I just finished reading the Silmarillion, which is basically J.R.R. Tolkien’s history of Middle Earth. It’s harder to read than the Lord of the Rings. In fact, it reads a lot like a textbook. But now that I finished it, I know so much more about the background of the story. Basically, the quest of the ring is a tiny little footnote that Tolkien decided to expand upon from an epic history he had conceived. It’s very impressive.
The reason I mention this, though, is that afterwards, I was looking up Lord of the Rings stuff online, and I stumbled across The Encyclopedia of Arda, a fantastic cross-referenced encyclopedia of information about Lord of the Rings. While you’re there, make sure you check out the debate on whether or not Balrogs have wings and who Tom Bombadil is.
Especially fun to read are their notes for people who saw the movie, which point out differences between the film and the books, and little details in the movie that you may not have notices.
Cool!http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm?http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/r/redbook.htmlThis is a link to the Red Book of Westmarch, which is Bilbo’s journal, referred to in the Trilogy a handful of times. The copy of LOTR I have is modeled after this book, with red leather binding, and inset foil taking the place of the jems and gold inlay of the “original”.You can check it out here:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0395193958/qid=1014787657/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-2316877-2537544Just a geeky note for fellow geeks.
Hey cool! Just so you know, the site will automatically make a link out of a URL if you wrap it in brackets, like so:[
I hadn’t realized you’d enabled that on Rusted . . . Maybe if I’d read the “useful posting information” at the bottom . . .