My father and I have for the second time finished In the Forests of Serre by Patricia A. McKillip

My father and I have for the second time finished In the Forests of Serre by Patricia A. McKillip.

In a forest filled with witches, ogres, trolls, hermits, talking animals, and the Firebird whose beauty and voice is the shape and sound of the heart of all who hear and behold it, a grieving prince coming home from war accidentally kills the white hen of Brume, the Mother of All Witches - and is cursed for it, just as his unwilling bride, a foreign Princess, comes with her wizard bodyguard. Thus begins a fairy tale of stolen hearts and faces, language and wizardry; a tale woven by the word-jeweler McKillip who with it proves that she ranks alongside J.K. Rowling and Diana Wynne Jones on the tier below Tolkien. A tale proving that the heart is the most important aspect of a person and that without its unwritten language singing within you, one is lost.

May you live happily ever after Prince Ronan of Serre & Princess Sidonie of Dacia, Wizards Unciel (hopefully now you can rest) and Gyre, scribe Euan Ash, and the rest. 

(And if you see a white hen and/or cottage made of bones, steer clear. Seriously.)

Quote of the month

"The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and storytellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland." - L.M. Montgomery

I just started Murtagh by Christopher Paolini, sequel of the The Inheritance Cycle

Kvetha Fricai!

I just started Murtagh by Christopher Paolini, the next and first true full book sequel to his The Inheritance Cycle.

Truly I cannot adequately express my excitement to finally, after long delay, begin this book as my love for The Inheritance Cycle is second to none save The Lord of the Rings itself, for Eragon was the first great Fantasy book I read on my own in the 6th grade (my father having read LOTR to me the year before)!

Ah, Alagaësia... land of the Dragon Riders and the Ancient Language. Both of which may be under very real threat. So, while Eragon rebuilds the Riders, tis up to Murtagh and Thorn to seek out a new evil. "Beware the deeps, and tread not where the ground grows black and brittle and the air smells of brimstone, for in those places evil lurk." So said Umaroth. So it is made plain that King Galbatorix was far from the only fell thing that needs felling. Now we have a witch woman and Dreamers. And the hope that Murtagh can reunite with some dear friends.

Sé onr sverdar sitja hvass.

UPDATED Private Message to my Former Students

Greetings my friends!

I have updated my private message to you in a fairly major way, so I suggest you read it.

As before I have written it on a separate page accessible via this link; it is password protected, and password is the answer to the Grandmaster Riddle – which I trust you all remember. The first letter is lowercase. If you write it in uppercase it will deny you access and tell you "the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist."

Best,

Ian E.S. Adler

 

The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien

For a long dead author, Tolkien certainly is publishing a good deal. Come mid-September of this year one will be able to buy The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien. Here is the Official Description from the publisher:

World first publication of the collected poems of J.R.R. Tolkien, spanning almost seven decades of the author’s life and presented in an elegant three-volume hardback boxed set.

J.R.R. Tolkien aspired to be a poet in the first instance, and poetry was part of his creative life no less than his prose, his languages, and his art. Although Tolkien’s readers are aware that he wrote poetry, if only from verses in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, its extent is not well known, and its qualities are underappreciated. Within his larger works of fiction, poems help to establish character and place as well as further the story; as individual works, they delight with words and rhyme. They express his love of nature and the seasons, of landscape and music, and of words. They convey his humour and his sense of wonder.

The earliest work in this collection, written for his beloved, is dated to 1910, when Tolkien was eighteen. More poems would follow during his years at Oxford, some of them very elaborate and eccentric. Those he composed during the First World War, in which he served in France, tend to be concerned not with trenches and battle, but with life, loss, faith, and friendship, his longing for England, and the wife he left behind. Beginning in 1914, elements of his legendarium, ‘The Silmarillion’, began to appear, and the ‘Matter of Middle-earth’ would inspire much of Tolkien’s verse for the rest of his life.

Within The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien almost 200 works are presented across three volumes, including more than 60 that have never before been seen. The poems are deftly woven together with commentary and notes by world-renowned Tolkien scholars Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond, placing them in the context of Tolkien’s life and literary accomplishments and creating a poetical biography that is a unique and revealing celebration of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Beyond that, one interesting fact is that since Christopher Tolkien has sadly passed to the Halls of Mandos obviously someone else had to put this together. Somebodies as a matter of fact, Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, Tolkien scholars both as well as wife and husband whom have worked on many Tolkien-related projects.