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Summary: Unparalleled imagination...
Review: At the core of The Silmarillion, as well as LOTR is a very simple plot, but the characters, environment, and drama Tolkien weaves is truly mind boggling. Tolkien considered The Silmarillion his finest achievement, and I can't agree more. The Silmarillion was released posthumously by his son, Christopher Tolkien. The scope and grandeur of the story behind The Silmarillion is hard to describe. If you're familiar with LOTR, let's just say that the Sauron is a mere sidekick of the big bad guy in The Silmarillion. In fact, Sauron gets his butt kicked big time by a human King, who unfortunately gets brainwashed by him later and invokes the wrath of god-like beings called the Valar. You learn how Sauron was able to escape with his deceits, to come back to Middle Earth. With this book, you come to learn the background on Elves, Dwarves, and Humans. You'll learn about the Undying Lands in the west where the Elves sail to. You will learn Gandalf's past, Sauron's past, how Orcs were once Elves. The tragedy of the love between Beren and Luthien is enough to make a grown man cry. The Silmarillion is biblical and mythical in breadth and really takes your breath away. It can therefore be intimidating to a casual LOTR reader. What I can say is that if you really, really loved LOTR, you will absolutely love The Silmarillion. The Silmarillion can be hard to follow because there are so many different characters with unusual, hard-to-pronounce names. But if you can get over this "difficulty", the reward is great. It truly is one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read in my life. As an aid to reading this book, I used "The Complete Guide to Middle Earth" by Robert Foster and also read along with an unabridged reading on CD by Martin Shaw (Bantam Double Day). Martin Shaw has a great voice reading along with him was extremely helpful. The CD helped me get past the difficult names of the characters and places, and the Guide was a fantastic reference book. The Silmarillion is by no means casual reading for most people, but if you don't mind putting a little mental effort with remembering names, you will find it extremely enjoyable and rewarding. Recommended to "hard-core" LOTR fans.
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Summary: One of the 10 best books of the 20th century
Review: This book is for people who crave knowledge about the origins of the history alluded to in LOTR. It is presented in the form of a chronicle, without any charming furry-footed creatures to personalize the story; those looking for another 'The Hobbit' will likely be disappointed. 'The Silmarillion' combines the epic quality of The Iliad, the Old Testament, and the Icelandic sagas of the 12th and 13th centuries in compositional style with a feeling of remoteness in time and space, which lends it an unparalleled authenticity . Additionally, you will never find a better example of the expressive beauty of the English language, and the continuity displayed in the fictional personal and place names reflects the author's philological background. Christopher Tolkien did an admirable job of ensuring that the legends and languages were consistent with those already published in LOTR(i.e. Noldor, rather than Noldoli). While purists may prefer to sift through the original unfinished and often contradictory accounts found in the 'Book of Lost Tales'(2 vols.), 'The Lays of Beleriand', and 'The Shaping of the World', those looking for a challenging read that satisfies the reader's desire for detail and taste for fairy tales told in "the old grand style" will find 'The Silmarillion' well worth the read.
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Summary: The Silmarillion
Review: Excellent! The writings of Tolkien are the most imaginative and mentally stimulating books I have ever read.
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Summary: Everything you ever could have wanted to know about LOTR
Review: This is a book to drown yourself in. It IS heavy reading, but well-worth delving into, even if only in small doses at a time. It is actually more like a whole library on the subject of middle earth and gives readers alot of insight into how Tolkien worked out "the Hobbit" and "the "Lord of the Rings" Trilogy later in his writing life.
If you have a wanna-be writer in your life who has been inspired by "Fellowship of the Ring", etc. Give them this book. They will go crazy first reading it, and thank you later.
Take it from one writer who did.
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Summary: Great book for Tolkien adicts only
Review: Only read this if you love Tolkien and want to fully understand the history of Middle Earth. I only really began to understand and enjoy this on my third reading (the first was 15 years before the second however). This book is a great and rich history of Middle Earth that starts from the beginning of time up until the end of the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien basically worked on this from his time in the trenches during the Battle of the Somme until his death and changed it a lot over time. What you will read is the edited version by his son that uses a lot of unfinished notes, I don't think this distracts from the overall product.
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Summary: Outstanding, The Real Backbone Behind LOTR
Review: Honestly I first became aware of LoTR after my friend drug me to the theatrical release, but the next day I went to Waldenbooks and picked up the Red Book. Immediately after I wanted to know ALL the backround and I ordered this book along with re-reading the Hobbit (as virtually everybody reads it in elementary school), and acquiring some of the other pieces of Tolkien's work such as Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-earth and Tales From the Perilous Realm. Above all these, if you're interested in understanding a little more about Middle-earth and its inhabitants, The Silmarillion is definently the place to start. Beginning with its own creation myth taken from several cultures, The Silmarillion describes for the LOTR fan the exact lineage of Aragorn, the mysterious appearance of Stoors (Gollum) and Hobbits, the war and strife of Gondor's past, and the terrific stories of ancient Beleriand; the land to the west of Middle-earth destroyed in an enormous clash of titans. If you're looking for myriad stories of heroes and legends, or simply backround information on how Middle-earth came to be, The Silmarillion is a fantastic read that'll do the job.
