The Last Ringbearer

Jul 03, 2011 Michele rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's probably a good idea to read the author's essay on Salon.com before tackling this book. He's a Russian geologist or palaeontologist or something and wrote it because he was puzzling over some geological oddities of Middle Earth (i.e., single continent but no mid-continent mountain range, and also what's on the rest of the map south and east of Morder that you never see?).

The first part, where LoTR is recapped from the Mordorians' perspective, was interesting and rather creative (who knew i...more

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Jan 23, 2013 Hudson rated it 5 of 5 stars

UPDATE: A lot of the negative reviews of this book seem to be based on people not being able to deal with the author’s (very clever) undercutting of long-held assumptions about who were the good guys in The Lord of the Rings. I found the text lively in terms of plot, inventive in terms of literature, and incisive in terms of geopolitics. A second reading was even better than the first go-round.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: This is a cut way above your typical fan fiction, satire, and fantasy lit in general....more

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Mar 29, 2011 Aedan Lake rated it 4 of 5 stars

Note... reading fan translation issued as a free PDF.

http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570...

Great fun - a revisionist Lord of the Rings set after the defeat of Mordor, in which two Mordorians (the Orc Ranger Tzerlag and Umbarian Field Medic Haladdin) embark on a desperate plan to save their homeland (and the world) from Elvish domination, against a backdrop of power plays by Aragorn, Faramir, Galadriel and other familiar characters.

Enjoyable for a shades-of-grey morality and the endless schemin...more Note... reading fan translation issued as a free PDF.

http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570...

Great fun - a revisionist Lord of the Rings set after the defeat of Mordor, in which two Mordorians (the Orc Ranger Tzerlag and Umbarian Field Medic Haladdin) embark on a desperate plan to save their homeland (and the world) from Elvish domination, against a backdrop of power plays by Aragorn, Faramir, Galadriel and other familiar characters.

Enjoyable for a shades-of-grey morality and the endless scheming of different factions in Gondor, Umbar and Lothlorien, the book is written partly as war story and partly as spy thriller (particularly book three, a convoluted battle of wits set in Umbar's capital city). Yeskov has fun playing with the familiar orcs, trolls, elves and Nazgul but resists a simple moral inversion: while the first book introduces a Mordor that is a bastion of scientific progress in a world of barbarians, pitted against an expansionist Gondor, this soon broken down as the intrigue kicks in and we learn more about the nations involved (and Aragorn, introduced as a ruthless scoundrel, develops quietly in the background into a competent and intelligent ruler).

The main focus of the book, however, is on new characters Tzerlag, Haladdin and Baron Tangorn, with a wide supporting cast drawn from across the reimagined Middle Earth - a world alive with peoples and nations who have their own ambitions, religions and prejucides. The viewpoint skips around dozens of the minor characters, allowing detailed insight into this fully-developed world and occasionally pulling back to an unnamed historian-narrator who details the causes of the War of the Ring (which include a disastrous agricultural policy which left Mordor barren and dependent on imports to feed itself) and summaries of the major battles. Yeskov also has fun with a couple of LotR's quirks - Faramir and Eowyn's marriage and departure to Ithilien becomes a major part of the plot rather than a simple tying-up of loose ends, while Celeborn's uselessness compared to the more dynamic Galadriel is also winked at.

Extremely engaging, and a fun twist on Tolkein's world and the fantasy tropes it introduced.

(Final note: there are some grammatical errors and awkward sentences, but considering that this a freely-distributed fan translation, commendably few - and the translator, Yisroel Markov, is working on an update and has already issued a few errata.)(less)

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Dec 17, 2012 Tim Byron rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is basically a sequel to Lord of the Rings told from the point of view of the other side, which basically paints Mordor as a place of science and learning which became a threat to the ignorant medieval elves who ran the place with magic (Yeskov paints Arwen as the power behind Aragorn's throne, for example). It was written by a Russian archaeologist and it really is a fascinating idea, really cleverly thought out. The idea of it - that Lord of the Rings is myth, and that there was a le...more

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Oct 03, 2012 Daniel rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Last Ringbearer is based on the premise that The Lord of the Rings was a history written by the victors, to make them look noble and justified in their actions. It is written as a revisionist history of the events following the War of the Ring.

