The thirty-fifth Roving Ranger
Folks,
a warm welcome to this, the thirty-fifth Roving Ranger newsletter.
Events
The Tolkien Lecture Series, based at Pembroke College, Oxford, has announced this year’s speaker (May 11): Guy Gavriel Kay. The fantasy writer has a closer-to-Tolkien connection than many others – he helped Christopher Tolkien in editing The Silmarillion.
The Urbana Theological Seminary’s Online Tolkien Conference 2021 has made its videos available.
The Royal Danish Theatre will premiere its adaptation of The Hobbit in May.
The Copper Kettle Tea Bar will be hosting its 6th Annual Hobbit Tea in May – in Alabama.
The winners of the Tolkien Society Awards 2021 have been announced.
Reviews and Book News
Due to the massive linguistic barrier the publishing history and fandom on Tolkien in China is rather difficult; this site by a book collector is giving you the basics.
Franchise, merchandise and Amazon series
Morfydd Clark, who is supposed to play Galadriel in the upcoming series and nominated for a BAFTA right now, has offered interesting insights into work in New Zealand in a recent interview.
How quickly things pass can be seen that the once iconic New Zealand Air planes with Lord of the Rings film trilogy livery are to be sent to the scrapyard – but aviation fans are trying to save at least one to be used as a hotel.
Stone Tower Brews are a company that blend coffee and beer, somehow, in their stores and they are doing a LotR-themed week starting April 12. I love coffee and I love beer so when is this pandemic finally over, please?
News Corp is obviously buying a few companies right now.
The deal will give News Corp the rights to “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and other J.R.R. Tolkien books as well as the George Orwell titles “1984” and “Animal Farm” along with many other titles.
This article with the Hollywood Insider seems like a good write-up on where Hollywood et al. stand right now: Crafting A Movie Franchise – An Examination of the Ingredients That Make Film Series Successful.
Other stuff
As mentioned before, the Russian TV show on The Fellowship of the Ring, recently unearthed, has drawn more interest. And the Telegraph has in its April 7 (one of several) piece the following quote:
While the Berlin Wall was crumbling, it was reported to the KGB that a secret society at Moscow State University was holding meetings in woods where they would practise hand-to-hand combat; an infiltrator discovered that they were Tolkien fans indulging in a spot of role play. By the mid-1990s some 200 organisations for “Tolkienisti”, as the fans were known, had sprung up in Russia.
The Russian Tolkien fandom’s history is material for more than one good novel.
In other news
The fact that GoT is seemingly getting a stage adaptation has prompted the Telegraph to remind people the most expensive flop in recent stage history was The Lord of the Rings in London.[paywall.]
And not to forget: the 10 year anniversary of the show’s premiere has HBO partying like its 2011 – with a new trailer, for example, to the 8th season.
The Voyager documentary Indiegogo campaign has broken records.
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 Hillman, ‘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‘
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According to German law I have to infom you all links to enterprises/ artists are [unpaid advertisements.]
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