lot of similarities with the Finnish folklore Kalevala [wikipedia.org], spefically Kullervo's story. Knowing how much Tolkien liked Finnish, some of the stuff might be intentionally taken :)

From the wiki article:

Cantos 31-36: The Kullervo cycle: Untamo kills his brother Kalervo's people except for the wife who begets Kullervo; Untamo gives Kullervo several tasks but he sabotages them all; Kullervo is sold as a slave to Ilmarinen; after being tormented by Ilmarinen's wife, he exacts revenge and the wife gets killed; Kullervo runs away and finds his family unharmed near Lapland; Kullervo seduces a maiden and later finds out she is his sister; Kullervo destroys Untamola (the realm of Untamo) and upon returning home finds everyone killed; Kullervo kills himself.

Well... parallels to Túrin are there.

Written to Spec

Heard about this on the radio. According to 'the experts' it features several large battle scenes, and "would make a good movie".

Go figure.

Re:Written to Spec

According to 'the experts' it features several large battle scenes, and "would make a good movie".

The tale of Turin Turambar certainly would. Nargothrond ruined, dragonfire and orcs all around, our hero living in the wild as a bandit hunting monsters, reclaims birthright, slays dragon, discovers appalling truth, kills self... that would rule.

Re:Written to Spec

Nargothrond ruined, dragonfire and orcs all around, our hero living in the wild as a bandit hunting monsters, reclaims birthright, slays dragon, gets the girl, lives happily ever after... that (unfortunately) is Hollywood.

Re:Written to Spec

I'd be very surprised if Christopher Tolkien finished 'The Children of Hurin' to "movie spec". He despised the Peter Jackson movies.

Re:Written to Spec

a) Rights the family just gave away gratis, because they love movie projects so much.

Rights the old man sold decades ago for a relative pittance, back when the books were a niche nerdy thing, before the hippies caught onto them and inflicted a generation of kids called things like Pippin Galadriel Moonchild on the world...

question about the "other" Tolkien books ...

I read the three Lord Of The Rings books and The Hobbit. Can someone tell me what other Tolkien books take place in the same Middle Earth "universe", and how do they relate to the ones I read? That is, are they prequels, sequels, or parallel stories?

Do any of the hobbits, Gandalf, the Shire, or any other "Rings" characters appear in the other books?

Re:question about the "other" Tolkien books ...

The big Tolkein book, outside of the Lord of the Rings, is The Silmarillion. It's basically, like, the Elf-Bible. It's got some funky creation myth from before the dawn of time which occupies the front, and then proceeds to chronicle history thenceforth. It's... very dense, in some places - sort of like the regular Bible, except perhaps more so. The main Lord of the Rings characters also appear in it, because the entire Lord of the Rings saga forms the last chapter of the book. (it's covered in like, what, ten pages?)

There's also some spiffy appendixes, I believe; place-names and things like that.

There are a few other short stories floating around, which others can tell you of better than I. I think there's one or two either involving Tom Bombadil, Farmer Maggot, or both.

Re:question about the "other" Tolkien books ...

Try reading Unfinished Tales and the appendix of LOTR, then maybe you'll enjoy Silmarillion more. In my opinion only The Silmarillion reveals full glory of Tolkien's creation, LOTR with is about humans, Silmarillion is about gods. No wonder why Christopher Tolkien despises Jackson interpretation of LOTR, it just ignores Silmarillion completely, downgrading magnificent story to some anonymous D&D quest.

Re:question about the "other" Tolkien books ...

I wish I had mod points for you. You hit the nail right on the head there.

All my friends really like the LotR movies, and I suppose they're good movies, if you've never read Tolkien's books and/or don't care about Tolkien's world. However I happen to like Tolkien's world, and The Silmarillion, and as a result I don't care for the movies at all.

Re:question about the "other" Tolkien books ...

All my friends really like the LotR movies, and I suppose they're good movies, if you've never read Tolkien's books and/or don't care about Tolkien's world. However I happen to like Tolkien's world, and The Silmarillion, and as a result I don't care for the movies at all.

I think you mean to say, "if you've never read Tolkien's *other* books".

I've read The Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings, which are Tolkien's books, and loved the movie. The movie expressed the world fine as it appeared in that set of books.

Re:question about the "other" Tolkien books ...

No, the anonymous D&D quest [shamusyoung.com] is much lower in quality than the actual LotR.

