The Lord of The Rings

A Christian can be forgiven for not reading the Bible--heck, it's a pretty big book after all. But there's no salvation for a fantasy fan who hasn't read the gospel of the genre, J.R.R. Tolkien's definitive three-book epic, The Lord of the Rings (encompassing The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King), and its charming precursor, The Hobbit. That many (if not most) fantasy works are in some way derivative of Tolkien is understood, but the influence of The Lord of the Rings is so universal that everybody from George Lucas to Led Zeppelin has appropriated it for one purpose or another.

Not just revolutionary because it was groundbreaking, The Lord of the Rings is timeless because it's the product of a truly top-shelf mind. Tolkien was a distinguished linguist and Oxford scholar of dead languages, with strong ideas about the importance of myth and story and a deep appreciation of nature. His epic, 10 years in the making, recounts the Great War of the Ring and the closing of Middle-Earth's Third Age, a time when magic begins to fade from the world and men rise to dominance. Tolkien carefully details this transition with tremendous skill and love, creating in The Lord of the Rings a universal and all-embracing tale, a justly celebrated classic. --Paul Hughes, Amazon.com

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"Great" - Rated
I first read LOTR when I was 11 (I'm now in my late 30ies) and since then I have read and re read it countless times.

A fantastic piece of work, much copied and plagarised but peerless and never bettered.
It's escapism par excellence and has got me through the downs and depressions in life.
Read it and you will discover something new every time you read it, the smallest details are meaningful and part of the overall scheme of the book.

This book has everything, and the famous CS Lewis review of this work is the best I could use to describe it;

"If Ariosto rivalled it in invention (in fact he did not) he would still lack its heroic seriousness. No imaginary world has been projected which is at once multifarious and so true to its own inner laws; none so seemingly objective, so disinfected from the taint of an author's merely individual psychology; none so relevant to the actual human situation yet free from allegory. And what fine shading there is in the variations of style to meet the endless diversity of scenes and characters - comic, homely, epic, monstrous, or diabolic."

Says it all!

(I thought the film (Steve Jackson) was average.
Tolkien was a product of his time, so the PC brigade can bugger off! )

Peerless - Rated
I first read the Lord of the Rings when i was 10 or 11, and have re-read it countless times since.
Really it is beyond review; Tolkien was a genius - he invented languages, for goodness sake!- and this is reflected in his masterpiece. It is flawless, and to this day sets the benchmark for all fantasy literature.
Although over 50 years old now, it still manages to capture contemporary readers with its effortless combination of epic, character, morality, love, romance, duty, friendship, depth of detail, geography, history - hey! the list is almost endless.
The book works on so many levels, which is why it is so popular with all ages, from all walks of life.
The language is a little dated, but only in that you can tell it wasn't written this year, and saying that it is still eloquent and effortlessly charming. It has aged remarkeably well, unlike other early fantasy writers, such as Feist or Gavriel-Kay.
I read somewhere that if Tolkien submitted the Lord of the Rings to a present day publisher or literary agent he would be unlikely to get published! And yet the Lord of the Rings still wins every readers poll going. What does that tell you! Someone doesn't have their finger on the pulse.
Tolkien is the Leonardo Da Vinci of fantasy, as unasailable by contemporary authors as Da Vinci is by modern art. I'm not knocking modern fantasy - i love it - George R. R. Martin, Tad Williams, J. V. Jones, Greg Keyes, Joe Abercrombie, Brian Ruckley, Guy Gavriel Kay - but no matter how writters try to bend the envelope, write something original, non-derivative or not, nothing has ever, or, I suspect, will ever, come close to the Lord of the Rings.
When all the analysis is said and done, it is quite simply a great read; without doubt my all time favourite novel.

what more can you say? - Rated
After so many people have reviewed this book in such a deservedly positive fashion, it's hard to add much that's new. I will say that it probably would have been difficult for Tolkien to get this book published today, or an editor might have chopped out a lot of the lavish detail in order to make it read a little more briskly. But I think it's better the way it is, and it's also a reflection of writing style from 50 years ago, to some degree. The following has probably already been said a zillion times: it sure seems like there is religious symbolism in the tremendously long journey involving the ring. I understand that Tolkien himself was quite religious. Author of Adjust Your Brain: A Practical Theory for Maximizing Mental Health.

A history of the Great War of the Ring - Rated
Tolkien continues to entrhrall readers with this timeless classic. A history of the Great War of the Ring.

'Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

A brilliant, unforgettable work.

Marvellous series by Tolkien - Rated
One of the finest books I've ever read and count The Silmarillion into that as well. Enhanced by the wonderful movies and all Christopher Tolien's hard work on the History of Middle Earth series.