Another "new" Tolkien book

[Eldy]

I really like her depiction of Celebrimbor (in the montage from the second link). So nice seeing a version of him who doesn't look like a smug 21st century lawyer.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Very interesting, but unless it is authorized by the estate (which seems unlikely) it sounds like a massive copyright violation.

ETA since I cross-posted with Eldy:

I really like her depiction of Celebrimbor (in the montage from the second link). So nice seeing a version of him who doesn't look like a smug 21st century lawyer.

I resemble that remark! (Actually not, right now I look a lot more like Jerry Garcia than a smug 21st century lawyer, though I probably am going to have to cut my hair soon.)

[Eldy]

I was gonna say, you have too much of that post-hippie look going to be lumped in with Celebrimbor, Esq. Which is not a criticism!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This comes from a page that says it is the "the official JRR Tolkien fan page, managed by his publisher HarperCollins." If it is right, it sure sounds like it is a Silmarillion like narrative.

Adhering to the timeline of ‘The Tale of Years’ in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, editor Brian Sibley has assembled into one comprehensive volume a new chronicle of the Second Age of Middle-earth, told substantially in the words of J.R.R. Tolkien from the various published texts, with new illustrations in watercolour and pencil by the doyen of Tolkien art, Alan Lee.

https://www.facebook.com/officialtolkie ... 56R71fqijl

[Alatar]

I really hope that's the case

[Eldy]

Interesting! The images attached to that post, though obviously intended to highlight the illustrations, give us the closest thing we've seen to an excerpt from the book thus far.



This perhaps gives a clue as to what "adhering to the timeline of 'The Tale of Years' " looks like in practice: chapter headings seem to be taken from the entries in Appendix B. The smaller-font introductory text by Sibley is more reminiscent of The History of Middle-earth than Unfinished Tales (where Christopher's commentary rarely came at the start of chapters), much less the The Silmarillion, and the fact that he's quoting one of Tolkien's letters does not really suggest something in the model of Christopher's 1977 work.





On the other hand, the next two images show direct reproductions of text from the 1977 Silmarillion (from OTROP and the Akallabêth, respectively). That provides a more natural flow than quoting from the letters, but it's strange to me that Sibley refused to do even the minimal amount of rewriting necessary to avoid using square brackets, which are of course standard in scholarly writing (and seriousface Lore posts on message boards ) but are somewhat jarring in narrative fiction, IMO.

It'll be nice to see more in a couple weeks!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks, Eldy. If I had to guess I would say that it is some kind of hybrid between the 2 approaches.

[Eldy]

That would definitely be more interesting to me, though I worry this will be another case of a pre-release publisher's summary of a "new" Tolkien book being poorly written. Though at least, even if this turns out be misleading, it's not in the same league of baffling dreadfulness as the description of The Fall of Gondolin (and I'm not referring the misspellings there).

viewtopic.php?p=337845#p337845

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Ah yes. As I said at the time:

Particularly odd is the statement that "the Tale of Erendel [sic], which Tolkien never wrote ... is sketched out in this book from other sources."

Really? That sounds way out of Christopher's usual bailiwick. But we'll see.

We saw.

[Eldy]

[dormouse]

The book came out yesterday here and I really want it, first of all for the pictures. I've collected books with Alan Lee illustrations since I first came across 'Faeries' in the 1980s. I was over the moon when I saw the first version of LotR with his work that came out for Tolkien's centenary. Sadly I was nowhere near rich enough for this year's Folio edition with extra illustrations...
I'll have to wait for this one, though. It's more than likely my brother or my nephew will give me it for Christmas ... More than a month....

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I hope your brother or nephew comes through!

Hopefully we'll get some reports soon as to what the format really is!

[Jude]

Incidentally, the link in the first post of this thread gives a 404. I did some searching on their site, and came up with this: https://www.tolkiensociety.org/2022/06/ ... published/

It looks like it's being published in Canada on the 20th of December. There's a $30 hardcover edition, and a $130 deluxe edition that comes in a slipcase. Both of them have Alan Lee illustrations.

[Eldy]

I hope you're able to get a copy, dormouse!

Jude, your link is busted for the same reason as the one in the OP (the instance of "Númenor" in the URL was changed to have a capital N and an accent over the U, which broke the link). This will redirect to the article, though:

https://bit.ly/3zPSSy2

[Alatar]

Just an FYI @dormouse, the Alan Lee and John Howe Artwork from previous Special Editions always seems to eventually make its way to the Tolkien Calendars

Looks like next years is a collection though, multiple artists.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Got an email today from Book Depository that my copy of The Fall of Númenor is on the way.

[Eldy]

Nice! Do they think it'll get there before the 15th?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The email yesterday said, "Expected delivery to the United States in 5-8 business days." I doubt it will be here before the 15th but stranger things have happened.

[Eldy]

My plan is to go to a bookstore on or shortly after the 15th to flip through and confirm what exactly is in The Fall of Númenor. If it looks promising, I'll suck up the extra $5 for old times' sake (I used to be a bookseller). But I'm not expecting much, so I don't want to pay in advance.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It seems impossible that at this point there would still be a question as the basic format of the book. Yet I can't find solid information anywhere. I think the official release date in the UK is 11/10 so maybe after that.