h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've missed the old book club where you could talk about any book you wanted. And I want it back. I'm reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time - does anyone want to talk about it?
Or do you have another book to read? Let me know.

The Lord of the Rings is great. Have you read the Hobbit? Where are your heros in LOTR?

I've read the Hobbit - as I was waiting to get all 3 Lord of the Rings Books, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion (sp?) before starting. So yes, I read the hobbit, and I'm now just outside Mordor with Frodo, Sam, Smeagal and Boromir's brother.

You've gotten along well, I see. The Mordor chapters are slow, but rewarding.

~Irving

Just starting "Return Of The King" today.

Ah. The weird thing about LOTR, it's such a short trilogy, only three books.

Seriously, I think Tolkien had Middle Earth mapped out in every detail (language, history, geography, everything). In fact, instead of writting the Lord of the rings he was actually planning on writting a book on the Elvish Language, but people convinced him that no one really wanted to read that. Strangely, some of his other, non-Middle Earth works aren't nearly as good.

~Irving

Well, I'm enjoying the LOTR so far - but I haven't read anything else of his. I'm hoping to, though...

whenever I am reading LOTR (which, I admit, I do rather a lot) I read the whole of the first volume (The Felowship of the Ring), the first half of the second volume, the first half of the third, and the last quater of the third, missing out the frodo-and-sam-go-through-mordor chapters completly. Intrestingly enough, I _will_ reread the appendicies...

Iain

My dad used to take three days off and just read them straight through in three days, doing nothing else at all

~Irving

I always read all of the book I can, and I'm currently reading Appendix E. I hope to finish the S book soon.

Wow, that's avid reading!

Well, I'm halfway through the Silmarrilion (?) and nope, don't understand fully what's happening - if anything - but I'm reading it.

Funny I felt that when I read The Sillmarillon, many many years ago.
Actually I found it harder the second time round

Must go back and re-read all of them again, just to be up to speed for when the movie comes out.

Haven't read LOTR in ages.
Last October sometime, I was having a drunken argument with various avid readers and we got onto LOTR. We eventually came to the conclusion that it is teenage, munchkin (with a small m) fantasy. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad. It is still one of the best attempts at this genre, but we decided that Gormenghast was definately the bees knees. It is a much more grown-up fantasy, with no real heros. Gormenghast works on shades of grey, which is possibly why it has not been copied as much as LOTR. Of course, this is not going to stop me watchig the films with a stupid grin on my face.

BTW - I'm surprised that Stephen Donaldson was able to write the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - as is there anything in that series at all that is not a parrelel to LOTR?

Reading LOTR is like going on a journey. The first time is good. The next time you recognise familiar sites and see new ones. I have read it several times and will read it again.

Yeah, it was Thomas Covenant that put me off Fantasy. I kept reading it, hoping that the plot would deviate from LOTR and every AD&D adventure I have heard of. The stuff with the leprosy was good, just the background plot was not overly inspiring.

It is well written, merely not original. Except the second chronilces, maybe, but they didn't have that good an ending. I still enjoyed the Chronicles, though.

I found the second set a bit dull. Don't they spend an entire book sailing off somewhere, to just come back again. Nowt much happened that I really cared about. I still read them all, so they can't be that bad.

You're not a member of the Donaldson fan club, are you?
Have you read his Mordant's Need series at all?