It's a very different picture. Mordor had been a peaceful civilization, developing technology and on the verge of an industrial revolution. Barad-Dur was a thriving city of poets, writers, and intellectuals. Then the traditionalist forces of the west,...more The Last Ringbearer is based on the premise that The Lord of the Rings was a history written by the victors, to make them look noble and justified in their actions. It is written as a revisionist history of the events following the War of the Ring.

It's a very different picture. Mordor had been a peaceful civilization, developing technology and on the verge of an industrial revolution. Barad-Dur was a thriving city of poets, writers, and intellectuals. Then the traditionalist forces of the west, spearheaded by Gandalf, pushed Gondor and Mordor into war. It's very well done - the author has an excellent knowledge of Tolkien's world, and the War of the Ring, but paints an entirely new picture.

The main characters are Haladdin, a human Field Medic in the Mordorian army; Tzerlag, an Orcish scout, and Tangorn, a Gondorian noble. They are given a mission to try to stop the Elves from dominating middle-earth, so that humans, orcs, and trolls can live peacefully together and progress towards a technological civilization.

As a novel, it's a bit clunky in places; parts of it are somewhat anachronistic, even given the premise that it a modernistic, revisionist take on the Lord of the Rings. Parts are a bit difficult to follow - when the various secret services are battling it out in Umbar, I found it somewhat difficult to work out who was on which side. But, as a huge Tolkien fan since my early teens, I found it a fascinating take on the story, and I'll find it hard to think about Tolkien's world in the same way again.

The original is in Russian, by Kirill Eskov. It has been translated into English, and is downloadable here: http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/280578.... It's a fan translation - the author apparently has no intention to publish an official english translation, due to the litigious nature of the Tolkien estate. It's a sad indictment of modern copyright law that a work like this can't be published - LOTR has become a part of our culture's shared imagination, and these laws prevent us building freely on these shared ideas.(less)

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Dec 11, 2011 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

I thought this was a ripping good tale . It retells the LoTR from the perspective of Mordor and with a more realist spin on the world. Real politick is injected into Middle Earth and informs the actions of the nation states. Events aren't driven by some abstract sense of good and evil, but by realistic people making rational decisions in their own self interest. It gives the story a much more compelling thrust in my opinion. In this retelling orcs aren't doing evil for evil's sake (AKA: The Skel...more

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Apr 29, 2011 International Cat Lady rated it 5 of 5 stars

Absolutely brilliant! We've all heard that history is written by the victor. Well, imagine that The Lord of the Rings is a historical text written by the victors in the War of the Ring, and imagine that the absolute Good vs. Evil depicted in TLOTR is nothing but propaganda written by said victors to excuse/justify their acts. Russian scientist and author Kirill Eskov has written a brilliant reimagining of the War of the Ring (and the time following the defeat of Morder) from the point of view of...more Absolutely brilliant! We've all heard that history is written by the victor. Well, imagine that The Lord of the Rings is a historical text written by the victors in the War of the Ring, and imagine that the absolute Good vs. Evil depicted in TLOTR is nothing but propaganda written by said victors to excuse/justify their acts. Russian scientist and author Kirill Eskov has written a brilliant reimagining of the War of the Ring (and the time following the defeat of Morder) from the point of view of the Mordorians and their allies.

In this brilliant tale, 'orcs' and 'trolls' are merely other races of humans, and the notion of referring to them as horned, clawed, evil monsters was merely a way of justifying the 'final solution' to the Mordorian problem. Gandalf and Aragorn are power-hungry, manipulative types, who will do anything to control Middle Earth. They come from the backwards, superstitious North where 'magic' allows them to rule the day, and they are threatened by the advances in science and technology (not to mention rational thinking!) coming from the land of Mordor, where an industrial revolution is burgeoning. They make a rather foolish alliance with the Elves (who are, in fact, scheming to control all of mankind) in order to affect their 'final solution.' The tale of The Last Ringbearer begins as the survivors of the genocide in Morder come together to form a resistance...

