The One hundred and fifty-sixth Roving Ranger

-:- Strange as news from Bree -:-

Life and Works

Parma Eldalamberon 18: Tengwesta Qenderinwa and Pre-Fëanorian Alphabets, Part 2 is available again on demand at The Great British Bookshop (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and at Barnes and Noble (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Events & Shows

'Hobbit' designer builds dragon, other fantasy creatures at Ohio Shakespeare Festival (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Beacon Journal]

Fantasy’s Present Pasts – Call for Papers and Sessions (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [University of Glasgow]

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Scholarship & Fandom

I wrote a little piece on Christopher Lee on meeting the Professor (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Collider stole it the day after; not linking this]

Dimitra Fimi has Constructions of Childhood in Tolkien’s Legendarium (1): Childhood and the Elves (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Substack]

John Garth has The day Tolkien became a WW2 air raid warden (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Steady]

News: The Fall of Númenor Preview (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Hall of Beorn]

Anna Smol has Rereading The Notion Club Papers: Sauron and the Barber (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

To my disappointment I had to write Boromir's Bloggish Bebotherments: Part 7: Scouring the net for all things Tolkienian in the age of AI slop… (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Steady]

Way more positive: My Oxford Year (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) review has been mentioned with the Oxford Clarion (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Miriam Ellis has Little Bilbo's Superpower: Seeing the End of the Road (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

What Does “Home” Mean? (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Blog Tolkien Indonesia]

Stephen C. Winter has “Do You Understand, Mr. Frodo? I’ve Got to Go On.” Sam Gamgee Makes The Hardest Choice of His Life (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

It is lovely to see some people are fighting back: Malvern 'did not inspire' CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Ledbury Reporter]

Merchandise & Franchise

Magic: The Gathering’s foray into other franchises continues with the (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)[WizardsotC]

Game studios on target to be $1b industry as Government ups funding (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [The Post, NZ]

Lord of the Rings Online has opened preorders for its fall expansion (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), Kingdoms of Harad [Massively OP]; A player from Lord of the Rings Online traverses Middle-earth on foot, impressively showcasing what makes the MMORPG so special (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [mein-MMO.de]

Asmodee reveals study on board gaming (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [ICv2; see also Board game giant Asmodee made 100 times less profit than Games Workshop (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (Wargamer) ]

Lord of Rings legend a finalist at Surrey (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Newsroom NZ; on the legend that is Gamling - Bruce Hopkins]

Inter alia

The Publishing Industry Has a Gambling Problem (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Walrus, Canada]

Star Trek is starting its 60th Anniversary - with a float (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [StarTrek.com (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

STAR TREK fans finally get the Battle of Wolf 359 they were denied by 1990s budgets (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Wertzone]

Ten Years of The City of Lost Books (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [University of Glasgow, fantasy literature]

Christian homeschoolers in the year 3000 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Less Wrong]

The true cost of a pint (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Oxford Drinker]

My favourite all things books website, LibraryThing, is celebrating its 20th Anniversary (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). Yes, part of my library (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is online thanks to their efforts.

If you care for one of the nicest spaces in Oxford you might like to chip in: Save the Vaults & Garden Café (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Crowdjustice]

Electronic Arts has been sold (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [AP News; no surprise now that about the same time rumours were spread that a new LotR IP video game would be coming, then…]

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Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

As this is 2025 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.