Re:question about the "other" Tolkien books ...

Sort of.

The Silmarilion details the events of the First Age of Middle Earth, from the beginning of time to Melkor's defeat (he was Sauron's boss). It also skims over the Second Age -- the rise of fall of the kingdom of Numenor (where Aragorn's ancestors were from) and the making of the Rings of Power through the first 3000 years of the Third Age. It is written in a much different style (often compared to a history book) and was pieces together by Christopher Tolkien from his father's notes (like everything post-LOTR)

After Silmarilion is Unfinished Tales, expounding on parts of Silmarilion. Narn I Hin Hurin - "The Tale of Hurin", Tuor and his coming into the hidden city of Gondolin, and more background on the second and early third ages.

After UT is The Books of Lost Tales (1 and 2), part of The History of Middle Earth, which is 12 (!) books of research on all parts of the story hiterto. Letters, extrapolation, essays. Really deep stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Middle -earth [wikipedia.org] has a complete list.

Re:question about the "other" Tolkien books ...

To add to the previous posts, the only LOTR characters alive in the times the Silmarillion (mainly) covers are Sauron, Galadriel and Elrond. Gandalf in the form of a maia (demigod, angel, something like that) but no more than a short mention if even that.

Re:question about the "other" Tolkien books ...

Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, while short, does cover some of the hobbit/LOTR timeline (about 5 pages). Also, 4 volumes of HoME focus entirely on the trilogy:

The Return of the Shadow
The Treason of Isengard
The War of the Ring
Sauron Defeated (volumes 6-9)

"One major twist"

She's his sister.

(Oh come on, you weren't expecting to get through this discussion without finding that out.)

Re:"One major twist"

..and the big black dude with the scarey helmet is his father?

%-)

Same Difference

the difference between Dune and Dune: House Atriedes

Good analogy. The difference between, say, The Fellowship of the Ring and any Christopher Tolkien followup (except perhaps the Silmarillion) is about as big.

JRR Tolkien and Frank Herbert were visionaries. Their books are legendary because they're so complete, so consistent, they're practically holographic. While those authors were also brilliant editors, especially Tolkien whose main gig was (as is well known) Oxford English Dictionary editor. Their (genetic, and thereby literary) heirs are undistinguished from a vast host of other second or lower tier of "visionary" authors, and have no special editing talent - nor have acquired any at their cashin publishers. While they also operate at a disadvantage while writing outside the original cultural contexts that produced those seminal works for a different audience.

Ironically, both Middle Earth and Dune are epic tales of the original forefathers of our times (Dune less obviously, sorry for the spoiler). A magical time when a unique individual arrived to set the worlds on the path that led to today's mundane, if relatively safe, existence. Both Tolkien and Herbert themselves portrayed themselves as mere humble quoters of the original stories, originally told by the great actors themselves. Their stories resonate with generations of the public partly because we understand that great storytellers are part of great stories which are part of great ages, come once in a long while, and cannot bequeath their talents and opportunities to their children.

On the bright side, both The Lord of the Rings and the Dune trilogies are so good that they can be reread often over a lifetime, delivering new rewards each time. Reading those later "extensions" is a waste of time that could better be spent rereading the original.

Re:Same Difference

Tolkien's "main gig" was not editing the OED (hundreds of people edited OED2). It's just well-known because anyone who's dipped their toe into an English class greater than 101 is aware of what the OED is. I'm not disparaging his contributions, I'm just saying that give the man some credit: he was a professor of language and literature at Leeds and Oxford, and a writer to boot. To make things /. compatible, I doubt people would want me typing "Torvalds is that guy who did some work on the Sinclair QL, right?" (I had to check Linus's Wikipedia bio to pull something like that up, FYI)

Re:Dull as dish water

Except that Tolkien considered LotR the distraction, and the Hobbit's drawing on his mythos something of an accident. His main concern was the Silmarillion, which he tried unsuccessfully to get published alongside LotR.

The Silmarillion is not LotR, but it is, for those that have the patience and appreciation for that sort of thing, a glorious tale. Unfortunately, the published form is in many cases ripped from the Grey Annals, which were a sort concise historical chronology, and not in and of themselves full narratives. Tolkien planned a rather enormous expansion of the work, of which the Children of Hurin was the only part that approached completion. It, and the unfinished version of "Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin" that is found in Unfinished Tales are very much like LotR in storytelling quality.