I read the English translation by Yisroel Markov (which can be downloaded for free). It's quite a great translation, although while Markov has an impressive vocabulary and is accurately able to express Eskov's wit in English, he has some trouble with the past-perfect and present-prefect tenses, so that every now and then the reader is reminded that this translation was not done by a native English speaker. I'm an English teacher, so this sort of thing jumps out at me, although it did not affect my enjoyment of the book. I would like to read the original Russian version at some point.

It should be noted that this book will make a lot more sense to those who have read Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (or who have at least seen the movies). For someone who is unfamiliar with TLOTR, this book would undoubtedly be difficult to follow.(less)

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Andy Wixon Hey, Jane, I know you well enough to respect you (well, up to a point, there's that whole BSG vs Dr Who issue to take into account) but still I have t...more Hey, Jane, I know you well enough to respect you (well, up to a point, there's that whole BSG vs Dr Who issue to take into account) but still I have to say: Reality Check.

Five stars? Really? I downloaded this thing on your recommendation and even after only skimming through the first few chapters I'm getting a strong sense that this is junk.

Now I'm not saying that you can't do a good fantasy story which actually looks realistically at stuff like racism and propaganda and murky political choices, I wish people would do more of that kind of story and less of the plot-coupon-collecting let's-put-a-map-in-the-front-and-have-the-characters-visit-every-damn-place-on-it style of fantasy that clogs up so many bookshelves. I thought about writing something like that myself once.

But to put that kind of interpretation on Tolkien is just disrespectful. The implication is that LOTR is kind of simplistic at best and at worst actually racist in real-world terms (bad guys with black skins coming from countries with elephants, you know the usual stuff that gets trotted out). I think the Prof was specifically setting out to tell a story that did operate on the modern day political-social level, he was deliberately avoiding allegory and to turn LOTR into one on any level is just bad manners.

Also it may be just the translation but the book also seemed me to be kinda badly written with everyone in the Third Age of Middle-Earth talking like a blue-collar American from 2011 (another hallmark of crappy contemporary fantasy) - 'Sorry, but right now you're like a little kid, safer under supervision. Should
the Elves catch you, in fifteen minutes they'll know everything: how many in the group,
where headed and all that,' says an Orc, early on, while a bit later Gandalf - for crying out loud - says 'What the hell do they need it for?' I suppose you could argue that the clunky modern dialogue is an attempt to play up to the modern political realism and cynicism of the book, but, you know, it's still clunky.

The rest of it's not much better written with too many adverbs and the like (not to mention duff metaphors, chapter-long info-dumps and so on). I mean, there's much worse on the internet but thank God I didn't have to pay for this thing.

I am anticipating a response along the lines of 'read it properly before you diss it' but a) the concept seems to me to be fundamentally dubious and b) a quick look at the writing and dialogue has convinced me that the actual telling of the story is only borderline-competent.

So, in short - nothing against doing politically and culturally realistic and cynical fantasy, in fact I'm all for it, but, firstly, don't try to get cheap and easy name-recognition for your work by messing with the Prof and, secondly, learn your craft before unleashing a 260+ page book on the world (the second is probably aimed more at the translator, to be fair).

(Man, I've got a private class with a dude named Kirill this Monday. Hope it's not the same guy or that could be awkward.)(less)
Apr 30, 2011 08:46am

Mar 25, 2011 Richard Houchin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, spy-thriller

Great idea and concept. Using the saying "history is written by the victors" as a starting point for fan-fic is a solid base. This is a fun read if you keep in mind what you're reading. I like this book because its a testament to the times in which I live. A Russian (I don't speak Russian) used his spare time away from his day job to write a story in his native language. An American who speaks Russian used his lunch hours to translate this story into English. He then posted it on a blog as a .pd...more Great idea and concept. Using the saying "history is written by the victors" as a starting point for fan-fic is a solid base. This is a fun read if you keep in mind what you're reading. I like this book because its a testament to the times in which I live. A Russian (I don't speak Russian) used his spare time away from his day job to write a story in his native language. An American who speaks Russian used his lunch hours to translate this story into English. He then posted it on a blog as a .pdf. A denizen of the Internet found the .pdf and used open source programs to convert into an e-book format that the Kindle can read.

