Nature has always interested me more than Science, anyway :P (play on words humour)

As a knee-jerk reaction the title of this book always calls to mind this quote from Letter 210: "I dislike equally any pull towards 'scientification' (...) alien to my story. We are not exploring the Moon or any other more improbable region. No analysis in any laboratory would discover chemical properties of lembas that made it superior to other cakes of wheat-meal."

Does anyone know if this book addresses Tolkien's apparent aversion to the notion of Middle-earth science, in order to justify (or at least motivate) its own existence (as, for example, Renée Vink's book on Tolkien and Wagner does from the outset, being apparently at odds with Tolkien's own assertions on the matter, expressed in Letter 229)? I would find such an argument interesting, though the official blurb and blog review linked above seem to imply that the question is passed by in silence.

As an astrophysicist and Tolkien fan, naturally I'm interested in a book that talks about the science of Middle-earth. It's unfortunate this book seems to have so many basic errors on the Middle-earth topics, but I think most of them would not impact the main goal of the book.

In any case, I'm very curious about what the authors say, and I'll definitely check it out.

I think it is worth mentioning Druss that I (and I am sure others feel the same but I can't speak for them naturally) am very appreciative of your candiddness here about this volume. I am sure others will find this collection useful but given the amount of books I buy I have to discriminate where I can so decided against this volume. That is not to say I wish it poor sales, just that it doesn't appear to meet the research I am interested in so again, thank you.

No problem. I'm not here to force anyone to buy, even more when I'm the first to be disappointed by this book. But I'm interested to have your critics, if some of you read it.

Philomythos > Maybe in the introduction by Isabelle Pantin, but I will verify.

David Bratman gave a few small comments on The Science of Middle-earth after reading the first few chapters on his blog:

Reading the opening chapters during the waiting part of step 4 revealed loads of irritating errors. Early LOTR reviewer Michael Straight is called Straits. Tolkien is said to have delivered "On Fairy-stories" at a conference on fairy tales. And an article on family relationships in the legendarium invents a non-existent nephew of a non-existent king.

I like much of the art well enough. Limited by its reproduction.
Many of the figures are useless because of contrast or resolution. Curiously they use an older version of the periodic table.

On Amazon UK, they have the 'look inside' feature up for this year's hardback edition of Tales From the Perilous Realm.

It features the exact same pagination and contents as the 2008 edition, and it's stating a first printing, rather than carrying over the print count from when they stopped them making the 2008 hardback, way back when.

Printed and bound in the UK by CPI group, and set in Stempel Garamond.

From what I could see from this preview, I didn't see any coloured ink being used.

Verdict at this stage (aka, personal opinion): this is intended for those that missed the boat on the 2008 hardback. If you have the 2008 hardback already, there is zero reason to get this one, as it appears to be 95% (or higher) the exact same book: just different ISBN and publication year.

insurrbution wrote:

On Amazon UK, they have the 'look inside' feature up for this year's hardback edition of Tales From the Perilous Realm.

It features the exact same pagination and contents as the 2008 edition, and it's stating a first printing, rather than carrying over the print count from when they stopped them making the 2008 hardback, way back when.

Printed and bound in the UK by CPI group, and set in Stempel Garamond.

From what I could see from this preview, I didn't see any coloured ink being used.

Verdict at this stage (aka, personal opinion): this is intended for those that missed the boat on the 2008 hardback. If you have the 2008 hardback already, there is zero reason to get this one, as it appears to be 95% (or higher) the exact same book: just different ISBN and publication year.

The only change that may be in this book that I am aware of is some textual corrections may have been included for Leaf by Niggle, that section is not shown in the 'look inside' so can not confirm until it is released.

Trotter wrote:

The only change that may be in this book that I am aware of is some textual corrections may have been included for Leaf by Niggle, that section is not shown in the 'look inside' so can not confirm until it is released.

I hope you got 'em in there!

Trotter wrote:

insurrbution wrote:

On Amazon UK, they have the 'look inside' feature up for this year's hardback edition of Tales From the Perilous Realm.

It features the exact same pagination and contents as the 2008 edition, and it's stating a first printing, rather than carrying over the print count from when they stopped them making the 2008 hardback, way back when.

Printed and bound in the UK by CPI group, and set in Stempel Garamond.

From what I could see from this preview, I didn't see any coloured ink being used.

Verdict at this stage (aka, personal opinion): this is intended for those that missed the boat on the 2008 hardback. If you have the 2008 hardback already, there is zero reason to get this one, as it appears to be 95% (or higher) the exact same book: just different ISBN and publication year.

The only change that may be in this book that I am aware of is some textual corrections may have been included for Leaf by Niggle, that section is not shown in the 'look inside' so can not confirm until it is released.

It's possible....however, I checked the Mim error in the preface, and it's still missing the accent over the i.