Amazon.com: A Christian can almost be forgiven for not reading the Bible, but there's no salvation for a fantasy fan who hasn't read the gospel of the genre, J.R.R. Tolkien's definitive three-book epic, the Lord of the Rings (encompassing The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King), and its charming precursor, The Hobbit. That many (if not most) fantasy works are in some way derivative of Tolkien is understood, but the influence of the Lord of the Rings is so universal that everybody from George Lucas to Led Zeppelin has appropriated it for one purpose or another.
Not just revolutionary because it was groundbreaking, the Lord of the Rings is timeless because it's the product of a truly top-shelf mind. Tolkien was a distinguished linguist and Oxford scholar of dead languages, with strong ideas about the importance of myth and story and a deep appreciation of nature. His epic, 10 years in the making, recounts the Great War of the Ring and the closing of Middle-Earth's Third Age, a time when magic begins to fade from the world and men rise to dominance. Tolkien carefully details this transition with tremendous skill and love, creating in the Lord of the Rings a universal and all-embracing tale, a justly celebrated classic. --Paul Hughes
Product Description: Three-volume paperback edition featuring cover art from the film.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, The Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth still it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell, by chance, into the hands of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins.
From his fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, Sauron's power spread far and wide. He gathered all the Great Rings to him, but ever he searched far and wide for the One Ring that would complete his dominion.
On his eleventy-first birthday, Bilbo dissapeared bequeathing to his young cousin, Frodo, the Ruling Ring, and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom.
The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the wizard, the hobbits Merry, Pippin and Sam, Gimli the Dwarf, Legolas the Elf, Boromir of Gondor, and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.
Great book, great illustrations, great buy! This is a great book for any fan of Lord of the Rings. It has wonderful illustrations, maps, and easy to read pages. The only problem is that it is a bit heavy, otherwise everything is fabulous!
Mixed up order The three volume set shipped included two copies of "The Two Towers" and no copt of "The Fellowship of the Ring". Having dealt with amazon customer support before it was easier just to have their mother buy the absent copy at Wal-mart.
What took me so long? This is a masterpiece of storytelling I first received *The Lord of the Rings* as part of a boxed set, complete with *The Hobbit,* for Christmas in 1985. I also received a boxed set of the first four *Dune* books. I was 13 and in 8th grade.
Like many 13-year olds, I loved *The Hobbit* but I thought *The Lord of the Rings* was simply awful. For one thing, the plot was not immediately obvious to me. (Keep in mind that at the time my enjoyment reading primarily comprised Doctor Who novelizations and Choose Your Own Adventure books.) Instead of the short chapters of plot and dialogue to which I was accustomed, Tolkien provided page after page of exposition, describing the local color and history with any "action" provided almost as an afterthought. And then there is what may have been the biggest problem of all with *The Lord of the Rings,* the scores of strangely named characters and places, some of whom are central to the story and others of whom are purely peripheral and which is which is unclear. I mean, sheesh, who names their two main villains Sauron and Saruman, names that differ by only one syllable?
It should be here noted that while I loved reading at age 13, I was also not the best reader. Memories of reading what I managed to of the trilogy consist mainly of reading a single page over and over and over again just to follow the main thread of the story. Somehow I managed to finish *The Fellowship of the Ring* and made it a few dozen pages into *The Two Towers* before I threw up my hands and abandoned Tolkien to the realm of "authors I think are overrated." I still have a vague recollection of giving a a pretty worthless presentation on the first book in front of Mrs. Fox's English class, the same class I was in when the Challenger exploded. (I also have an even vaguer memory of reviewing some disposable piece of genre SF called Dushau (Dushau Trilogy, No 1), but that's another story.) In short, I never thought I would ever read this book again, and considered all those folks who worshiped Tolkien to be little short of fools.
