"New" Tolkien novel to be published.

[Dolla Bill]

Wow. Talk about your Tupac scenario

Sounds like a pretty decent story, but I just didn't dig on Tolkien's writing style. I read all the LOTR novels, but it was a chore at times.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/book...eut/index.html

[Santheb]

I'm going to end up reading this, because as messed up as he was, Túrin Turambar was my favorite character in The Silmarillion, and I was always interested in his storyline. Looking forward to it, indeed.

[shally]

Originally Posted by Dolla Bill

Wow. Talk about your Tupac scenario

Sounds like a pretty decent story, but I just didn't dig on Tolkien's writing style. I read all the LOTR novels, but it was a chore at times.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/book...eut/index.html

interesting if this will read the same..

the dune novels were not the same after herberts death

[Carmelo]

Originally Posted by Dolla Bill

Wow. Talk about your Tupac scenario

Sounds like a pretty decent story, but I just didn't dig on Tolkien's writing style. I read all the LOTR novels, but it was a chore at times.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/book...eut/index.html

I enjoyed the movies and I am a super avid fantasy novel fan but I could not get down with Tolkien's writing style at all. For me, a chore was an understatement. I tried and I tried and I tried again but I could never get through the LOTR... any of them, and I read tons of fantasy novels.

[Dolla Bill]

More info on the new book:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/book....ap/index.html

Btw, Carmelo, have you read any of George R R Martin's novels? The man is a great fantasy novelist.

[Santheb]

I picked up the book today, not sure when I'm going to start reading it, but I'll let you all know what I think about it eventually. The cover has Turambar on it, looking like the only thing he knows how to be: badass.

[Carmelo]

Originally Posted by Dolla Bill

More info on the new book:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/book....ap/index.html

Btw, Carmelo, have you read any of George R R Martin's novels? The man is a great fantasy novelist.

George R. R. Martin? Yep, I have been reading his latest series... I forget the name but I just finished the latest book in it, "A feast for crows" while I was in Germany a couple of months ago. Those are great books.

[Spence]

Martin has written great stuff.

The difficulty of Tolkien varied depending on what he was writing. When he was writing a real story, such as The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, I had no problem reading it. The Silmarillion was freaking brutal. I gave up. Not worth the effort and no fun at all for me.

I read a review in Salon of this "new" book and they gave it a very good review. It appears to be a real story, as opposed to the epic narration of The Silmarillion. Thus, I am hopeful.

[Santheb]

Since Spence said that Salon gave the book a good review, I figure I'd post another pretty gleaming review of it as well, from CNN.

A few quotes..

Review: 'New' Tolkien splendidly rewarding

Tolkien began writing "The Children of Hurin" 99 years ago, abandoning it and taking it up again repeatedly throughout his life. Versions of the tale already have appeared in "The Silmarillion," "Unfinished Tales" and as narrative poems or prose sections of the "History of Middle-earth" series.

But they were truncated and contradictory. Outside of Tolkien scholars and Middle-earth fanatics, few read them.

These works were, after all, largely unreadable -- dense, hard to follow histories and legends of Tolkien's vast, imaginary world, crammed with complicated genealogies, unfamiliar geography and hard-to-pronounce names. Readers who took up such books hoping for another Rings saga or charming yarn such as "The Hobbit" abandoned them after a few pages.

"The Children of Hurin" is the book for which these readers have been longing.

I've read the first three chapters, plus the introduction and whatnot. Whenever I start reading it, I just can't put it down, similar to how I was with The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and to an extent, The Silmarillion (I could put that book down at any time near the beginning, but after the Noldor went back to Middle-earth, I really couldn't put it down). It's still a quasi-difficult read, as with most of Tolkien's stuff, where you'll read a line and then go back and re-read the paragraph, just to be sure you read it right or grasped the information.

It's turning out to be a wonderful book though and goes really in detail about Hurin and Turin, and since the latter is my favorite character out of his entire writings, well, it's a blast for me.

I'd definitely recommend it if you're into fantasy.