J R R Tolkien S New Book The Fall Of Gondolin Arrives This Summer

J.R.R. Tolkien’s New Book ‘The Fall Of Gondolin’ Arrives This Summer

By Ben Pearson/April 10, 2018 12:00 pm EST

Entertainment Weekly reports that a new J.R.R. Tolkien book called The Fall of Gondolin will debut this summer, and, like all of the author’s posthumous works, the book will be edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is publishing the book, and their description of it is very basic: “The final work of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth fiction, completing Christopher Tolkien’s life-long achievement as the editor and curator of his father’s manuscripts.”

EW has a far more detailed breakdown. I say this with love, but prepare yourselves for an onslaught of nerd stuff:

I’ve never read The Silmarillion, so I admittedly have no clue what most of that means. (You can read more about it at this wiki if you’re so inclined.)

During the years that the dark lord Morgoth (Sauron’s predecessor and mentor) reigned supreme in Middle-Earth, his fellow godlike Valar refused to intervene against him on behalf of the peoples of Middle-Earth. Only Ulmo, the Lord of Waters, worked in secret to help the Noldorin Elves. The Noldor stronghold is the beautiful city of Gondolin, built to be undiscoverable by Morgoth’s forces. Ulmo guides a man named Tuor (cousin of the doomed Turin Turambar) to Gondolin, where he grows into a great hero and marries Idril, daughter of Gondolin’s King Turgon. Soon, however, Morgoth finds Gondolin and his armies lay waste to the city in one of the most epic battle scenes Tolkien ever depicted (including, among other things, the noble Elf Glorfindel dying in battle against a Balrog). Tuor and Idril are among the few who escape, along with their with the child Eärendel. That half-Elf, half-human child will go on to have a great destiny.

But here’s a cool bit of info: the book will feature artwork from artist Alan Lee, a die-hard Tolkien fanatic who won an Oscar for his art direction on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies.

Here’s where things get tricky. Christopher Tolkien (who’s 93 years old, by the way) famously despised Peter Jackson’s movie adaptations of his father’s work – not just The Hobbit films, but The Lord of the Rings trilogy, too. Last year, he released what was said to be his final book (Beren and Luthien) and resigned as the director of the Tolkien estate this past November, prompting us to wonder if more J.R.R. Tolkien adaptations might be on the way.

But if Christopher Tolkien edited and pieced together this book from the fragments of work his father left behind, whoever is now running the Tolkien estate may want to respect Christopher’s disdain for film and TV adaptations and make The Fall of Gondolin off limits to filmmakers and showrunners. If that’s the estate’s mentality, then don’t expect to see anything from The Silmarillion make it into the show, either. This is all totally fine with me – the world of Middle-earth is so expansive and full of potential that I’d prefer to see a storyteller come in and put their own stamp on things instead of adapting existing material.