I click a link, download a file to my Kindle, and just like that I can read an amusing little story that 10 years ago I would never have had a chance to encounter, short of learning another language or becoming good friends with a native speaker.

I'd never thought about viewing the terms 'orc' and 'troll' as solely ethnic slurs -- orcs and trolls in this story are just foreigners. Of course, the stories (Lord of the Rings) told by the in-group cast the foreigners in monstrous lights. Certainly believable in our world.

The whole spy-novel/Bourne identity/cloak and dagger plot is amusing, but out of place. I feel like Eskov didn't go as far as he should have. Why make only some of the mythology of Lord of the Rings realistic? Why not do away with the magic and supernatural aspect entirely -- it could have been done. Instead Eskov grounds most of the story in gritty realism, with biological, chemical, and physical laws, and then leaves pieces of the story teetering over a precipice of magic and 'wizards done it'.

Of course, that's the premise of the whole plot: that the world is poorly balanced between 'magic' and 'reality.' The forces of magic want to collapse reality and fold it into the chaos of magic, and the forces of Reason want to banish 'magic' into the realm of myth and stories, to allow reason and order to proceed unhindered.

I'm not sure that the relationship between story plot and writing style is deliberate. I certainly think it could have been handled more adroitly.

There are other issues with the writing, but I don't know if they are the fault of the author or the translator. Every character speaks exactly the same as every other character, and modern slang infects everyone's speech. Aragorn calls Arwen 'babe' and refers to his soldiers as 'you guys'. It definitely makes the story harder to read.

Still, keep in mind what it is and where it came from, and take nothing for granted, and you might have a good time.(less)

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Mar 06, 2011 Tatiana rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, fanfic

I want to thank Terence for putting his soul in my soul's stead, so to speak, by finding and reading this book for me, so I don't have to. His analysis is so accurate and detailed (though I did bite the bullet and read it myself last night) that I won't even try to go into any depth about it, other than to say I completely agree that this isn't worth reading, and that the story isn't really worthy of the grandeur of the setting, and could easily have been set in any other fictional world like Du...more I want to thank Terence for putting his soul in my soul's stead, so to speak, by finding and reading this book for me, so I don't have to. His analysis is so accurate and detailed (though I did bite the bullet and read it myself last night) that I won't even try to go into any depth about it, other than to say I completely agree that this isn't worth reading, and that the story isn't really worthy of the grandeur of the setting, and could easily have been set in any other fictional world like Dumas' France or indeed Le Carre's England.

But, for me there's a but, because I read the guy's article about why he wrote it first, and came to like him from that, I read it not as I read a book by a new author but something like the way I'd read fanfic written by a friend, with much, much lower expectations, in other words, and on that level I found it clever and funny. I interpreted the over-the-top metaphors as deliberate parodies of pot-boiler writing style, and cracked up about them. The juxtaposition of spy thriller style with Tolkien characters I found fairly entertaining for most of the book.

I did have a hard time keeping the characters straight mostly because their internal voices seemed identical to each other man, troll, or orc. The creepy attitude toward women is what I'm guessing bad potboilers display, since the main love interest is very clever and powerful, and not a dumb blonde type, so it doesn't seem to be coming from the author.

There was one theme with which I did resonate, and which made me feel that some book of this sort this wasn't out of place: namely Tolkien didn't like technology, or rather, he liked technology right up to what existed (I'm guessing) in rural England in the time of his youth: waterwheels, wheelbarrows, hand tools, umbrellas, and not at all anything that came later such as the internal combustion engine (for those of us without handy waterfalls). He was quite against, say, the use of bombers in WW2, and thought the very idea was horrific, like the winged mounts of the Nazgul or something, as he wrote to his son Christopher.

