Probably of interest for some: The German Tolkien Society got to interview Brian Sibley on the upcoming „The Fall of Númenor“, that will be published tomorrow. He answered all of our burning questions shortly before the release!
? Find out how this book came to be, what’s in it (and what’s not), how Brian Sibley became a detective in the Second Age and what Alan Lee had to do with all that!

Thanks for sharing! Will be watching as soon as I can today. ?

I have not received the physical book yet but I have my eBook edition. Having a meander and exploring the footnotes a bit I am confused, maybe it is answered and I have missed it.

Firstly, there is no list of book abbreviations as I can see from the eBook. No biggie for us but there should be one.

In the footnotes, Fellowship, Towers, Return are present, italicised, but also Rings is referenced with page numbers, never italicised. So what is Rings? EDIT: 'Of the Rings of Power' from The Silmarillion, that one should have been obvious if I had looked.

Also why is Akallabéth listed with page numbers in the footnotes (not italicised) when it should be The Silmarillion that is listed, as is the case for other entries from Silm?

Rings = “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age,” I guess.

Seems convenient to give page references to it and the Akallabêth by name, even though they are published in the same volume, since they are two of the main source texts for the book.

Ulmo wrote:

Rings = “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age,” I guess.

Seems convenient to give page references to it and the Akallabêth by name, even though they are published in the same volume, since they are two of the main source texts for the book.

I literally updated my comment and yours was there. Thank you.

As to Akallabéth, and now Of Rings of Power, I find that choice strange, but, I am not the editor so I expect Brian has his reasons.

The convention being used is that the first time each source gets used in the notes the abbreviation is given alongside the full name and then subsequent uses only use the abbreviation.

Introduction note 1 - Letters
Introduction note 4 - Peoples
Year 1 note 1 - Appendix B
Year 1 note 3 - Rings
Year 1 note 7 - Akallabêth

and so on

At 38:09, Sibley states he was initially approached by HC to update to Foster’s Guide with material from Unfinished Tales. HC was later able to make contact with Foster, and Sibley suggests Foster is working on that project. I don’t know if that’s exactly true. My impression is Foster wouldn’t want to do so, and IIRC just made minor edits for the 2022 edition to correct now-known errors. But maybe he is indeed working on it for a future edition.

Haven't listened to the interview (read this elsewhere), but is Sibley saying that the genesis of this volume was before Amazon's RoP series i.e. countering the obvious inference that HC concocted this release in response to the TV show?

Ulmo wrote:

At 38:09, Sibley states he was initially approached by HC to update to Foster’s Guide with material from Unfinished Tales. HC was later able to make contact with Foster, and Sibley suggests Foster is working on that project. I don’t know if that’s exactly true. My impression is Foster wouldn’t want to do so, and IIRC just made minor edits for the 2022 edition to correct now-known errors. But maybe he is indeed working on it for a future edition.

HarperCollins had no way of getting in touch with Bob Foster, as he says in the interview we did with him recently - he also says in that interview that he is now working on incorporating UT into the Guide himself. There wasn't time for any major changes for the 2022 edition (this all happened rather quickly!) but Bob seems genuinely excited that his book is still selling and that people like it!

It's possible the FoN book was in the works prior to HC knowing that Amazon was setting their show in the Second Age, but I have my doubts.

Khamûl wrote:

Haven't listened to the interview (read this elsewhere), but is Sibley saying that the genesis of this volume was before Amazon's RoP series i.e. countering the obvious inference that HC concocted this release in response to the TV show?

After the Foster anecdote, he says (39:28), “In that moment of time there was talk of, Oh, we might do something about Númenor.” And then he goes right into talking about the Amazon series. He acknowledges twice that that FoN does “cash in” on RoP, and it does share the Second Age concept, but that’s it, it’s not an official tie-in, it makes no reference to the show, and the intent was to create something that will be valuable on its own merits. The show is “instantly consumable” but the book will be “something that people can always refer to.”