A dry compilation of old material, minus images

This book is a compilation of previously published text about the island of Numenor from parts of the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and the History of Middle Earth. The printed edition does not include any new material except for the illustrations by Alan Lee (11 color images and dozens of pencil sketches), which are MISSING from the audio edition. The publisher should have included a PDF of the images with the audio, but they have failed to do so.

And contrary to the book's description, this book does not include all Second Age material. For example, the Galadriel and Celeborn chapters from Unfinished Tales are also missing. This book is short enough that they could have easily added it.

There are only two real (short) stories in the book: The Mariner's Wife copied from Unfinished Tales (pretty good but not great), and the Fall of Numenor copied from The Silmarillion (the only great story in this book). The book also includes an early version of the Fall of Numenor in the Appendix, and a brief description of Numenor from Unfinished Tales. The rest of the book comprises a dry recitation of names and dates and very brief summaries of events (mostly mundane family/genealogy matters and politics), plus a few battles with Sauron summarized in no more than a few sentences. It reads like an encyclopedia entry on the kings of Numenor and is drier than the first half of the Silmarillion (and without the big events).

Overall, this book was a disappointment, but LOTR fans who have not read The Silmarillion may get something out of it.

10 people found this helpful

A wonderful resource for Second Age material.

Brian Sibley has, with this book, attempted to stitch together a chronology of the Second Age of Middle-earth. It doesn't include every one of Tolkien's writings on the Second Age (much of the conflicting stories about Galadriel and Celeborn are missing, for example). Instead, using the Tale of Years from the Lord of the Rings appendices as a guide, it tries to describe all of the major events of the age, drawing on material from The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle Earth, Tolkien's letters, and even the recent The Nature of Middle Earth. The result is a very satisfying chronology, if not actually a narrative, and a great reference book for anyone who is curious about the events of the Second Age and either does not own all of the many books this draws from or just wants all the pertinent information in one convenient volume.

The reading of the book by Samuel West is very enjoyable to listen to, as long as you don't mind Sibley butting into the text with various references and suggestions for further reading. West's voice is a great match for the material. It's a shame that his father Timothy wasn't available to read the notes, as was the case for the last few Tolkien books the Wests read together, but Sibley does a good enough job in his place.

In short, if you enjoyed the audiobook versions of Beren and Luthien, The Fall of Gondolin, and Unfinished Tales, you will probably enjoy this one too.

3 people found this helpful

A Second Age equivalent to the Silmarillion

First, I love the concept: a self-contained tale of the entire Second Age. This greatly improves the prior situation in which Tolkien's 2nd Age writings are scattered across many volumes. Now you can read the whole tale in one place. It's told as a single narrative rather than putting competing versions side by side, so you can read it as a story rather than as a mere history of Tolkien's creative process.

The book stitches together Tolkien's Second Age writings from many different volumes, sometimes spliced together within a single chapter, with editorial comments in-line providing context and connecting remarks for scaffolding the different passages. Purists will be glad to hear that there is no invented content or rewriting, only rearranging and commentary.

The overall approach, in which the writings are organized in "chapters" for each entry of the Tale of Years, is a good one. I like how relevant passages from the Lord of the Rings are also included, to connect the second age lore to the better known third age stories.

While acknowledging that this book was clearly a highly challenging editorial puzzle, some of the editing could have been improved. E.g., it gets off to a slightly rocky start, as the first Tale of Years-based chapter, "Foundation of the Grey Havens, and of Lindon" is a bit unfocused and has issues with flow. That chapter combines passages from the Appendices, the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and Letters, jumping between overviews and thematic discussions of the entire tale to descriptions of specific events. I love the ambition but it felt a bit scattershot. Soon after that, we have three chapters in a row that describe Numenor without advancing the plot. This is a bit dry and slow for the average reader, while not being essential for understanding the story (e.g., we didn't need this information to read essentially the same story in two chapters of the Silmarillion). These chapters would have been better as an appendix. Fortunately, the editing gets easier to do, and is correspondingly more successful, as the book goes on.

The book reads like it were a real-world non-fiction history book, collected from archaeological finds of stories and poems. That basically is what it is, apart from the non-fiction part, and the fact that all of the  writings were by just one person. Tolkien has been referred to as "the creative equivalent of a People" in reference to this phenomenon.