And that needs an answer, I think. All the baddies in Tolkien's books use engines, steam, higher technology, and the goodguys have magic, sweetly babbling brooks, and such for their weapons of defense. Our world here has definitely plumped for the higher-tech vision, and I wouldn't have it any other way. So I liked the fact that science, which is really such a glorious pursuit, so much higher than the magic which was its predecessor in power in our human minds, perhaps, I liked that it was cast as the good-guy in this manuscript.

As for the rest, well I spent one night at it and didn't count it wasted. I think this was way better than, say, David Brin whose dreck I tried to wade through a while back; a terrible writer! But I can't actually recommend it to anyone else. As an amusement between friends I thought it was funny and clever. I did want to know what happened. But compared with real books by real writers, not so much. (less)

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Matt Tatiana: I'm not saying you can't make a convincing rebuttle of Tolkien's Luddite tendencies, or that they aren't there, I'm merely saying that you ca...more
Mar 07, 2011 11:57am

Tatiana Maybe he would, though heating up the water in kettles over a fire or stove burns wood or coal, either of which isn't so great, environmentally speaki...more
Mar 07, 2011 12:31pm

Feb 28, 2011 Christopher rated it 4 of 5 stars

Take the Lord of the Rings, add the premise that "History is written by the victors," and consider further that:

* The elves are generally considered dangerous and untrustworthy
* The riders of Rohan are basically illiterate peasants, albeit very dangerous ones
* There is indication that Mordor has something to do with technological advances

This tale begins with a Mordorian military scouting unit that was out of contact at the time of the destruction of Sauron's forces. In keeping with "History wri...more

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Mar 08, 2012 heidi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fanfic, fantasy, wiscon

(I am humbled by the amount of love and devotion it takes to 1) Write a novel-length transformational/derivative work 2) Translate it into another language.)

This is one of the books I read for the Good Books panel at FOGcon. I would not have if it hadn't been an "assignment", and I'm glad I did. It is interesting and varied. There is a story about strategic war decisions, and a story about spycraft, and a story about weapons design, and a palace intrigue story, and an overarching story of compet...more (I am humbled by the amount of love and devotion it takes to 1) Write a novel-length transformational/derivative work 2) Translate it into another language.)

This is one of the books I read for the Good Books panel at FOGcon. I would not have if it hadn't been an "assignment", and I'm glad I did. It is interesting and varied. There is a story about strategic war decisions, and a story about spycraft, and a story about weapons design, and a palace intrigue story, and an overarching story of competing technologies and the virtue of persistence and redundant planning.

At times, I was reminded of WWII desert rat movies, and of Robert Jordan, and Tom Clancy, and the Scarlet Pimpernel, and Churchill. This is a good thing.

Like all the best transformational literature, it is a good story in itself, and it inverts and twists your understanding of the original text. And I will confess. I only sort of love the original text. I read it once, when I was that age, but never really felt called to go back to it. A lot of what I was thinking about when I read it was the movies, which also worked.

This is a like the Middle-Earth version of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

I have a lot of thinkful thoughts about the racial representations, and history being written by the victors, and resistance movements, but I think I will handwave at them for now.

A note on the translation: I don't read Russian, so I have no idea how true it is to tone and quality, but the language is very very unlike Tolkien, probably deliberately. It is more colloquial and modern, which suits the pov of the characters as not deliberately embracing archaic and courtly language. There are a couple times when I was thrown out of the text by "you guys" type things, but it was not a dealbreaker by any means, and on the whole, I did not spend all my time thinking about the fact that this was a text in translation.

Read if: You liked the original and/or war books -- this is absolutely a war book, and war is hell. You wonder about the motivations of the elves. You wanted a less valorous and courtly world. You would like to read about metaphysics.

Skip if: You will be put out that neither the elves nor Aragorn appear in a very nice light. You hate political intrigue novels. You dislike sprawling multi-storyline stories.

Notes:
* If you are going to read this, get a GOOD Middle-Earth map. You'll thank me later.
* I have converted this to .epub. The diacriticals got lost, but otherwise I am pretty happy with it. If you can't read .pdfs on your mobile device, let me know, and I will give you the epub(less)

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Apr 24, 2013 Brittany Cormier rated it 2 of 5 stars

For a fan translated free PDF it was pretty good.

