Katie's review
Meditations on Middle Earth: New Writing on the Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien by Orson Scott Card, Ursula K. Le Guin, Raymond E. Feist, Terry Pratchett, Charles de Lint, George R. R. Martin, and more by John Howe
I was hoping this book would be writings set in the worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien by famous SFF writers. I would love to see what further adventures George R.R. Martin's could dream up for Aragorn (AKA Jenny's babysitter), Legolas and Gimli!
But, alas, this was not that book. This book was dry, dry, dry uber-academic essays. Here's a sample sentence from Ursula K. LeGuin's piece "Rhythmic Pattern in the Lord of the Rings: "In poetry, the normal ration is about 50 percent: that is, by and large, in poetry, one syllable out of two has a beat on it: Tum ta Tum ta ta Tum Tum, etc... In narrative, that ratio goes down to one beat in two to four: ta Tum tatty Tum ta Tum tatatty, etc... In dicursive and technical writing, only every fourth or fifth syllable may get beat; textbook prose tends to hobble along clogged by a superfluity of egregiously unnecessary and understressed polysyllables."
Le Guin moves from a lovely anecdote of reading "The Lord of the Rings&q...more
But, alas, this was not that book. This book was dry, dry, dry uber-academic essays. Here's a sample sentence from Ursula K. LeGuin's piece "Rhythmic Pattern in the Lord of the Rings: "In poetry, the normal ration is about 50 percent: that is, by and large, in poetry, one syllable out of two has a beat on it: Tum ta Tum ta ta Tum Tum, etc... In narrative, that ratio goes down to one beat in two to four: ta Tum tatty Tum ta Tum tatatty, etc... In dicursive and technical writing, only every fourth or fifth syllable may get beat; textbook prose tends to hobble along clogged by a superfluity of egregiously unnecessary and understressed polysyllables."
Le Guin moves from a lovely anecdote of reading "The Lord of the Rings&q...more
