Ratings111
Average rating4.4
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.
From Sauron's fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide. Sauron gathered all the Great Rings to him, but always he searched for the One Ring that would complete his dominion.
When Bilbo reached his eleventy-first birthday he disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin Frodo the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom.
The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam; Gimli the Dwarf; Legolas the Elf; Boromir of Gondor; and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.
(back cover)
Featured Series
3 primary books4 released booksThe Lord of the Rings is a 4-book series with 3 primary works first released in 1937 with contributions by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Reviews with the most likes.
Ah, the good old, the classic. The beautiful tale that invented the fantasy genre. I don't know why a lot of people didn't like the books so much, but I absolutely loved them. Their slow pace is marvelous. Nothing like it, really.
The amount of time Tolkien took to build this world is just amazing. Many have compare Tolkien's Lord of the Rings to Frank Herbert's Dune. I think this is because both the books are long, telling tales that span an era. I don't make that comparison, though. Dune is far too abstract. Herbert creates a world and details a lot of nothing (I don't mean that in a bad way. My rating of Dune is 5 stars as well). He shows us how much more the characters mean and just gives us settings rather than details.
Tolkien does both. He gives us beautiful settings with a lot of detail and the scale of the sets sort of defines the characters that occupy it, which is why The Lord of the Rings became a good movie while Dune didn't.
I'm still reading in the introduction and this book is fascinating. My book is being returned due to due date, but I'd love to get my hands on this again. (02/07/2012)
Gelezen, en herlezen, en herlezen en herlezen. Ik zou er al zijn punten aan gegeven hebben waren het niet van Tom Bombadil, en die eindeloze liederen.
Wat me verbaasde, bij het bezien van de films, trouwens, is dat de overgrote meerderheid van de uitstekende dialogen rechtstreeks uit het origineel komen.
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