Like a lot of people I liked the concept more than the actually pay off. The most enjoyable parts were the the plot lines and characters I was already familiar with.

Highlights:

Faramir being the main "hero" out of the original cast of characters.

Eowyn being illiterate and Faramir reading to her. Very realistic actually.

Aragorn being a power hungry scoundrel, and an evil bastard in general.

Saruman giving Gandalf his white cloak, because he knows...more

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Apr 17, 2013 Ross Lockhart rated it 2 of 5 stars

The idea behind Kirill Yeskov's The Last Ringbearer is killer: Retell The Lord of the Rings from a Mordorian perspective. And at times, this tale comes close to living up to the promise of this premise. Mordor is a fallen superpower, its industrial riches and technological innovation stripped and stolen by the Elven victors in the War of the Rings, and the hapless Orc medic Haladin seems set to be a compelling protagonist as he begins his Nazgûl-given quest, the object of which is a Mission: Imp...more

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Nov 21, 2012 Greymalkin rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: scifi-fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 25, 2012 Jakub rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's not the best prose ever - but hey, author himself warns that he doesn't consider him a proper writer. Fair's fair - I still think it deserves those five stars :)

I liked the idea, I liked the execution. If I were to nitpick: most of the this book's characters that are also present in The Lord of the Rings are channeling same mixture of disdain and nonchalance. "Hey, I seemed really silly in that other book, so here I'll act cool and seem really smart". But like I said, it's just a smaller ni...more

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May 13, 2012 Andrew G. Gibson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Even if your familiarity with Tolkein's Middle Earth is restricted to watching Peter Jackson's films (which I regard as more worthwhile than the books, at any rate) you will definitely get something from this.

Finally, something to do with the Lord of the Rings universe with which I can engage. Before I was resigned to opining, in a manner which was unwittingly hipster and irritating, "I actually prefer The Silmarillion". It's a re-imagining of the LOTR universe from a stance of rigour which ext...more

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Sep 15, 2012 Ray Blaak rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Excellent, required reading for LoTR fans, a wonderful "Real Politik" antidote to the unquestioning heroic stances of LoTR characters.

For example, hobbits are hardly mentioned, Elves are assholes, Wizards are devious and untrustworthy, Orcs are effective soldiers, Mordor is the secular jewel of the world, the main character is a regular human using science to get things done.

In other words, imagine a more balanced point of for interpreting the state of affairs in Middle Earth.

Some commenters co...more

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Mar 06, 2011 Terence rated it 1 of 5 stars

Recommended to Terence by: Referred by Doug

Shelves: sf-fantasy, tolkieniana

Saying that The Last Ringbearer is The Lord of the Rings told from Mordor’s point of view is not entirely accurate. True, the principal characters are an army medic and scout of Mordor and an erstwhile Ranger of Ithilien but all the action takes place after the War of the Ring. Middle Earth is recast as Europe during the Cold War, with Gondor and Mordor assuming the roles of the superpowers. The “magic” of Tolkien’s vision becomes window dressing, and the novel reads more like John Le Carré fanf...more

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Aug 31, 2012 Nicholas Karpuk rated it 1 of 5 stars

Where's the line between fan fiction and work inspired by another author's work?

I would argue it comes down to tone. The early Wicked books gained a lot of critical respect because they brought a serious, solemn attitude and a great deal of political weight to a light hearted children's tale.

The opposite can also hold true in homage. If you can create a work whose style accurately recreates a work of a previous era, it can be fun to pretend you're reading some lost work.

