Longtime visitors will note that I do post about Tolkien from time to time, even if I’m not the prime Tolkien fanatic in the family. I couldn’t even tell you who the first lord of Dol Amroth was, which I’m pretty sure is the level of detail one needs to be a Colbert-level Tokien fanatic. If I were, I would surely know the specific countries and landmarks Tolkien thought of in our world which he…
In trying to figure out what all those rings of power in Middle Earth actually do, I came across some videos by the self-described “Tolkien Professor,” Corey Olsen, where he fields a number of questions. This was evidently well received enough that they did another one, which I kinda like more: There’s also an explanation about all the different peoples and creatures of Middle Earth. So there you have it. A lot more Tolkien information…
Many of you already knew this and (spoiler alert), there’s good reasons why he abandoned the ideas as the video goes into, but I was not aware — and it does touch on some of his writing process and his motivation to write in any case.
I mean, a lot. I mean, when you consider that the man was a philologist, that’s already a specialty type of academic nerdery. Now, this may not be surprising to avowed Tolkien fans, but for the rest of us who did not sail through The Silmarillion without failing asleep, this is the video for you! If, for no other reason, you’re a casual reader who never could get what the deal was with Tom Bombadil,…
This past week at work, talk drifted to Tolkien and constructed languages, or conlangs, because that’s how we roll. Now, I’m not about to present any paper to the Language Creation Society. It takes a lot of time to create a full, working language. For Rogue Tyger, I have actual world languages stand in for the various human and alien languages, otherwise I’d be up to half a dozen conlangs by now. Nevertheless, I find…
So much of writing can roll up into “having something to say,” so I found Alan Jacobs’ piece in The Atlantic on Tolkien and Technology interesting. Tolkien casts such a long shadow across the world of fantasy, that it’s interesting to consider how much his views on technology color other works in fantasy.
Part of a month-long series of inspirational or informational posts during NaNoWriMo. Okay, I did sci-fi last week, so this week, why not 10 tips from one of the world’s most well-known fantasy authors?