It truly is a Second Age equivalent to the Silmarillion. Like the Silmarillion, casual readers may find it too dry and too challenging for the uninitiated. I couldn't really recommend it to anyone who hadn't already read the Lord of the Rings. The movies and the Rings of Power show are not enough to foster the background knowledge and fan commitment to get through this. But the sort of person who loves the Silmarillion may love this as well.

The audiobook is narrated by Samuel West (for Tolkien) and the editor himself, Brian Sibley (for his own editorial remarks). Samuel West previously narrated some of the exact same content for Unfinished Tales. West does a pretty good job, if somewhat straightforward. His only real trick is his "mysterious voice" for any mysterious bit ("spooooooky!"), otherwise he reads everything the same. His dialogue work is improved over his Unfinished Tales rendition. His Elvish pronunciation is pretty good, for the most part. Unfortunately, Sibley butchers the pronunciation of the letter "i" in almost all Elvish words. I think he knows how to say it, as he occasionally gets it right, but old habits die hard.

The audiobook has the same problem as the Unfinished Tales one: all of the footnotes get read aloud, which breaks the flow and is really distracting and unnecessary. The dates of the reign of the Numenorean Kings and Queens are also read aloud and are pretty tedious in this format. So overall, the audiobook is ok, but given the aforementioned issues and the fact that the artwork is a big part of the attraction, as well as the beauty of the book, I'd recommend the hard copy over the audiobook if you were to pick only one.

So is the book for lore nerds or for casual readers? It walks a line between those two extremes. While I can't recommend it for casual fans (too dry, too slow, too confusing), it doesn't require you to be an uber lore expert, either. Its single narrative format and the editorial comments and footnotes make it accessible to someone who has read the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, and is looking for something to read next. For someone at that stage, I'd suggest they next either read this, the Silmarillion, or the Children of Hurin. It's ahead of Unfinished Tales in the reading order because it's cohesive rather than piecemeal.

3 people found this helpful

Not necessary reading, but very convenient

It's an excellently edited book with editor's notes and commentaries. It conveniently gathers the certain writings from previously published material that pertain to the narrative whole of the 2nd Age of Middle-earth. Many points of discrepancy are mentioned, but some very important ones are not. 1 star point off on the overall thing.

The narrators tell the story well. Veteran Samuel West narrates wonderfully.
However they both consistently mispronounced the invented names. In most fantasy/sci-fi this wouldn't matter, but this is Tolkien so it does matter, as the basic rules for his languages are brief and succinctly in place, and it's very noticeable when they consistently mispronounce things.

It's like presenting an art book on Monet, but thinking the correct colour calibrations aren't important. It's like reciting Shakespeare's iambic poetry but putting the stresses all in the wrong spots. 2 star points off for narration.

2 people found this helpful

For the completist or the newcomer.

If you’re new to Tolkien, and are looking for a deep dive into the lore about Númenor, above and beyond the Silmarillion, then this is pretty much perfect. It’s a consolidation of all the drafts, letters and sources on the history of the isle and it’s people.
If you already have the Histories and other previously published works, there’s not much new, apart from having these brought together.
Either way, it’s a useful read for the hardcore Tolkien reader.

1 person found this helpful

What a great addition to LOTR lore

Loved the performance and the amazing detailed lore in the book. Hopefully more Tolkien work can be released and new stuff as well

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doesn't match the book...

this is more a meta book than an actual story book. Also, the audibook does not follow the published book... so It's hard to follow along in the text

1 person found this helpful

Not just edited, editorialized.

Sam West’s narration of Tolkien is enjoyable, however I enjoyed neither Sibley’s editorials nor his narration. On reflection, it’s an error of marketing. What I thought was a storybook, is instead a reference book a la cliff notes.

1 person found this helpful

Not for your casual fan

Wonderful. Following in Christopher Tolkien's tradition of staying as true to Tolkiens original versions while showing a greater picture of the intended text.
I loved it but keep in mind I have read all of Chrisopher Tolkiens supplementary text concerning Tolkiens vision of Arda,  or in Quenya: "Realm".

Great history lesson

This was definitely designed to fill in the history of Numenor and middle earth. So much detail