The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Book 1)

Rating:
Summary: The journey begins
Review: This is the first book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien takes the world of Middle Earth that he developed and continues the tale of the ring. The ring first appears to us in 'The Hobbit'. The hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, keeps this special ring he found on his journey to help the dwarves. This book picks up the story decades after 'The Hobbit'.

Bilbo has aged and in the course of celebrating his birthday leaves the Shire. To everyone's surprise Bilbo gives everything to his nephew Frodo, including the ring. Many years go by, and the wizard returns with a warning to take the ring and leave.

Frodo and three friends begin the trip. Along the way the meet the Ranger who helps them get to Rivendell, home of the elves. At Rivendell the true identity of the ring is revealed and a course of action is decided upon. The ring must be destroyed.

A band of nine people (men, elf, dwarf, wizard, and hobbits) form the Fellowship and begin the journey. This book sets the stage for the coming War of the Ring. We are introduced the members of the fellowship, gives us some background on Sauron, and the rings of power. We get a sense for the evil that the group is up against and the obstacles in their way. And soon realize that this journey is near impossible and may just be delaying the rise of Sauron.

At times this book is hard to read. Tolkien goes into great detail regarding the history of Middle Earth and the characters involved in the story. This may hard for some readers to get through or keep track of. I, on the other hand, think these details add to the richness of the story. The story is wonderful and has much more detail than the recent movies. If you enjoyed 'The Hobbit' and/or the films, I would recommend reading the books to get the full story of the ring.

Rating:
Summary: At least I tried to like it...
Review: To me this book is like modern art. Many think it's an amazing piece of work, it is very different from everything else, and I don't like it at all.

Why I didn't like this book is after the beginning it gets extremely boring. The detail is overwhelming. The language is exausting. I'm constantly asking my self 'erm... why is Whatshisname, son of Whatshisnamewithslightchange harkithing to thy for someith reasonith'? It just seems to prattle on and on about one thing over and over again. Have you ever read a book and just became so bored with it you kept on reading but weren't paying attention to what you were reading? I had to keep going back to read over pages that I had just read over (and no I don't have ADD or ADHD).

And why I gave it 2 stars and not 1 is because, HOLY CRAP, this is the most detailed book I have ever read, seen, or heard of. Just the fact that anyone could come up with this highly detailed (boring, repetitive, confusing) story is something that deserves 2 stars.

I know I'm going to get a whole bunch of angry LotR fans ambush me with a bombardment of 'not helpful' votes, but oh well...

Recomended books:
Harry Potter series
Da Vinci Code
Angels and Demons
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Rating:
Summary: LOTR goodness
Review: This book starts off with a birthday party at hobbit named Bilbo's house,Gandalf the grey has come with his fireworks and Frodo another hobbit is excited. Everyone loves Gandalf's fireworks in the shire. Frodo is recieving Bilbo's house because he is leaving, he is going through his stuff when he comes across a gold ring. Gandalf does comes in and is afraid to touch or even come near the ring, he senses evil and tells frodo with his friend Sam to get the ring out of the shire. On their way out of the shire they find Merry and Pippin stealing vegetables from a garden. They get to the town of bree and they meet an ranger fron the north known as Aragorn. Meanwhile Gandalf the grey rode to the White city of Minas Tirith to study the history of this ring. He finds its dark past and goes to the tower of orthanc for counsel from Saruman the white, he finds that he is corrupt by the power of sauron's control. Meanwhile the nine nazgul are after the group and frodo gets stabbed by one of their poisonous morgul blades. A elven wizard rode Frodo to the elven city of grey havens, in order to find to heal him. At the city Gandalf tells the counsel of the ring and decides to start the fellowship of the ring. The get into a fuss about who should take it to mount doom, when frodo decides he will take it, just then Aragorn decides he will go. Followed by Legolad and Gimli the dwarf, and Merry, Sam and Pippin will go too. Thus starts the fellowship if the ring, they start off good until they get into the mines of moria. There Gandalf fights the mighty balrog and get thrown over the bridge into the firey abyss. This was a big blow to the fellowship, but after that they get canoes and head down the river. They get to this part on the river where Merry and Pippin get captured by orcs and are going to be taken to an orc eencampment. Boromir gets shot by an orc named Ugluk and dies, Aragorn avenges his death and kills ugluk. Frodo and Sam starts off on the other side of the river to get the ring to mount doom themsleves.

Rating:
Summary: good v.s bad
Review: I loved these books from the moment I read them because I believe that they are great fantasy books. I understand that the characters don't have flaws and you can't relate to them, but I think these books are still wonderful. Every fantasy book that I have ever read, which is a lot, I haven't ever really been able to relate to. That is what a fantasy book is about, it's not about emotions most of the time. I agree also that it gets boring at times, but I think most books do that. I found it so amazing that Tolkien had made up his own laguages and put so much effort into this outstanding world of fantasy. I have never read another fantasy book where you can tell how much effort has gone into it. I would not recommend seeing the movies first because you get so much more out of the books than you do the movies. If you see the movie first then you will not understand the books as much.

Rating:
Summary: Best of the Three
Review: I first read this book when I was 13 and fell in love with story. I must admit that Tolkien's writing style is bit hard to read at first but once you get into the story, it's hard to put down. Don't expect the book to be exactly like the movie. There are a lot more things in the book that were left out of the movie for time reasons. Tolkien's characters are wonderfully written and the detail of the scenery is spectacular. I would have done with out the songs but they do fit in the story nicely. If you liked the movies then I recommend getting the "whole" story by reading the books. I mainly liked this book the best because I liked the story of Frodo and he was in the entire book, but not in all of the Two Towers and Return of the King.