Re:Dull as dish water

Parts of the Simarillion work as good novellas in themselves. I particularly enjoyed the tale of Beren and Luthien.

Re:Dull as dish water

Where do people take tripe like this from?

"JRR built up a whole mythos to draw from when writing LoTR."???

He didn't build up the stories to have background for LotR. He built the mythos for his own enjoyment, as a background history for his invented languages, and in hope of giving back to the English a mythology of their own that was "lost" when the Normans invaded the Anglo-Saxons.

The Hobbit was a story he made for his children. He spiced it up a bit with details from his mythos. He published it because it seemed publishable as a good children's story. Lord of the Rings was written as a commercial follow-up to The Hobbit. Didn't really end up like that but...

I am not disputing the fact that the huge amount of previous writing and pre-existing mythos gave LotR a backstory of unparalleled proportions. It ended up being a large part of the attraction of the book, that you feel this world has a whole history behind it that is barely hinted at.

Dune House Books

i prefer the newer Dune House books to Frank Herberts later works.

i think there was more of a drop in quality there.

Re:Dune House Books

Well, I think Brian Herbert needs to learn the difference between "character" and "caricature". I admit I did read *all* of the BH Dune books nevertheless, because I'm a sucker, but Frank Herbert's most offhand scribbles are worth more than that crap.

You and your shameless plugs...

How about some non-marketing related links... links that are more descriptive about the topic:
  - Dune (novel) [wikipedia.org]
  - Dune: House Atreides [wikipedia.org]

Dune prequels

A much better combarison would be the new Dune novel, Hunters of Dune, rather than the Dune prequels, since it's supposed to be based on the notes by Frank Herbert, while the prequels (Dune: Houses and Butlerian crap) were written completely from scratch and are often contradicting the original Frank Herbert books. I find that Chris Tolkien has really done as much as possible to preserve his fathers legacy, which cannot be said for Brian Herbert, who is trying to ruin his fathers franchise by putting out large numbers of half-baked books.

You know they have really old out when...

You know they have really old out when... ... the crosover books start appearing, how about 'Harry Potter and the Children of Hurin' or 'Dune: House Huffelpuff'.

And hence submitted for perusal by

the children of slashdot.

One ring to bore them all

I just saw Clerks 2 (b/c sometimes I like to punish the Ebert within) and while it itself is a terrible flick, it has perhaps the most perfect summation of my feelings on the LOTR trilogy, albeit the film form. As far as I'm concerned Tolkien Jr. would do well to stray somewhat and make a good action/adventure story (as TFA hints at) instead of the plodding tale his father took too many pages to tell. It had a great setting/world but god what a dull pedantic road trip LOTR was. We get it, the rings is evil. Really evil. Just drop the fucking thing in the volcano already.

Does it answer the two most important questions?

1) Who/What was Tom Bombadil?

2) Do Balrogs have wings?

Re:Does it answer the two most important questions

Gandalf's folk were minor players in the fight against Sauron's boss. As the humans are to Gandalf, so Gandalf is to his superiors, the gods.

Right. In fact, IIRC, there's even something like "THE God", which doesn't interfere in the conflict between the various gods. It's clear from the stories that God (upper-case, THE god) has planned the conflicts to have a purpose which no one but himself can see.

And this is part of why Gandalf holds back his full power. He is acknowledging that he can't just go around solving other people's problems for them, since the problems, conflicts, fighting, and resolution all play a part in this unknown plan. He doesn't know what the plan is, but he knows it exists. This is part of the reason he doesn't stop Gollum, for example. He knows Gollum still has a part to play. It's also very related to the metaphor of the ring, and why Gandalf can't take possession of the ring. He must restrain himself from abuse of power in order to play his proper role. The ring represents undue power and the thirst for undue power, and so taking possession of it would represent the sort of abuse of power many characters in the story are trying to avoid.

When Bombadil fails to be affected by the ring or tempted by it, he is displaying a closeness to God which would be impossible were he not a greater being than he seems. This is also relevant in terms of Hobbits, since they show a remarkable resistance to the ring, indicating that they, too, are greater than they appear.

(Sorry. Geeking out.)

In other news, Led Zepplin reforms

In other news, Led Zepplin reforms, stating that they have come across some new material.

I read the first sentance too fast...

"Christopher Walken has completed the last book of J.R.R. Tolkien from notes left from his father."