Fast-forward sixteen years. It's Christmas time in Champaign, and I'm attending *The Two Towers* with my coworkers, mainly because the bosses gave us cinema tickets for the holidays. As the movie begins to unfold, I remember those few dozen pages that I read at 13, and I slowly begin the journey of reappraising Tolkien. While I agree with those who urge reading the book as well as simply seeing the movie, I think that in this case I could not have done the former if I had not done the latter. Peter Jackson's trilogy allowed me to familiarize myself with the overall story arch (something that was hard for me to do from within the perspective of the novel, at least at first) and also helped me to handle the enormous cast of strangely named characters. (Finally Saruman and Sauron were decidedly distinct characters in my mind's eye, and the logic behind their naming, based as it is on Tolkien's invented languages, became more apparent.) So in fall of 2007 I finally decided to give the damned book another chance, mooched the one-volume "trilogy" (apparently Tolkien always considered it one big novel) through BookMooch, chose it over the New Testament for 2008's "big book" (sorry Mom), and devoured it in January, 2008.
In short, I loved it, particularly the exposition and the bizarre names for characters and places. Strange, huh, how the passage of time will do that to one's sensibilities? The very features of the novel that I found off-putting in 1985, I found absolutely ingenious in 2008. The names and locations in *The Lord of the Rings* all figure into a much-vaster cosmology and narrative history, and this becomes more apparent when the reader peruses the voluminous appendices. All the details that seemed arbitrary and distracting from "the action" were in fact anything but arbitrary, deriving as they did from a comprehensive mythology (of a world that did not exist until Tolkien wrote it into existence!). Take for example the appendix on the "translation" of the text explaining why Tolkien chose English words like "elf" and "dwarf" and "halfling" to "translate" the "original" Elvish words. Apart from the implication that there is really an original manuscript written in Elvish, this appendix also implies that the "elves" in this story aren't really elves, the "dwarves" aren't really dwarves, etc., but that these are the closest analogs that the translator could find in fantastic literature.
That these 1,000+ pages, with all their hyper-detailed exposition, are merely the tip of the iceberg of Tolkien's invented world, makes the novel all the more amazing. This really is a masterpiece of storytelling and myth-making. I can understand now why so many people love this book. I think I'm now one of them.
Top Shelf Tolkien I recently purchased the single volume illustrated version of the Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Illustrated Edition). This is probably only for the (at least) semi-fanatical Tolkien fan.
I had owned a set of soft cover individual books (all four: Hobbit, Fellowship, Two Towers, Return) that were published in 1964 (before I was born), and they had, unfortunately, deteriorated, both from age and rough use (read in the bathtub, at the park just before a rain shower, jammed in a briefcase to be read at lunch, etc.) I thought about simply buying the new individual paperbacks, but researched and found this illustrated version, published in 1991, on the 100th anniversary of Tolkien's birth.
The bad news: this thing is massive! Holding one giant volume and actually reading it presents some problems.
That being said, this is THE version of the story, presented as Tolkien intended it: "One book to rule them all" to paraphrase the master. The size of the book emphasizes that this is the definitive work of twentieth-century fantasy. The red sash bookmark is classy. The illustrations are nice, and add an excellent counter-point to the words. To again paraphrase Tolkien's critique of his own work, "I only wish there were more [illustrations]." (Of course, there are plenty of books out there with a great deal of artwork, enough to satisfy just about everyone.)
In the end, this is like buying your mixed drinks in a bar, and insisting on top shelf alcohol. A real devotee can appreciate the difference, but to the average person is it really worth the extra money? As a bit of a Tolkien fanatic (I have read the story about fifteen times in the last thirty years), the $40+ bucks was worth it, even though I could have purchased a whole new set of the four in paperback for at least $10 less.
For each potential buyer, take the advice of Galadriel and look inside yourself. If you don't get that reference, this is probably not for you. If you do, and are nodding your head as you read this, call now and have your credit card ready!
Chuck Hinton
LOTR What can I say other than it is an awesome book, I could not put it down
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