Meditations on Middle-Earth

Karen Haber (editor): Meditations on Middle-Earth (St. Martin's Griffin, 2002)

One of the books I read this year about J.R.R. Tolkien was Meditations on Middle-Earth, edited by Karen Haber. It was mostly a disappointment for two reasons. It's a collection of essays by folks, mostly fantasy authors, and how they feel about The Lord of the Rings. Some essays are good, such as the one by Poul Anderson. But most are around the level of what you'd expect to find in Freshman English in college. Various famous authors of fantasy (well, famous on the best seller list, at least!) tell how, gosh, Tolkien is the greatest and how much he inspired their writing. Quickly read, quickly forgotten. The second problem with the book are the numerous typographical errors, especially in names from the Tolkien books. What makes this doubly strange is that the excellent artwork (by John Howe, who worked on the movies) often use the same names (and are spelled correctly). Go figure.

This books counts as 17 contributions to the 2004 Short Story Project.

Contents: Preface—The Beat Goes On (Karen Haber); Introduction (George R.R. Martin); Our Grandfather—Meditations on J.R.R. Tolkein (Raymond Feist); Awakening the Elves (Poul Anderson); A Changeling Returns (Michael Swanwick); If You Give a Girl a Hobbit (Esther M. Friesner); The Ring and I (Harry Turtledove); Cult Classic (Terry Pratchett); A Bar and a Quest (Robin Hobb); Rhythmic Pattern in The Lord of the Rings (Ursula K. Le Guin); The Longest Sunday (Diane Duane); Tolkien After All These Years (Douglas A. Anderson); How Tolkien Means (Orson Scott Card); The Tale Goes Ever On (Charles De Lint); The Mythmakers (Lisa Goldstein); "The Radical Distinction..." A Conversation with Tim and Greg Hildebrandt (Glenn Hurdling); On Tolkien and Fairy-Stories (Terri Windling).