Perhaps it's the transla...more

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Aug 29, 2012 Daemondice marked it as to-read · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jul 19, 2011 James Spurrier rated it 2 of 5 stars

Yeah, definitely not all it could've been. The concept was intriguing, but the long middle portion detailing the Gondorian spy's adventures in Umbar could've easily been tied to the main plot a lot more. Stylistically it was a bit of a mish-mash, with lots of odd real-world digressions and misprecisions of language (ex: A character is described in-text as having a "Nordic" complexion, even though nobody in Middle Earth would use that adjective, or even know what it means, since there are no "Nor...more

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Jun 10, 2012 Jrubino rated it 4 of 5 stars

My first thought was “Not another writer so devoid of ideas that he has to ‘borrow’ The Lord of the Rings mythology.” In the first 5 pages, the dread set in. Yet, I continued, and I’m so glad I did.

This novel has a great sense of detail. It mixes realism and magical elements with ease. It’s political. It’s funny. At times it reads like a documentary. The mixture of these elements is blended perfectly.

This novel turns Tolkien’s original perspective upside down. Throughout the novel, I kept rememb...more

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Feb 17, 2011 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

A must-read for Lord of the Rings junkies. What if LOTR was merely the whitewashed story of the War of the Ring as told by the victors? This is the story of that war from the Southern and Eastern perspective...along with a new post-war quest. At points it gets a bit too obsessed with technical detail, but overall it's an engrossing new take on Middle Earth.

Read Salon's review of the book: http://www.salon.com/books/laura_mill...

Download the free official pdf: http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/27057 ...more

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May 03, 2013 Aaron Wallentine rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who's read any Tolkien

I loved this book. The beginning moved a bit slow, and there were a lot of typos / awkward translations in the first edition (haven't checked out the second edition yet), but definitely worth the read.

In my mind, it adds a lot of missing depth to JRR Tolkien's world. Why do all "orcs" have to be evil? And what really goes on in Mordor, and other places outside of the Shire / Lothlorien / Rohan / Gondor? The rest of the world always seemed woefully empty and underdeveloped. This really goes a far...more

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May 16, 2013 Katrin rated it 4 of 5 stars

what a book.. this is only for the open-minded tolkien reader, otherwise you might get offended, haha. the story after the war of the ring, told from the side that lost the war. it was a joy to read it. get to know the other side of the heroes of the lord of the rings and be astonished, how one story always can be told in very different ways. it was sometimes a bit difficult for me to follow the story, so one star less. the author is no writer, he warns us, and sometimes that is evident. but sti...more

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Aug 14, 2011 Eric Fredricksen rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read the PDF fanslation: http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570...

I really enjoyed the recasting of Lord of the Rings events into a more realist world, initially especially. But Part III was a confusing spy story that I think would be reasonable to just skip. Not that it was bad, but it has nothing to do with why you'd pick up this book (er, PDF).

But worth reading at least to the point of loss of interest (if any) just for the novelty.

Oh - the translation needs a good thorough bit of editing, b...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Tony Calder rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

History is written by the winners - that is the central theme of this book. I had the impression, before starting this, that this was the story of the War of the Ring, as told from the perspective of Mordor and, to an extent, that's what it is. Because for most of the Lord of the Rings, the War of the Ring hasn't really started. The actual battle part of the war doesn't really start until Helm's Deep.

This story starts with the Battle of Pelennor Field, and the actual war, as told by Tolkien, is...more

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Jul 01, 2012 Deadwish rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasía

Advertencia: ningún fanático ortodoxo de Tolkien debe acercarse a este libro.
Ahora sí, pasemos a mi opinión personal.
"Si la historia la escriben los que ganan, eso quiere decir que hay otra historia"
Este libro aporta una mirada diferente a la Tierra Media. Por suerte (y en algunos momentos por desgracia) el autor no intenta emular el estilo de Tolkien. La novela está escrita con un lenguaje actual, y abundan los insultos y alguna que otra alusión sexual. La idea es interesante, los personajes ta...more

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Sep 17, 2011 Dave Jones rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, ebooks

First of all, this was my first book read entirely from my phone. There wasn't much choice really. I downloaded this book from either Lifehacker or HowtoGeek in the pdf format. Given my tendency to read just before bedtime, there were not many options.