How awesome would that be?

Re:I read the first sentance too fast...

"You see this ring, kid? It was your father's ring. He had to wear it up his ass during the entire war of Middle Earth. Hundreds of leagues he travelled with this ring up his ass. And now it's yours."

Book Cover

Judging the book by its cover [images-amazon.com], the book will involve a guy who climbs a hill faster than some other guys who also are climbing that hill. Then, he will look at something. Maybe he will tell us about what he sees. Sounds thrilling!

Tolkien-like ?

"It will be interesting to see how it stands up today alongside all the Tolkien-alike literature that we've become familiar with," said David Bradley

In my world there's nothing like what you could call "Tolkien-alike". Many have tried to ride the waves his writings have raised, still very few come even close to what he's accomplished. Maybe it's his background, maybe it's his decades' long knowledge in mythology, languages and literature, maybe it's his natural writing skill, maybe it's the timing, maybe it's all of these together that have resulted in a physical form that it's unique in so many ways. How will this new compilation be judged ? Supposing it's really good, it still will require a great effort to make it stand out from the oceans of fantasy bestseller wannabes these days.
 

Not all bad

herbert's son isnt all that bad a writer but i would agree that the butlerian jihad series sucked ass compared to house atreide, house harkkonen, and house corrino, of course his father's work is an all together range of writing but we cant expect two person to have the same writting skills or style.

Dan simmons would be the closest author (that i have read) who kind of have similar depth when writing sci-fi books

Whish Herbert would do the last book of dune or at least give us something, the last Dune book left me wanting for so much more.....

Wikipedia link

Here is Wikipedia's article on the book [wikipedia.org].

I dearly hope Christopher, with all the material at hand about Húrin and Túrin, produces a book whose quality is close to his father's writings. If so, the unavoidable buzz that'll happen in our post-Jackson-movies world would be a huge boost to help popularize all books dealing with Arda before the War of the Rings (The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales,...). That'd be nice: too many people watched the movie, eventually read the related trilogy, and then nothing else.

Christopher's religious views?

It is well-known that Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic. Just out of curiosity, does his son follow the same beliefs?

Ambivalent Toward Christopher

<blockquote>But in my experience, Christopher Tolkien has always taken a good, cautious approach when it comes to his father's work so here's to hoping.</blockquote>I'd go so far as to say that he's taken an <i>overly</i> cautious approach to his father's work. The point at which I became frustrated with him was the point at which I found out that J. R. R. had written a translation of <i>Beowulf</i>, that the translation was pretty much a final draft, and that Christopher was blocking its publication. I honestly can't think of any rationale for blocking the work's publication that justifies his hesitancy. This, combined with his very public argument with his son, Simon, has made me look at his stewardship of J. R. R.'s work with a fairly critical eye.

Come on, guys!

Predictably, a goodly percentage of those replying think Chris Tolkien is a hack / grave robber / etc. At the end of the day, he could have taken his father's papers and:

• done the best editing job he was able to and publish them (did he have help? Presumably he has an editor at the publisher's, and I wouldn't hand this project to just anyone.)
• released them as-is (where they would have been ignored as unreadable or mined for ever worse atrocities by ever worse (screen)writers. Better a RingWraith than to be fouled the way the later Dune books did Frank Herbert.)
• shredded them all to avoid being accused of daring to profit from his father's estate (if JRRT had left cash, that would be fine, but writings...!)

Which would you prefer? I'm very happy to get the chance to see Tolkien's remaining writings, but I don't have the time to study the originals and no reason to think anyone else would be better at editing it for me.

Nice, but

what's with the affiliate links in the Dune and Dune: House Atriedes links?

Children of Hurin Release Party

For those who wish to win a deluxe Children of Hurin signed by Christopher Tolkien and Alan Lee, make sure to attend the on line Children of Hurin Release Party, where the whole world will join in to celebrate the release of the new Tolkien book. There are fantastic prizes to be won and all major Tolkien scholars and artists will attend the celebration! Don't miss this event: www.tolkienlibrary.com [tolkienlibrary.com]

Re:I agree... Brian isn't a patch on Frank.

I have contended all along that Brian Herbert should have done what Christopher Tolkien did; that is not flesh out notes into full stories, but just publish the notes and plot lines. Brian Herbert is a second-rate writer, and I found his Dune stuff horribly amateurish, more like fan fiction than serious storytelling.