A fellowship of four geeky gamers embarks on an epic journey to overcome impossible; odds, win the game, kiss the girl and put the villains in their place. If this sounds a little like The Lord of the Rings and …
Continue ReadingSome more updates about the shocking (or predictable) news I wrote about yesterday here on GeekDad that The Hobbit will now be released as a trilogy of films.
Continue ReadingAs widely reported yesterday, J.K. Rowling and her publisher Little, Brown have announced her new book. And, as you may have heard, it’s not for kids. The “blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising” book, her publisher says — her first …
Continue ReadingGeek culture is filled with invented languages. Some are just alluded to in movie and novel, others are fairly well developed and then expounded upon by devoted fans. But the linguistics of these inventions fascinate many of us, and understanding …
Continue ReadingTolkien Reading Day occurs each year on March 25 — the actual day in The Lord of the Rings when Frodo and the Fellowship were successful in destroying the One Ring and defeating Sauron. To honor that, The Tolkien Society wants you to …
Continue ReadingFirst, E. Gary Gygax died in 2008. Then, a year later, in 2009, the passing of Dave Arneson. Now, we mourn the death of author, game designer and world-builder Professor M. A. R. Barker. Barker, who passed away a few …
Continue ReadingHow would Gandalf match up against Treebeard in a slam-dunk contest? Or Aragorn vs. Merry and Pippin, one-on-two? (Don’t underestimate the feistiness of those hobbits.) Our friends over at TheOneRing.net have launched an alternative to the NCAA basketball tournament called …
Continue ReadingThis third part concludes my three-part, in-depth conversation with Viggo Mortensen, in conjunction with him receving the Coolidge Award in Boston. [Note: Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.] In this final installment, he and I discuss what drives …
Continue ReadingSince the one-two-three punch of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Viggo Mortensen has largely avoided the limelight. Aside from 2004′s Hidalgo, Mortensen has mostly shied away from swarthy, swoon-worthy action hero types. His only roles that touch Aragorn/Strider: He …
Continue ReadingGilsdorf: There was a story that you had a run-in with the police who saw you wielding your sword in public and, uh, had a problem with that. Mortensen: It is true that I once was asked by local law …
Continue ReadingPeople sometimes ask if I have advice about writing. What works? What tips and tricks can you teach me? “Do you know what you’re going to say before you sit down to say it?” they ask. “Do you know where …
Continue ReadingAs reported on TheOneRing.net and elsewhere, a handwritten note written by J.R.R. Tolkien that he’d addressed to a couple he and his wife Edith had met on an unfortunate holiday just sold to an anonymous internet bidder for £1,700, or about $2,700. …
Continue ReadingGrowing up in the suburbs of Boston, and raised on secular Judaism, Cocoa Puffs and Gilligan’s Island, Peter Bebergal found himself on a quest. A spiritual quest that, as a teen, led him through comic books, Dungeons & Dragons and …
Continue ReadingWhen I first saw the Hobbit trailer, I was pretty excited. My inner fan-boy erupted with a huge roar of approval. So much of it is right: the dwarves, Martin Freeman as Bilbo, comedy, a cool battle with the trolls, …
Continue ReadingI’ve been a fan of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings since I was very small. My dad is a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, to the point that he actually wore out his hard cover copies of the trilogy. So one of my favorite memories is sitting on the edge of my dad’s chair […]
Continue ReadingExactly one year — 366 days in this case — from today will come our first opportunity since 2003 to return to Middle-earth in a new movie. It won’t be easy to wait, but we can feel secure in the …
Continue ReadingJ.R.R. Tolkien was a remarkably talented man, and famously provided a set of his own illustrations for his 1937 novel The Hobbit, though of course many editions have added those by other artists. But it wasn’t until the publisher HarperCollins was …
Continue ReadingOur friends over at TheOneRing.net report on a German art student named Benjamin Harff who spent a year and a half creating a one-of-a-kind, hand-made version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. Harff’s gorgeous book contains hundreds of illustrations, illuminated pages, and calligraphic pages; the …
Continue ReadingI attended the recent 3rd Conference on Middle-earth (in Westford, Massachusetts) where I listened to talks on blond elf imagery and debates on how to adapt The Hobbit into one movie or two movies (and the wisdom of that latter …
Continue ReadingFirst, it was confirmed that Orlando Bloom would reprise his role as Legolas in The Hobbit production now being filmed by Peter Jackson and company down in New Zealand. As many of you know, while Legolas features prominently in The …
Continue ReadingJohn Ronald Reuel Tolkien, the father of modern fantasy writing, was born January 3, 1892 in what is now South Africa. Best known, of course, for his works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, Tolkien served …
Continue ReadingImage via Wikipedia Today is September 22nd, otherwise known as Frodo and Bilbo’s birthday for those of us more hobbit-minded. What, you don’t have anything planned yet? Well, no worries. While not (yet) a nationally recognized holiday, here are seven …
Continue ReadingCheck out this amazing interactive map of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, programmed by Kris Kowal. It’s like Google Maps for the Third Age of Arda; zoom, pan and even search (in English, Sindarin, Westron, et al.) for locations. The labels are in …
Continue ReadingMy older son (he’s 11) is a fan of Duff Goldman and Ace of Cakes. You might remember a couple years ago when he (my son, not Duff) built his 4th grade California Mission project as a cake. Well, he …
Continue ReadingAuthor Ethan Gilsdorf, Globe Pequot Press and Froobi.com have teamed up to offer a special opportunity to win one of 10 free autographed copies of Gilsdorf’s critically-acclaimed book Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role …
Continue ReadingNine facts about the Nine Nazgûl: The Quenya word for Nazgûl is Úlairi. Their leader is known as The Witch-King of Angmar. The only one of the Nazgûl whose name is given by the Tolkien is Khamûl. He was a …
Continue ReadingSome questions have such clear answers that you know your answer the moment you hear or read it. These are of the “Who was the better James Bond: Connery or Dalton?” sort. You might even blink a few times to …
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