I downloaded the novel because I was intrigued by the premise: describing a contemporary "counter-story" to The Lord of the Rings told from the perspective of the "losers." Yeskov creates an imaginative story full of various plots and sub-plots. M...more

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Nov 20, 2011 Jon Williams rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Last Ringbearer is an interesting book. On the surface, it is a continuation of The Lord of the Rings, with the story starting just after the end of The Return of the King. The twist: it is told from the perspective of a couple of soldiers from the vanquished Mordorian army. As such, its story is markedly different from that told by J.R.R. Tolkien. Orcs and trolls aren't monsters, they're simply other races of humanity. Elves aren't benevolent protectors of Middle Earth, they're aliens from...more The Last Ringbearer is an interesting book. On the surface, it is a continuation of The Lord of the Rings, with the story starting just after the end of The Return of the King. The twist: it is told from the perspective of a couple of soldiers from the vanquished Mordorian army. As such, its story is markedly different from that told by J.R.R. Tolkien. Orcs and trolls aren't monsters, they're simply other races of humanity. Elves aren't benevolent protectors of Middle Earth, they're aliens from a parallel world bent on conquering this one. Aragorn isn't Isuldir's heir, he's just another power-hungry man who was smart enough to tell the right story at the right time.

The book breaks down into essentially three main sections and an epilog. I say essentially, as Eskov divided the work into four sections, but the first two follow a similar path and style, so I view them as one. During this first section, Eskov both introduces his heros and updates the reader on the "real" history of the War of the Ring. It is also a thinly-veiled critique of Western domination of the past several hundred years of our own history. In it, Eskov describes Mordor as an enlightened, mostly peaceful, desert kingdom on the path towards an industrial revolution. They have universities filled with scholars studying physics, chemistry, and mathematics. They are, unfortunately, completely dependent on other kingdoms for food. Gondor and Rohan, on the other hand, are backwards, agrarian, and feudal, yet through the assistance of the Elves and most of the wizards of the White Council, they managed to conquer the technologically superior Mordorians. In the process, they threaten to destroy centuries of accumulated knowledge. Of the three sections, the first is the most expertly wrought. Eskov does a wonderful job twisting the familiar Lord of the Rings story. Not only does he convey an interesting story in its own right, he also manages to put forth a convincing second side to the victor's history.

The second and third sections tell the actual story, wherein Field Medic Haladdin, an unlikely hero, accepts a quest from a mystical being to venture deep into the enemy's heartland and destroy their powerful weapon. Sound familiar? As with the Lord of the Rings, the hero's compatriots come from a broad, and mismatched, swath of Middle Earth: an Orcish sergeant, a Haradian scholar become field medic, a Gondorian baron who was also a master spy for Gondorian intelligence before and during the War. The second section covers Baron Tangorn's cloak-and-dagger mission in the South, while the third covers Sergeant Tzerlag and Field Medic Haladdin's mission to enter the Elven stronghold of Lorien.

As entertaining and interesting as the story is, the execution is uneven. Eskov devotes nearly 1/2 of the book to introducing characters and filling in backstories. In this section, he not only goes into detail on the storyline itself, but he brings in flashbacks from the main characters' pasts to round them out. Characters have names that are at least plausible within the realm of Middle Earth. The second section takes roughly another third, and while the story remains engaging, the style starts to unravel. Dialog shifts from Middle Earth to Modern Earth, and character naming style changes from Tzerlag and Tangorn to Cheetah and Jacuzzi. In the third section, Eskov appears to simply run out of steam. Instead of the dense, careful, detailed prose of the first section, the final section is a muddle of rapid-fire events that give the appearance of a student who has just realized that, after spending ten pages restating the question on an essay test, he only has two sheets of paper left in which to provide the answer.

The epilog reads as if Eskov had a definite message in mind when he started, but feels that message didn't quite get conveyed in the story, and therefore decided to bludgeon the reader. Mordor is the Middle East, Harad Africa, Hakimianism Islam, etc. Eskov spells it all out in embarrassing detail, even inventing a new people, the Amengians, to represent Americans. If you choose to read The Last Ringbearer, and I recommend you do, the epilog can be skipped without losing any important detail, and doing so may well leave you with a better impression of the book.(less)

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