Unfinished Tales (of Numenor and Middle Earth {1st edition, text only}) J.R.R. Tolkien
It took me a long time to get through this one because of lifestyle alterations over the last month and a half, but I finally finished it last week. Of course, I loved it. Any fan of The Lord of the Rings books would like it. And I mean a fan of the books more so than the movies because there's a certain level of commitment required to read anything from this series. Tolkien created an entire alternate world complete with geography, history, languages and social structure in the Lord of the Rings series and if you've ever perused the appendixes attached to that set, you'll see the basis of these tales.
This
is a set of short and incomplete stories relating to the history of
Tolkien's Middle Earth. It's 70 percent footnotes and appendixes (lol, I
told you, you have to actually like the entire LOTR conception to read
it.) Compiled by his son, Christopher Tolkien, it covers tales that take
place in the First, Second and Third age of Middle Earth. As you may
remember if you read the LOTR series, the story of the Hobbit and the
war of the Ring took place in the Third Age and many passing references
were made to the other two ages and people that were around back then.
Then, in the LOTR appendixes, there were genealogies and family trees
and lines of rulers that traced back to Numenor, etc. Well, in this
series you have stories that take place in Numenor and examples of how
this culture bled over into Middle Earth (which is the map you are
familiar with in the LOTR books.)
It's actually fun; well, for me it's fun anyway. It's like reading a dramatized history book of a place that doesn't exist. Christopher Tolkien arranged the notes to cross reference the LOTR series as well as the Silmarillion which is another book of tales that are mostly dedicated to the First Age. He also notes discrepancies and inconsistencies in his father's collective works on the entire Middle Earth saga. Along with incomplete stories are a few descriptive narratives of some of the peoples and things that existed in this world.
I recommend it for fans of the original Lord of the Rings books only. I don't think you could get much out of it otherwise.
It's actually fun; well, for me it's fun anyway. It's like reading a dramatized history book of a place that doesn't exist. Christopher Tolkien arranged the notes to cross reference the LOTR series as well as the Silmarillion which is another book of tales that are mostly dedicated to the First Age. He also notes discrepancies and inconsistencies in his father's collective works on the entire Middle Earth saga. Along with incomplete stories are a few descriptive narratives of some of the peoples and things that existed in this world.
I recommend it for fans of the original Lord of the Rings books only. I don't think you could get much out of it otherwise.
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