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Summary: Touch And Go!
Review: This book is a prequel to The Lord of The Rings. It starts with the creation of Middle Earth and how it came about. It talks about the fall of one of The Valor and the first wars. This book is a must read for any Lord of The Rings fan, it gives you the history and fills in some of the gaps the Lord of The Rings leaves for us. However, as I say in my title the book is touch and go. The book is well developed in some areas and in others you can notice the lack of development. I will not lie this book is poorly written, but this can be attributed to the death of Tolkien before it's completion. I found the book at times hard to follow and it was often slow reading. The ease of reading the Lord of The Rings is not present in this book. The jumps in time or place are often abrupt and jagged, almost irritating. If you are not a patient reader, I would not recommend this book.
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Summary: it would've been better fully writen by tolkien
Review: as it says at the top, christopher tolkien compiled the book through his fathers notes, and i loved the plot and ideas... but i found it read to muc like a text book and seemed to drone on through ages without dialog or anything...
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Summary: Not Easy Reading
Review: The Tolkien Trilogy is composed of the following: The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings. (The three parts of the LoTR are not a trilogy, as Tolkien himself insisted.) The Hobbit may be taken as the first chapter of the LoTR - a complete story in itself, related to what follows, and chronologically close to what happens in the big book. The Silmarillion is not at all close chronologically to the other two stories - the story takes place much earlier. It may be considered a sort of prequel. But there are many different stories in this book - a string of related stories, rather than one whole story. It's full of proper names, especially personal names, only some of them recurring in LoTR, or even within The Silmarillion itself. Tolkien intended this to be a sort of "record" of events, names, and places, as though they really existed. He was trying to create a mythology for England, and thus the chaotic if creative explosion of names. You can't make a mythology realistic without them. This book may be used as a sort of guide to the other two parts of the trilogy. Some of the names recur in the later saga and reading this book, or rather referring to it, helps shed light on these. You can read about Sauron's origins here, for example, who after all is THE eponymous Lord of the Rings himself. This book is really a co-production of Tolkien and his son Christopher. What happened was that Tolkien left behind numerous drafts and revisions of the book, made over half a century, most of them preceding the other two books. The trouble is that these drafts and revisions are self-inconsistent. Tolkien could not make up his mind, and kept making changes. I have the feeling that if he had lived another hundred years he would still not have been able to finalize the book. So, after his death, his son Christopher took what he fancied from the pile of rubble and built a tower out of it, throwing the rest away. It's difficult to know if Tolkien himself would have approved. He kept changing his own mind anyway. After the LoTR, he found many faults with The Hobbit itself, and could have re-written the whole thing! Tolkien may or may not have liked the tower his son built, but he would have recognized the bricks. With the confusing barrage of names, the internal incosistency, the lack of imprimatur from the master, this book is not easy to read except by die-hard Tolkien fanatics. It's still useful as reference tool, for reasons I just mentioned. The last chapter, describing the Rings of Power, is particularly relevant to the other parts of the Trilogy.
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Summary: Exciting, Beautiful History of Middle Earth
Review: I've been reading this tome aloud to my wife, and I'm surprised I love it so much. Having enjoyed The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit since I was a boy, I thought the history of the Silmarils, which is the meaning of the word Silmarillion, would be interesting, if not overly tedious. I confess after the first four chapters, the text bogs down; I skipped ch. 14 all together. But the stories I now understand, the history of certain characters, the doom of the elves, and the full tale of their songs, I wouldn't want to have missed. I love the Ainulindale, the story of creation, where Eru, whom the elves call Iluvatar, sings through the voices of angelic beings to create the world and foretell its history. It's a beautiful spin on the Genesis story. Once the official history of the Simarils begins, the details begin to pile up; but worthy is the reader who perseveres for the tales that follow build in excitement. For Lord of the Rings fans, are you curious about the doom that plagues Elrond and his family? Did you know that Galadriel was hundreds of years older than Elrond and was born in Valinor, the western haven to which the elves go in their white ships? Do you want to know how Sauron become the Dark Lord, and what Gandalf meant by covering the land in a _second_ darkness? All of those answers are in this book. Tolkien gives us a powerfully beautiful world in Middle Earth, and this book magnifies the wonder seen in the Lord of the Rings. Why do Dwarves and Elves distrust each other? It stems from the bloodshed over the Silmarils, jewels crafted by Feanor, the most gifted and most headstrong of any elf who made by God. The jewels captured and radiated the light of the two trees Yavanna planted to give light to the world. They captivated the heart of anyone who saw them, and when one of them was set amid the Dwarf-cut gems of a spectacular necklace and worn by Luthien, the most beautiful elf to ever live, the light of heaven shone radiantly on earth for a short while. That and many more stories await you in this exciting history of elves and men in Middle Earth.
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