I’m open to receiving a PM *wink*

More info on The Fall of Gondolin from amazon.co.uk, with a release date of 30th August 2018.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/00 ... collsguid-21&linkCode=osi

In the Tale of The Fall of Gondolin are two of the greatest powers in the world. There is Morgoth of the uttermost evil, unseen in this story but ruling over a vast military power from his fortress of Angband. Deeply opposed to Morgoth is Ulmo, second in might only to Manwë, chief of the Valar.

Central to this enmity of the gods is the city of Gondolin, beautiful but undiscoverable. It was built and peopled by Noldorin Elves who, when they dwelt in Valinor, the land of the gods, rebelled against their rule and fled to Middle-earth. Turgon King of Gondolin is hated and feared above all his enemies by Morgoth, who seeks in vain to discover the marvellously hidden city, while the gods in Valinor in heated debate largely refuse to intervene in support of Ulmo's desires and designs.

Into this world comes Tuor, cousin of Túrin, the instrument of Ulmo's designs. Guided unseen by him Tuor sets out from the land of his birth on the fearful journey to Gondolin, and in one of the most arresting moments in the history of Middle-earth the sea-god himself appears to him, rising out of the ocean in the midst of a storm. In Gondolin he becomes great; he is wedded to Idril, Turgon's daughter, and their son is Eärendel, whose birth and profound importance in days to come is foreseen by Ulmo.

At last comes the terrible ending. Morgoth learns through an act of supreme treachery all that he needs to mount a devastating attack on the city, with Balrogs and dragons and numberless Orcs. After a minutely observed account of the fall of Gondolin, the tale ends with the escape of Túrin and Idril, with the child Eärendel, looking back from a cleft in the mountains as they flee southward, at the blazing wreckage of their city. They were journeying into a new story, the Tale of Eärendel, which Tolkien never wrote, but which is sketched out in this book from other sources.

Following his presentation of Beren and Lúthien Christopher Tolkien has used the same 'history in sequence' mode in the writing of this edition of The Fall of Gondolin. In the words of J.R.R. Tolkien, it was ‘the first real story of this imaginary world’ and, together with Beren and Lúthien and The Children of Húrin, he regarded it as one of the three 'Great Tales' of the Elder Days.

I’m not trying to be a naysayer, but why does that description sound very “fanlike”? :(

I have been anticipating this story as a standalone release for years. To have it embellished with Alan Lee’s illustrations would be better than a dream come true. I can only hope this isn’t some hoax that has been picked up by Amazon and other retailers. I don’t see any official information on it yet, which is very strange if the release is supposed to be this August.

Someone PM me and reassure me

The description sounds like a draft from the publisher's marketing department, to draw in new readers that have not read deeply enough to come across the scattered fragments yet.

If this publication becomes official, they will not be able to comment on it publicly until the author, publisher, estate, artist (sometimes), and any other rights holders is ready. Until then, sadly we cannot expect any official confirmation. Projects can get very far along in development and still get canceled or have details changed drastically, so there are good reasons why patience is needed.

This is either

(a) Repackaging with some essays and drab grey* Alan Lee illustrations - per Beren and Luthien.

or

(b) Fanfiction

There aren't any other possibilities beyond this, because you can't publish material that doesn't exist.

I'm not sure what there is to be excited about, here, other than the various bits grouped together in a single place (or for people that don't have HoME, UT, etc).

• The illustration for B&L were, with a couple of exceptions, pretty poor.

Looking more official and closer to your (a) option above, Stu.

https://www.harpercollins.co.uk/9780008302771/the-fall-of-gondolin/

The listing above (for the paperback large type edition) has the same description that Amazon.co.uk is showing, and includes Alan Lee as the illustrator.

ISBN: 9780008302771
Imprint: HarperCollins
On Sale: 2018-08-30
Format: Paperback
Trimsize: 15.300
Pages: 336 (note as large type edition I don't expect this to align with other page counts we've seen)

Again - this is (probably) work in development that is leaking into online databases - there is still no official announcement from HC on this title.

And... the official Tolkien facebook page says "watch this space, big announcement coming tomorrow". Seems likely to be FoG related.

"No official announcement from HC"? It's on their own website!

BH

Yeah the Tolkien Facebook page does hint at something and it looks like it will be the new FoG book. Yayyyyy!!!!!

Stu, I know you find Alan Lee’s illustrations drab and dreary, but I do like their “moodiness”, and just for the sake of consistency in tone with COH and B&L, I’m glad he’ll be the illustrator for FoG too.

Jeremy, brace yourself for that virtual hug tomorrow.

Eorl wrote:
Stu, I know you find Alan Lee’s illustrations drab and dreary, but I do like their “moodiness”, and just for the sake of consistency in tone with COH and B&L, I’m glad he’ll be the illustrator for FoG too.

To be honest, I like a lot of his earlier illustrations. I just think with B&L he "phoned it in" for the bulk of the colour illustrations. And the look that he uses does hide a lot of artistic sins. That said, I'm no artist, and art is about as subjective as it gets. The black and white illustrations (which often seem better done than the paintings) are just padding to get around the lack of words to fill the books up with, IMHO.

Maybe there will be some new and interesting stuff here, but more likely we will have material that in the old days would have made a calendar, published as a book. There isn't much meat on the bones of much of Tolkien's posthumous work, that's for sure.