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Summary: Beautiful story! Beautiful characters!
Review: It takes me more than 2 months to finish this series (Hobbit & Lord of Rings trilogy) but I found the time spent is well worth it. No wonder people call this series the greatest fantasy work of last century. The amount of details is so amazingly much that it seems that the author actually were there with the fellowship of the rings. The intensity of the battle scene is so great. The plot is so sophisticated. The thing I love most about this series are those pure hearted and nobel people Tolkien created. We live in an imperfect world and thus purity and nobelty is some high quality people really yearn for but most would never get in their whole life. Thus, it is really refreshing to read about those people who are pure and nobel even in a time of darkness. Although there might be fear and sadness, there is no darkness in those people's heart (I am talking about Gandalf, Strider, and Galadriel if you can relate). I know it is fiction, but nontheless it is beautiful. Tolkien is a Christian and no doubt he poured his belief of the perfectness into those characters he created. Think about Gandalf, isn't he like a guardian angel?
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Summary: Awesome Books.
Review: Lord Of The Rings is an awesome trillogy (actually there are six books). The best, in my opinion, was the first book The Fellowship of The Ring. The Fellowship...was just a brilliant, exciting book. Tolkien just has a brilliant way of writing that glues you into every page. Every page in the first book was exciting. Tolkien mastered the English language in a way that few other people have. The Two Towers and Return of The King were also very good, but lacked the magic of the first. Tolkien made you feel for every character, even the bad characters like Gollum. You can also tell that he intricately planned every detail, sometimes making somethings to detailed, by the appendix my book provided, which could have been a book in itself. If you think this book is for geeks, trust me it is not! It is very interesting, funny, and exciting. Sometimes it did get boring, but because of Tolkiien's ingenious writing these books deserve 5 stars. I would definitely recommend these books, especially to compare it with the upcoming movies base upon them.
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Summary: Worth the time and money!
Review: I'm not done with the trilogy yet, but these books are the best fiction I've ever read. You won't be disappointed. I can't wait for the movie in December.
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Summary: Just another tolkien fan
Review: A great book, I read it many years ago and have begun re-reading it in anticipation of the movie soon to be released. I can hardly wait.
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Summary: The best book I ever read
Review: This is a great book called the Hobbit. I think it is the best because, it has almost everything a good book needs. It has a lot of action, excitement and some scary things. The best thing I liked about this book is the action some of it is scary but most of it is exciting because, there are fights between the hobbit and a guy from the nearby town. Some things that could of been better is the scariness and the action it wasn't that bad. This is a book for ages 10 - 14. That is my review about the Hobbit.
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Summary: I'm a believer
Review: This book is just fantastic, when I read it I actually almost began to believe in it. It's a world where you can dissappear in. It's just the best book I've ever read. You can feel the feelings of the characters,you can see what they see
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Summary: Enter Tolkien's Amazing Fantasy World!
Review: The Hobbit is a delightful fantasy novel written for children. Taken on its own, it is a wonderful, light-hearted adventure story about a hobbit going on a long journey with a company of dwarves to recover lost dwarvish treasure in a mountain now guarded by a dragon. Nothing too serious or important. Taken with The Lord of the Rings, a much more serious novel written with adults in mind as well, it functions as a necessary prologue to The Lord of the Rings by introducing us to some important events, characters and above all the Ring which will form the focus of the struggle between good and evil in that much longer novel. The Lord of the Rings is a literary epic and masterpiece which I deeply love. Indeed I must confess that at various points throughout and especially at the very end of The Lord of the Rings it has the power to move me to tears every time I reread it (which I've now done 4 times; for me that beats any other novel except Potok's The Chosen and The Promise but they're much shorter). Although the work never mentions God or Christ, is not about a world which exists and is not allegorical in any way (Tolkien himself strenuously maintained that), it is nevertheless a profoundly Christian novel. This is the case because of its high moral character shown in many ways and its true depiction of the pattern of the struggle between good and evil as this expresses itself in individuals and more widely in cities, nations and nature as well. Because of this, I find it is a truly wholesome experience to read it. In a very vivid way made possible only when writing about a fantasy world, Tolkien's book encourages one to fight sin and to delight in all things good, beautiful and worthy of praise because of the many concrete examples of this kind of activity in the novel. Though these considerations may be enough, the book is also very well-written in a simple though elegant (almost biblical) prose style. Tolkien is a master at describing journeys with incredible "accurate" detail in his geographical descriptions. He is also able to keep up the suspense over more than a 1000 pages, no mean feat. The incredible detail with which he describes his created world (with its imaginary beings, though there are also men like us) and the tremendous depth which he gives to the story by referring to a lot of history in passing makes one forget that it is fantasy. The wide scope of the story encompassing the involvement and the future of various nations and peoples and indeed of the survival of good itself on Middle-Earth makes The Lord of the Rings a true epic. To end with a simple remark: if you like action and adventure, you'll love this book. What I have written in the above two paragraphs is, needless to say, merely my own opinion, though a strong one. I say this especially with Tolkien since views on him are almost always very forceful. Either one loves his books or hates them. I have a few books with articles on Tolkien by literary critics. Some praise him to the skies and others find him to be rubbish. I truly cannot fathom how the later can be true. C.S. Lewis, a good friend and Oxford colleague of Tolkien, upon finishing The Lord of the Rings wrote Tolkien, "My dear Tollers, ... I have drained the rich cup and satisfied a long thirst. Once it really gets under weigh the steady upward slope of grandeur and terror (not unrelieved by green dells, without which it would indeed be intolerable) is almost unequalled in the whole range of narrative art known to me. In two virtues I think it excels: sheer sub-creation - Bombadil, Barrow Wights, Elves, Ents - as if from inexhaustible resources, and construction. Also in gravitas. No romance can repel the charge of `escapism' with such confidence. If it errs, it errs in precisely the opposite direction: all victories of hope deferred and the merciless piling up of odds against the heroes are near to being too painful. And the long coda after the eucatastrophe, whether you intended it or no, has the effect of reminding us that victory is as transitory as conflict, that (as Byron says) `there's no sterner moralist than pleasure', and so leaving a final impression of profound melancholy. ... I congratulate you. All the long years you have spent on it are justified." (From Humphrey Carpenter's J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography). The Lord of the Rings is set at the end of the Third Age of Middle-Earth. For tales about the First and Second Age (referred to in songs and poems in The Lord of the Rings), read The Silmarillion. These three books are Tolkien's best.
