Admin Post: Read & Review: Review of "The Fall of Númenor" by Lyra

[dawn_felagund]

Lyra opens her review of The Fall of Númenor with the observation that "Tolkien's literary legacy truly is the gift that keeps on giving. Whenever you think that your collection is finally complete, a new publication is announced." The question is, though, is The Fall of Númenor a worthwhile addition to your already groaning Tolkien bookshelf?

In our latest Read & Review column, Lyra reviews The Fall of Númenor, touching on its contents (and what it leaves out), its structure, and the artwork it contains by Alan Lee, concluding that "it is ... an immensely useful publication." You can read Lyra's complete "Review of The Fall of Númenor" here.

Comments

[arcanetrivia]

The links in this post are coming through as hanging off the Dreamwidth URL and not https://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/ - i.e. they are formed as https://silwritersguild.dreamwidth.org/read-and-review and https://silwritersguild.dreamwidth.org/node/6341 respectively, both of which naturally throw 404 errors.

[dawn_felagund]

They are fixed—thank you!

[hyarrowen]

I confess I was relieved that The Notion Club Papers were left out, though completionists were doubtless disappointed. I found them out-of-character for the rest of the Second Age work and indeed the Legendarium as a whole, and the only thing I can remember from them is the Great Storm of 1987, and that's because I lived through it!

I missed Tal-Elmar, but there were no doubt difficulties in internal dating which couldn't be overcome, and the picture of Ar-Pharazon with a luxuriant beard threw me a bit, but these are nit-picks.

All in all, it's a handy quick reference, an enjoyable read, and it saves a lot of scrabbling through various volumes of HoME and other books if you just want the story, which is what I want most of the time.

[galadhir]

Ooh, sounds cool!