To Begin

"I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighbourhood. But the world that contained even the imagination of Fafnir was richer and beautiful at whatever cost of peril."

Although, it may at first look like it, it is not my intention that this be a LOTRO blog, rather it's going to be a blog on my reactions to and interactions with the world created by Tolkien in all of its manifestations, including movies, books, art, and games, and also with wider realms of speculative and fantasy literature, films and art.

That said, I've been spending a huge amount of time recently playing Lord of the Rings Online, and have been thinking a fair bit how it fits into the Middle-Earth, as created by Tolkien, so I will be sharing my adventures in LOTRO and thoughts on the game quite a bit.

I first read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings in early Junior High. I've since read the Hobbit a half dozen times or more, and the Lord of the Rings at least once a year (call it somewhere between 30-40 times). I've made it through the Silmarillion 4 or 5 times and read much of the published Tolkien's shorter works. (I think that Mr. Bliss and Roverandom are the only things I've missed.) I've read, at least once, all of Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle Earth and Unfinished Tales, and the The History of the Hobbit. I feel like I have a decent grasp on Middle Earth.

At the same time I read a lot other fantasy, Narnia, Earthsea, Conan, Elric, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and others. As time went on, though I read less and less fantasy. Eventually I was down to my occasional reading of Tolkien. Having kids started to turn it around for me. Reading the Hobbit and LotR to my daughters led to readings of Harry Potter and Narnia and Lloyd Alexander and rekindled my enthusiasm for the genre.


Chancing upon the Tolkien Professor was another big step, his podcast opened up Tolkien to me in a way that my many readings had not, helping to me to understand the deeper literary implications of the work. This is turn has helped me look upon other works with a new understanding.  Dr. Olsen's sporadic posting of episodes forced to me look for other podcasts which I found Father Roderick's "Secrets of Middle Earth" and eventually Merric and Goldenstar's "Casual Stroll to Mordor". These LOTRO-centric podcasts made me curious about the game and upon finding that LOTRO was free to play, I decided to give it a try, and became hooked.


So here I am. I'm beginning to re-explore fantasy literature while looking at it from a more scholarly perspective and playing lots of video games.