Wait I thought he was dead!
No, just kidding, he’s been gone for a long time, but his son has been working on this.
from yahoo.com:
New Tolkien book to be published next month: report
Sun Mar 25, 5:44 PM ET
An unfinished book by “Lord of the Rings” author J.R.R. Tolkien, which was completed by his son, will go on sale on next month, a newspaper said.
“The Children of Hurin”, which Tolkien began in 1918, will be in bookshops on April 17, the Independent on Sunday added. The author’s son, Christopher, spent 30 years completing the story from the many drafts produced by his father.
Publisher HarperCollins is keeping exact details of the story under close wraps but its description as “an epic story of adventure, tragedy, fellowship and heroism” will be familiar to the legions of Tolkien fans.
Artist Alan Lee has provided 25 pencil sketches and eight paintings for the book.
Lee won an Oscar for art direction on Peter Jackson’s “The Return of the King”, the third blockbuster film based on the “Lord of Rings” trilogy that brought the stories to a worldwide audience.
“The Children of Hurin” is the first “new” Tolkien book since a collection of his works — “The Silmarillion” — was published posthumously in 1977, four years after the writer’s death. It was also edited by Christopher Tolkien.
The chairman of the Tolkien Society, Chris Crawshaw, was quoted by the Independent on Sunday as saying: “It (‘The Children of Hurin’) would probably make a very good movie, if anyone can secure the film rights.”
That last quote was the Tolkien people screaming for someone to buy out the rights to this movie…and fast!
–Socram
PS I was talking to my mom through e-mail about the book, and I was telling her that it probably has nothing to do with the Lord of the Ring, and she corrected me saying that the Hurin is part of the Dwarf mythology. First of all I didn’t know Peanut was in the Lord of the Ring and second, she should know about the Lord of the Ring seeing that she read the books at least once every year since before I was born.
Neat. This is certainly the time to release it, as awareness of the LOTR series has never been higher.
And really, a lot of the thanks goes to Peter Jackson. New Line should pay him, dammit!
Awesome, your mom’s a geek. Mine is a librarian, so she’s probably read the books too, but probably doesn’t remember the details (she’s read so many books!). 😀
yeah, its great that they are coming out with this now, it’ll sell huge if they advertise it just right!
On second thought, maybe I’m not too thrilled about Sam Raimi doing the new LOTR movie. Bring back Peter Jackson!