The One hundred and seventy-third Roving Ranger

-:- Strange as news from Bree -:-

Life and Works

The Oxford Handbook (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) of J.R.R. Tolkien has been announced by editor Dimitra Fimi (with Luke Shelton, see below for link)

- 44 chapters
- 46 Tolkien scholars from all over the world
- over 280K words overall

Events & Shows

The German Tolkien Society’s Seminar has just published its Call for Papers: Environment, the World around us, and the Connatural World in Tolkien’s Works (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [deadline May 31st; October 16-18]

The Tolkien Society’s Springmoot and AGM (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) will take place in Manchester [Apr 2426]

The Tolkien Society has announced its Westmoot 2026 Keynote Speakers & Special Guests (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [May 22-24]

The Young People’s Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, USA, is staging The Hobbit (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Feb 7 - Mar 1]

Marie Bretagnolle has announced her thesis defence (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on “Illustrer Tolkien : la Terre du Milieu du texte à l'image” [Feb 10]

For all events check out the Tolkien Guide (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

My podcast: A Talk with the Tolkienist [Spotify (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | YT (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | RSS feed (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

Scholarship & Fandom

Wayne Hammond & Christina Scull have The Bovadium Fragments (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and Lord of the Rings Comparison 5 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Wordpress.com (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

Miriam Ellis has A Hobbit Wedding: Peregrin and Diamond at Long Cleeve.

A new review is available with the Journal of Tolkien Research: Tolkien and the Mystery of Literary Creation (2025), by Giuseppe Pezzini (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

A new marketing term seems to have arisen for the authors at the Wade: the ‘Fantastic Five (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)’ [Daily Herald]

Matej Cadil has Meet the Artist: A Few Words About Me (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Substack]

Radio Rivendell (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), the only such radio station in the world (afaik!) to run consecutively for 25 years, is promising great things for the anniversary. [Patreon]

doubtfulsea has Do You Speak Villain? (Part 1)

John Garth has My 2025 with Tolkien – from Faërie to Minnesota (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Steady]

Dimitra Fimi has Tracing a source for the Mirror of Galadriel (in Tolkien's own early work) (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - and the announcement of the Oxford Handbook of J.R.R. Tolkien (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) with an outstanding line-up of scholars [Substack]

The Tales after Tolkien Society has A Long-Delayed Irregular Post (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Blogspot]

David Bratman has your favorite Tolkien (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Blogspot]

Timothy Snyder has Tolkien’s Dragons and Ours (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Substack]

A new kind of classroom: Inside Illinois State’s innovative learning labs for future teachers (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Illinois State University]

There’s a place on campus where a tactile map of Middle-earth invites students to trace the peaks and rivers of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional world with their fingertips.

The Routledge Handbook of Progressive Rock, Metal, and the Literary Imagination (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) has a chapter titled Time Travel Through Tolkien (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)¹:

The primary focus of this chapter is Bo Hansson's 1972 instrumental concept album, Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings, which replaces the trilogy's complex narratives with simple, folkish atmospheres, swirls of the Swedish, a synthesized equivalent to Celtic mist. Contrasting Hansson's atmospheres with Donald Swann's The Road Goes Ever On: A Song Cycle (1967), based on poems from Middle-earth, this chapter aims to illuminate the ways that we might hear progressive narrative in a purely instrumental setting.

Merchandise & Franchise

Imagining Middle-Earth for The Lord of the Rings (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [American Cinematographer; a 2001 essay]

The voice of Galadriel in the 1981 BBC radio series, Marian Diamond (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), has passed away. [Wikipedia]

Amazon MGM Studios Shakeup: Laura Lancaster & Nick Pepper Leaving, Blair Fetter Joins TV Chief Peter Friedlander In New Genre-Based Structure (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Deadline; notice the genre ‘worldbuilding’]

Lord of the Rings comes to Summoners War (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [TORn]

Review: LEGO 11373 Sauron’s Helmet (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Jay’s Brick Blog]

Lord of the Rings: Conquest, "The Game That Killed Pandemic", Is Playable Online Once More (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Time Extension]

Some new releases (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) are looking good with Games Workshop:

On the 2026 re-release of the LotR film trilogy:

‘Lord of the Rings’ cracks top 10 in wintry box office weekend topped by Chris Pratt on trial before an AI judg (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)e [Fortune]

I am not linking to the full article on this one - but if you read this a bit more closely and within the wider contexts of the last two and a half decades this screams ‘I am a prejudiced twat!’ so loudly one does wonder how these people still keep their jobs.

Ah, click bait (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [This is about 90% of all posts related to LotR now.]

The Lord of the Rings films sent fantasy-nerdism into the mainstream. We might take that for granted post-Game of Thrones (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), but there was a time when the thought of jocks and gymbros — well, basically anyone except the most committed of fantasy anoraks — quoting lines of dialogue from mythical creatures would’ve seemed firmly beyond the realms of possibility. (You know them all: “What about second breakfast?!” / “It comes in pints!” / “Boil ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew,” etc.)

Playmats and deck boxes will be available from Ultimate Guard in February.²

Inter alia

Detecting Dementia Using Lexical Analysis: Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Tells a More Personal Story (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [MDPI]

Ansible 463 has been published, noting:

Since this was the period of some of Terry's best books, it's not certain what the change implies: was he perhaps improving and writing more precisely?

Please appreciate the exact and tentative wording of the researchers on this subject.

‘We are here to live:’ Ukraine propaganda shifts from battling orcs to hope for future (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Jerusalem Post]

Why is China experiencing a boom in fantasy and science fiction literature (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)? [University of Freiburg]

Brandon Sanderson’s Literary Fantasy Universe ‘Cosmere’ Picked Up by Apple TV (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Hollywood Reporter]

War and Peas are something different - with their ONE RING (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

This one is, too.³

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According to German law I have to inform you all links to enterprises, artists, products etc. are [unpaid advertisements.] Some purchase links may earn me a small commission from Blackwell's (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), Bookshop.org (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), or Genialokal (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), the (independent) bookshops of my personal trust (one with a Tolkien connection!)

If you are interested in my other Tolkien-related work please have a look:
The Tolkienist Blog (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Facebook (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Bluesky (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Instagram (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Threads (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Mastodon (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - and have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

As this is 2026 I would like to note that this newsletter is 100% human-made, curated by me, Marcel R. Bülles. This also holds true for everything I write with my blog and here at Steady. Also, the minimum time of curating this newsletter ranges from 8-12 hours every week. Please consider supporting me so I can continue offering the Roving Ranger - thank you.

1. h/t Tolkien Gleanings #377 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). ↩

2. h/t jeeqsburger with reddit (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). ↩

3. h/t Jenny Curtis with the Thread™️. ↩