The latest episode of Ancient Geeks is here, and we’re talkin’ about Tolkien.
Steven and Tom discuss J.R.R. Tolkien, author of Farmer Giles of Ham, as well as lesser-known works like The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Follow us as we follow Bilbo and Frodo through these unforgettable, iconic books.
Come for the spectacularly detailed world-building and epic quests! Stay for singing elves, bad animated adaptations, the good live-action movies, calendars, pirate editions of the trilogy, and more. Plus, can you guess which of us made it through The Silmarillion? And is Tom Bombadil really a merry fellow?
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Comments
11 responses to “Ancient Geeks Talk Tolkien”
I’ll tell my brother about this. He’s a huge Tolkien fan.
I’m looking forward to this one. I greatly enjoyed the original Star Trek episode, BTW.
I admit I skipped the Superman and Batman episodes because I was never too interested in or enamored with either character.
@Andy:
Funny. I think I’ll skip this one because I’ve no knowledge of, nor interest in, the subject matter.
But I’ve been thinking that some popular books, and series of books, are entirely about world building with fairly pedestrian stories. Like Dune. Lest it seem I’m just dumping on works I don’t like, I’ll readily admit this is also the case for The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring, as well as movies like Tron.
The plot in The Smoke Ring is about visiting the big city and buying supplies. I call it an excuse for world building.
@Kathy:
We all have our different interests! I was a huge fan of Niven, but haven’t reread any of his works in a couple of decades now.
Excellent! I assume there will be future episodes about early video games and D&D? It’s like I’m reliving my childhood.
My parents didn’t have a lot of money, but they were good enough to make sure I had a bunch of silly video game systems in the ’70s, including pong, combat, studio II, and various handheld silly things.
Can’t wait to listen. I’ll be very disappointed if there is no discussion of “Leaf by Niggle”.
@CSK: Thanks! We appreciate you helping us get the word out.
@Andy: I was just thinking yesterday that I am sure some topics will get skipped. Although I am also hopeful that the retrospective aspect of the convo (like in the Batman ep we talked about how TV used to be consumed, etc) might be of some interest beyond topics.
@reid: D&D/RPGs and video games are coming.
@DrDaveT: Weeelllll….
@Kathy: @Andy: The next episode is a general discussion of fantasy authors, and the week after SF, which includes some discussion of Niven. Those have already been recorded. The next scheduled item is our first Marvel Comics favs, the FF and Thor.
We are kind of in the sampler stage. I expect we will do more drilling down on some of these topics. Some may require me to go back and refresh my memory!
FYI, the best resource I’ve found for the invented language stuff is Ardalambion.
The best scholarly analysis of Tolkien is Tom Shippey’s The Road to Middle-Earth. The best popular biography and explication is Shippey’s Tolkien: Author of the Century.
Must give this one a listen, being a extreme Tolkien geek, if a rather critical one.
(My background is history, especially economic/cultural history. Tolkein had little systematic interest in that, and it shows if you ever start thinking much about LotR from a “material historical” pov)
My favourite Tolkien book remains Smith of Wooton Major
With Farmer Giles of Ham a close second.
Perhaps because neither attempt to be at all “realistic”.
Enjoyed the discussion. One thing I think would have been useful is to distinguish between the effect Tolkien had on fantasy literature from the effect Tolkien had on fantasy as a marketing category (which didn’t exist prior to LotR). You did note the impacts in gaming world, but that’s (I think) separate.
Oh, and kudos for the C. L. Moore reference! I love her stuff, especially Jirel of Joiry.