The Sixth Roving Ranger
Folks,
a warm welcome to this, the sixth Roving Ranger newsletter!
Events
The Tolkien Society (UK) has announced their keynote speakers and panels for their first ever online Oxonmoot.
WorldCon 2020 happened in New Zealand, the first ever fully virtual WorldCon due to the restrictions imposed by the battle against the global pandemic. During ConZealand the Hugo Awards were given out, congratulations to all winners.
Did you visit one of the major Tolkien exhibitions which happened in Oxford, New York City and Paris? Their websites are happily enough still online so why not browse the most successful exhibitions the Bodleian Libraries, the Morgan Library & Museum and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France ever had.
Please always refer to the International Tolkien Fellowship Facebook group for Tolkien-inspired events the world over.
Reviews and Book News
For those of you have not had the time yet to read John M. Bowers’ Tolkien’s Lost Chaucer I have found three reviews for you: the Oxonian Review, the Times Literary Supplement, and, highly recommended, the Journal of Tolkien Research.Other Stuff
Neil Gaiman gave an interview with Esquire in which it was said:
Neil Gaiman is trying to work out how to get back to New Zealand. His latest plan is to get a bit-part in Lord of the Rings.
“I could be Neilo Proudfoot, the Jewish hobbit. I’d be in the back, and every now and then people would say, ‘Oh, what a tall hobbit Neil is.'”
Well, there you are.
Film franchise, merchandise and Amazon series
Brotherhood Workshop are back with a parody video on the breathtaking “Gandalf saves Théoden” scene.
In other news
Gaming is a wide field and fantasy settings have been known to sell widely – from World of Warcraft to the Witcher. Some top tier execs at Ubisoft obviously thought things needed “to be better than Tolkien.” As the opinion here quotes an essential J.R.R. Tolkien text I wanted to share it.
When I recently did a small survey on the future of cinemas in Germany with my German twitter account half of those who voted believed there is a future for cinema. With the following report I believe cinemas are going out of business soon – TV series will kill the movies and therefore cinemas … and that holds true not only for Star Wars.
A German craft brewer who has been suffering from the consequences of the global pandemic is planning to build a hobbit hole. If you ask me: if there ever were an AirBnB offer “Hobbit Hole with beer flat rate” I knew who would book it. [In German]
The Blog Roll
These are blogs you really should be following if you’re interested in Tolkien …
Some of these, you may find, are not as active as one would hope; but even if they have not posted anything new for a long time they are repositories of great essays and research on all things Tolkienian and always worth your time. The blog roll – and this very newsletter! – has been inspired by Troels Forchammer’s Parma-kenta and his excellent Tolkien Transactions he did for seven years – they are still sorely missed!
Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, ‘Too Many Books and Never Enough’
Dimitra Fimi, ‘Dr. Dimitra Fimi’
Jason Fisher, ‘Lingwë — Musings of a Fish’
Douglas A. Anderson, ‘Tolkien and Fantasy’
John D. Rateliff — ‘Sacnoth’s Scriptorium’
John Garth, ‘John Garth’
David Bratman, ‘Kalimac’s Journal’
Jenny Dolfen, ‘Jenny’s Sketchbook’
Andrew Higgens, ‘Wotan’s Musings’
Anna Smol, ‘A Single Leaf’
Edmund Weiner, ‘Philoloblog’
Robin Anne Reid, her blog
Annalisa Palmer, her blog
Various, The Mythopoeic Society
Various (Bradford Eden, ed.) Journal of Tolkien Research (JTR)
Various, The Tolkien Society (TS)
Southfarthing Mathom
Various, The Mythopoeic Society, ‘The Horn of Rohan Redux’
Sue Bridgwater, ‘Skorn’
Tom Hilman, ‘Alas, not me’
Michael Martinez, ‘Middle-earth’
Bruce Charlton, ‘Tolkien’s The Notion Club Papers’
Various, ‘Middle-earth News’
Jeffrey R. Hawboldt, ‘Expressions of Substance’
Ryszard Viajante Derdzinski, ‘Tolknięty’
Stephen C. Winter, ‘Wisdom from The Lord of the Rings’
Troels Forchhammer, ‘Parma-kenta‘
Marcel Aubron-Bülles, ‘The Tolkienist‘
Jeremy Edmonds, ‘Tolkien Collector’s Guide‘
Aubrey, ‘Diverse Tolkien‘
Elyanna, ‘itariilles‘
Pictures credits: “You have nice manners for a thief and a liar,” said the dragon”, and “Gandalf & Frodo” by Alfredo Cáceres.
Please also visit the artist’s Instagram.
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