March 2018 archive

The Fellowship of the Ring Chinese Cover

This beautiful cover, reminiscent of Chinese jade carvings, was part of a competition by WenJing Publishing to release the trilogy for an Asian market.  I like it when the books receive artistic interpretations of the country they are released in.

Smaug the Terrible

There he lay, a vast red-golden dragon, fast asleep; a thrumming came from his jaws and nostrils, and wisps of smoke, but his fires were low in slumber. Beneath him, under all his limbs and his huge coiled tail, and about him on all sides stretching away across the unseen floors, lay countless piles of …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 3/7/18: The Lord of the Things, Part I

The Council of Elrond, Lego style J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy has been a major influence for many, many, fantasy writers, myself included. (Or course, many fantasy writers detest it also.) And also like me, probably, at some point, budding young fantasy writers made up people, places, and things that sounded very much …

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Der Kleine Hobbit

German edition This German cover of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit changes the title slightly to “The Little Hobbit” and pairs a bloated, toadlike, crazy-eyed Smaug with a tap-dancing Hobbit waving a top hat. The whole is enclosed in a trompe l’oeil frame with a spider crawling on the bottom, which alludes to the dwarves’ misadventures …

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Russia does The Hobbit

In the 1980s the Russians made their own version of The Hobbit (unauthorized — copyrights, shmopyrights!) for TV. It is not so big budget, but the acting is delightful. I particularly like the baby crocodile Smaug.

Tolkien Month

Sauron’s forces on the move It’s Tolkien Month here on my website! A little odd considering I have been writing mostly erotica and horror, but my roots are in SF and Fantasy. Reading E.R. Eddison’s The Worm Ouroboros, a progenitor of Tolkien’s and a probable influence, has made me appreciate the good professor even more. …

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