Oh, if only The Silmarillion was this good! Well, let me clarify. The “best” of what Tolkien left unpublished upon his death was cobbled together into the book known as The Silmarillion. That would be the stories about the making, marring and bending of the world and the epic of the elves’ war against the first dark lord. Unfinished Tales contains the second tier of that unpublished oeuvre. This book is full of the unknown adventures of the also-rans, alternate versions of cannon events and author Tolkien’s after-the-fact musings about how exactly his story world was put together. It’s all good stuff, but with the exception of the first piece (a detailed account of Tuor’s journey to Gondolin), it’s not great stuff. That being said, what makes it a better book for me is that editor Tolkien as left well enough alone. Admitting from the title page on that everything is “unfinished” frees him to keep his editorial presence to a minimum and present each piece essentially as he found it in his father’s papers. There is no need to jury-rig it all into a “readable” whole; it’s just a collection of unfinished tales. I appreciate that raw, clipped and cut-short feeling. It fits perfectly with the “this is a collection of documents I found” writing style that author Tolkien used in his published works. You can leave The Silmarillion for later. When you finish The Lord of the Rings and wonder, “What’s next?,” this book is the answer.
16 July 2010
A Review: Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth – J.R.R. Tolkien
4.5 / 5 Stars
Oh, if only The Silmarillion was this good! Well, let me clarify. The “best” of what Tolkien left unpublished upon his death was cobbled together into the book known as The Silmarillion. That would be the stories about the making, marring and bending of the world and the epic of the elves’ war against the first dark lord. Unfinished Tales contains the second tier of that unpublished oeuvre. This book is full of the unknown adventures of the also-rans, alternate versions of cannon events and author Tolkien’s after-the-fact musings about how exactly his story world was put together. It’s all good stuff, but with the exception of the first piece (a detailed account of Tuor’s journey to Gondolin), it’s not great stuff. That being said, what makes it a better book for me is that editor Tolkien as left well enough alone. Admitting from the title page on that everything is “unfinished” frees him to keep his editorial presence to a minimum and present each piece essentially as he found it in his father’s papers. There is no need to jury-rig it all into a “readable” whole; it’s just a collection of unfinished tales. I appreciate that raw, clipped and cut-short feeling. It fits perfectly with the “this is a collection of documents I found” writing style that author Tolkien used in his published works. You can leave The Silmarillion for later. When you finish The Lord of the Rings and wonder, “What’s next?,” this book is the answer.
Oh, if only The Silmarillion was this good! Well, let me clarify. The “best” of what Tolkien left unpublished upon his death was cobbled together into the book known as The Silmarillion. That would be the stories about the making, marring and bending of the world and the epic of the elves’ war against the first dark lord. Unfinished Tales contains the second tier of that unpublished oeuvre. This book is full of the unknown adventures of the also-rans, alternate versions of cannon events and author Tolkien’s after-the-fact musings about how exactly his story world was put together. It’s all good stuff, but with the exception of the first piece (a detailed account of Tuor’s journey to Gondolin), it’s not great stuff. That being said, what makes it a better book for me is that editor Tolkien as left well enough alone. Admitting from the title page on that everything is “unfinished” frees him to keep his editorial presence to a minimum and present each piece essentially as he found it in his father’s papers. There is no need to jury-rig it all into a “readable” whole; it’s just a collection of unfinished tales. I appreciate that raw, clipped and cut-short feeling. It fits perfectly with the “this is a collection of documents I found” writing style that author Tolkien used in his published works. You can leave The Silmarillion for later. When you finish The Lord of the Rings and wonder, “What’s next?,” this book is the answer.
14 July 2010
A Review: Eyes of the Calculor - Sean McMullen
4 / 5 Stars
A pleasant coda to the trilogy. This is in some ways the most successful book of the series. The scene switches back to Australica but picks up chronologically right where The Miocene Arrow left off. The novel is smaller in terms of the main events. There are no wars and there is only a drop of the humanity-is-doomed feeling. This smaller stage allows McMullen to focus on what is probably his best exploration of characters yet. A densely tangled web of new characters and new machinations is the focus but there are a few significant appearances by people you’ll remember from the pervious books (and one very surprising re-appearance). The story of the intertwined lives of Martyne, Velesti and Samondel is the most realistic yet of McMullen’s efforts. It is a very satisfying story of people interacting. There are a few points where I question his use of characters form the previous volume. McMullen is a literary nihilist. That is to say nothing from the previous novels is sacred. He throws previous characterizations of central characters out the window. Whether this is simply for the sake of convenience or is an effort to present the same people from another point of view is unclear. Mostly those few characters that receive this kind treatment read as different characters with the same names. I can accept all these changes though, because the progress of the central story is so well crafted. If you loved the heroes of Mounthaven more than cake, you might want to leave it at a duology, but if you are ready for more Libris and more Avids this book is pretty much a must. You can read set of very thorough reviews of the Greatwinter Trilogy (with a slightly different opinion) here.
A pleasant coda to the trilogy. This is in some ways the most successful book of the series. The scene switches back to Australica but picks up chronologically right where The Miocene Arrow left off. The novel is smaller in terms of the main events. There are no wars and there is only a drop of the humanity-is-doomed feeling. This smaller stage allows McMullen to focus on what is probably his best exploration of characters yet. A densely tangled web of new characters and new machinations is the focus but there are a few significant appearances by people you’ll remember from the pervious books (and one very surprising re-appearance). The story of the intertwined lives of Martyne, Velesti and Samondel is the most realistic yet of McMullen’s efforts. It is a very satisfying story of people interacting. There are a few points where I question his use of characters form the previous volume. McMullen is a literary nihilist. That is to say nothing from the previous novels is sacred. He throws previous characterizations of central characters out the window. Whether this is simply for the sake of convenience or is an effort to present the same people from another point of view is unclear. Mostly those few characters that receive this kind treatment read as different characters with the same names. I can accept all these changes though, because the progress of the central story is so well crafted. If you loved the heroes of Mounthaven more than cake, you might want to leave it at a duology, but if you are ready for more Libris and more Avids this book is pretty much a must. You can read set of very thorough reviews of the Greatwinter Trilogy (with a slightly different opinion) here.
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