Emilien wrote:

Thank you for the spreadsheet Trotter, very usefull.
I have to compute a lot more when purchasing new UK Tolkien publications these days...
New VAT tax in France for imported goods, custom fees due to Brexit, plus the fact that I can't receive books personnaly (I'm not at home on delivery schedules, and can't be physically here to pay the taxes if I make my book delivered to my work place (for which the delivery address is a huge delivery bay). So my options are limited : make it delivered to a pick-up, I don't have many other choices than to use Amazon FR (french pick-ups spots are not even available when using amazon UK...)

To this, we can add that with French IPs, A Great Read and WH Smith do not sell the deluxe edition outside the UK, while Blackwells and Goldsboro do not even offer them for sale...

Stu wrote:

huan68 wrote:

It’s certainly different.

Ha Ha. Yeah - that's my feeling. There really is a far too much going on here. I'd definitely have preferred it if they had abandoned the red page edges -- but I guess it does stand out.

Separately there are some good ideas (the gold foiling etc.) but they really clash together and are just too much in combination.

I apologize for putting my thoughts bluntly, and maybe it’ll look better in person, but I have to say that image of it looks excessively gaudy and eye catching, and umm, cheaply attractive. ?

eorl wrote:

Stu wrote:

huan68 wrote:

It’s certainly different.

Ha Ha. Yeah - that's my feeling. There really is a far too much going on here. I'd definitely have preferred it if they had abandoned the red page edges -- but I guess it does stand out.

Separately there are some good ideas (the gold foiling etc.) but they really clash together and are just too much in combination.

I apologize for putting my thoughts bluntly, and maybe it’ll look better in person, but I have to say that image of it looks excessively gaudy and eye catching, and umm, cheaply attractive. ?

The technical term is "hot mess". I was really pleased when the last mockup didn't have the red pages, as I thought they were getting the design back under control. Sadly not. The Tolkien signature really needed to go as well (both on this and the deluxe) -- it is very tacky. I'm keeping my pre-order on this for the time being, but I might end up just keeping the deluxe, as overall that looks much better.

Stu wrote:

eorl wrote:

Stu wrote:

huan68 wrote:

It’s certainly different.

Ha Ha. Yeah - that's my feeling. There really is a far too much going on here. I'd definitely have preferred it if they had abandoned the red page edges -- but I guess it does stand out.

Separately there are some good ideas (the gold foiling etc.) but they really clash together and are just too much in combination.

I apologize for putting my thoughts bluntly, and maybe it’ll look better in person, but I have to say that image of it looks excessively gaudy and eye catching, and umm, cheaply attractive. ?

The technical term is "hot mess". I was really pleased when the last mockup didn't have the red pages, as I thought they were getting the design back under control. Sadly not. The Tolkien signature really needed to go as well (both on this and the deluxe) -- it is very tacky. I'm keeping my pre-order on this for the time being, but I might end up just keeping the deluxe, as overall that looks much better.

I don't think I'd go hot mess. I agree that the cover is too busy and that the signature on the front and spine is too much. There's something about the page staining that I just enjoy. I wish they would bring that back more. You hardly ever see books with top stains anymore. Truthfully I would have been fine with a one volume that was more true to the first editions UK LOTR or even facsimiles of the UK LOTR three volume set would have been cool.

Stu - Agreed about the Tolkien signature.

@Mr. Underhill - Perhaps it would’ve been better if the pages just looked red normally and the ring verse only showed up when you bent them. IMO anyway.

Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder. ?

eorl wrote:

@Stu - Agreed about the Tolkien signature.

@Mr. Underhill - Perhaps it would’ve been better if the pages just looked red normally and the ring verse only showed up when you bent them. IMO anyway.

Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder. ?

I personally think the trade looks messy and rather badly thought out. At first I was quite excited for this release but then I considered the reasoning and what this will look like in the end and my enthusiasm waned.

The red fire thing and the sig are really out of place. They had a chance to replicate a 'Tolkien' front cover so throwing the sig on there is wasteful imo and the red fire stuff? Come on this is not Harry Potter.

Then the choice over the Doors of Durin. Why not use the blue original? All the other illustrations in here are going to look like paintings and that thing just stands out as not fitting in.

I am still in for this but only to see of the images are in any way different to those previously published.

I have to say I do like it more based on latest pics…

I agree it is a bit messy, but some great and unique elements make it interesting ..

IMO, it looks like they accepted every idea from the suggestion box in the office

Bad attempts at joking aside, I think they deserve credit for having courage to go for something different. It might not be everyone's cup of tea but it's still different from what I've seen. As for me - I dislike the flashiness of it: the red feels too strong; there's too much golden stuff on there; do we really need two signatures? - & they look a bit too big and feel like they're too close. It just feels overcrowded, like there's too much going on.
This is just an opinion based on several pictures, so it might turn out to be a wrong one. I guess we'll see.

Not crazy about the trade edition. The Deluxe looks beautiful to me though....anyone got any signals from Harper Collins about how many they will print now that the 6000 number went out the Windows?

Here some images of the German one volume edition of Herr der Ringe, which is very similar to the UK issue of LotR.

https://www.klett-cotta.de/media/35/SE_DL_TT_2021.pdf