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Summary: The Master of Fantasy Lives On In His Epic Work!
Review: The trilogy, as it is known, is by far the most original and colorful fantasy tale of wonder and beauty of modern times.
The myriad of characters, some magical, some evil, some just ordinary folk, give Middle Earth enough diversity to intrigue any reader.
From the ancient race of the Kings of men comes Aragorn, cheif of the dunedan (men of the west), whose lineage is unbroken through the ages from Isuldur, the last king, who cut the ring from the dark lord's hand in ages past. For years uncounted his fathers handed down Elendil's sword that was broken, a mighty talisman and family heirloom; waiting for the day when Sauron (the dark lord) would rise up from the ashes to try once again to conquer the free races of middle earth; to forge it anew. Rangers they were called by the simple folk whom they secretly protected from dangers and evils unimaginable. "If simple folk remain free from care and fear, then simple they will be". The one ring is found by Bilbo Baggins and Sauron begins to rebuild his Dark Tower. Messengers from all races arive at the same time to Rivendell; Elrond Half Elven's House; just as the storm clouds of war are brewing. Among them are Gandalf the grey, wisest of wizards; Boromir, prince of the Men of Gondor; Gimli and Gloin, Dwarves of the Lonley Mountain; Legolas, WoodElf Prince; Aragorn; Elrond; and Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, Hobbits of the Shire. On the shoulders of these few lies the choice of the Fate of the Free Races of Middle Earth.
The story that unfolds on these pages touches the deepest recesses of human strength and fear. When Gandalf reprimands Frodo's statement that Gollum deserves death with these words, the truth and beauty of Tolkiens gift shines through crystal clear;" Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be so eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."
So many authors have been moved by Tolkien's story of how the weak race of Hobbits rise up to aid the powerful, in the desperate struggle against evil, that many have written sad copies that only too often come close to plagiarism.
The style and descriptive writing techniques make the characters seem more like friends than fantasy and often bring a reader to fear for their safety as for a loved one.
The way in which Tolkien weaves the adventures of the particular members of the story keeps readers glued to the pages.
J.R.R. Tolkien is definately the King of Fantasy and his many devoted fans are a testament to the power of his literary brilliance and the poignancy of this struggle between good and evil is relevant in any era and will undoubtedly stand the test of time.
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Summary: The basis by which all fantasy novels should be judged
Review: When an individual first reads The Hobbitt and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy they are often drawn in and become immediate fans of the novels. In these novels we see the classics of our time. Much like the great mythological stories of Homer and his compatriots of the day, these stories take our imagination and mesh it so well with actual human life that we do not question teh written words. The suspension of reality is so strong that the creatures used by Tolkien are reused through out the fantasy worlds of many authors. One must look as far as Dungeons and Dragons and they will find similiar creatures, races and their descriptions. This is a true testament to the amazing works Tolkien generated and how they will stand the test of time and may become the Illiad and the Odessey of future generations.
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Summary: In The Beginning
Review: It is amazing, reading these books, tosee how many modern fantasy authorshave been influenced by Tolkien's work.It ought to be required reading foranyone just starting to get into fantasy! You can see parallels toRobert Jordan's "Wheel of Time", toDavid Eddings' Belgariad series, andseveral others. I read "Lord of theRings" in high school (a long timeago!) and with the movie coming outsoon wanted to go back and refresh mymemory of it. I'm glad I did----don'tbe intimidated by the size of it; onceyou get into it you don't want to leave it! Really anxious to see how all these wonderful characters translateto the big screen now.
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