The Quests of Middle-earth - Page 10
© Michael Martinez
This is what we have to read today. To be blunt -- and honest -- I don't think many of us will be reading this stuff in 50 years, but we'll still be reading Tolkien. And quite probably we'll be sending our imaginations off on new quests, perhaps armed with props and gizmos unlike anything that came out of AD&D, Runequest, or Rolemaster.
What would it take to write another Tolkien story today? I've often wondered if anyone alive could do it. A lot of people suggest Christopher Tolkien could do it. I, myself, have argued he may be the only person with a snowball's chance of pulling it off. But Christopher himself has admitted to many errors in his one serious attempt to bring to light a new Tolkien work (The Silmarillion).
Maybe we'll have to be satisfied with nothing but cheap, shlocky quest books for the next twenty years. Maybe we'll have to hope that the next wave of computer fantasy games will be more imaginative and more interesting than the simple hunt-and-scoop stuff which consumes so many peoples' time now. DOOM and Lara Croft are really just gaudied up versions of Tetris (a game I always detested -- one turns off the mind to play it).
For my part, I'd like to see what Earendil's adventures were. I'd like to follow Fingon through the mountains, perhaps avoiding columns of orcs and trolls the way an Andre Norton hero would come close to falling in with servants of the Shadow. I'd like to see exactly why Fram ended up killing a dragon, and if he was really a jerk to begin with or if the dragon-gold corrupted him so that he insulted the dwarves and brought about his own death. I'd like to know what terrors Gandalf encountered in Mirkwood and Dol Guldur.
There's nothing like a good, old-fashioned Middle-earth quest. And, sadly, looking at all the books in my library, many of which I've read more than once and have enjoyed for years, and remembering all the gaming hours of my youth spent with good friends (and some obscure individuals), I have to admit there is nothing like a good, old-fashioned Middle-earth quest.
Go To Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
The copyright of the article The Quests of Middle-earth - Page 10 in J.R.R. Tolkien is owned by Michael Martinez. Permission to republish The Quests of Middle-earth - Page 10 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
