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 (Abre numa nova janela) and at Barnes and Noble (Abre numa nova janela).

Events & Shows

'Hobbit' designer builds dragon, other fantasy creatures at Ohio Shakespeare Festival (Abre numa nova janela) [Beacon Journal]

Fantasy’s Present Pasts – Call for Papers and Sessions (Abre numa nova janela) [University of Glasgow]

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Abre numa nova janela) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Abre numa nova janela).

Scholarship & Fandom

I wrote a little piece on Christopher Lee on meeting the Professor (Abre numa nova janela) [Collider stole it the day after; not linking this]

Dimitra Fimi has Constructions of Childhood in Tolkien’s Legendarium (1): Childhood and the Elves (Abre numa nova janela) [Substack]

John Garth has The day Tolkien became a WW2 air raid warden (Abre numa nova janela) [Steady]

News: The Fall of Númenor Preview (Abre numa nova janela) [Hall of Beorn]

Anna Smol has Rereading The Notion Club Papers: Sauron and the Barber (Abre numa nova janela).

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… (Abre numa nova janela) [Steady]

Way more positive: My Oxford Year (Abre numa nova janela) review has been mentioned with the Oxford Clarion (Abre numa nova janela).

Miriam Ellis has Little Bilbo's Superpower: Seeing the End of the Road (Abre numa nova janela).

What Does “Home” Mean? (Abre numa nova janela) [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 (Abre numa nova janela).

It is lovely to see some people are fighting back: Malvern 'did not inspire' CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia (Abre numa nova janela) [Ledbury Reporter]

Merchandise & Franchise

Magic: The Gathering’s foray into other franchises continues with the (Abre numa nova janela)[WizardsotC]

Game studios on target to be $1b industry as Government ups funding (Abre numa nova janela) [The Post, NZ]

Lord of the Rings Online has opened preorders for its fall expansion (Abre numa nova janela), 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 (Abre numa nova janela) [mein-MMO.de]

Asmodee reveals study on board gaming (Abre numa nova janela) [ICv2; see also Board game giant Asmodee made 100 times less profit than Games Workshop (Abre numa nova janela) (Wargamer) ]

Lord of Rings legend a finalist at Surrey (Abre numa nova janela) [Newsroom NZ; on the legend that is Gamling - Bruce Hopkins]

Inter alia

The Publishing Industry Has a Gambling Problem (Abre numa nova janela) [Walrus, Canada]

Star Trek is starting its 60th Anniversary - with a float (Abre numa nova janela) [StarTrek.com (Abre numa nova janela)]

STAR TREK fans finally get the Battle of Wolf 359 they were denied by 1990s budgets (Abre numa nova janela) [Wertzone]

Ten Years of The City of Lost Books (Abre numa nova janela) [University of Glasgow, fantasy literature]

Christian homeschoolers in the year 3000 (Abre numa nova janela) [Less Wrong]

The true cost of a pint (Abre numa nova janela) [Oxford Drinker]

My favourite all things books website, LibraryThing, is celebrating its 20th Anniversary (Abre numa nova janela). Yes, part of my library (Abre numa nova janela) 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 (Abre numa nova janela) [Crowdjustice]

Electronic Arts has been sold (Abre numa nova janela). [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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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 (Abre numa nova janela), Bookshop.org (Abre numa nova janela), or Genialokal (Abre numa nova janela), 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 (Abre numa nova janela) : Facebook (Abre numa nova janela) : Bluesky (Abre numa nova janela) : Instagram (Abre numa nova janela) : Threads (Abre numa nova janela) : Mastodon (Abre numa nova janela).

Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Abre numa nova janela)

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.