The Great Tolkien Reread leaves Rivendell with "The Ring Goes South". In which the fellowship is finally formed, some new characters get to struct their stuff, and we are reminded that nature in Middle Earth is sometimes a character in its own right.

I confess, my first thought when I heard about this project was "why would you ever need another Sense & Sensibility when the 1995 film version exists?" But even allowing for that prejudice going in, this trailer makes the film look ugly and dull. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcrw...

I'm overall pretty mid on Dispatch, but I hatehatehate that the main character's two romanceable options are a) his boss, and b) his direct report, who is doing this job as a last step before prison. (Also they are both het pairings, but it was clear from early on that this game was Like That.)

The Great Tolkien Reread leaves Rivendell with "The Ring Goes South". In which the fellowship is finally formed, some new characters get to struct their stuff, and we are reminded that nature in Middle Earth is sometimes a character in its own right.

The problem with coming back to House of the Dragon after two years is that in that time, you forget that it's possible to spend eight figures on an episode of television and still produce something that looks like grey, murky shit.

The Great Tolkien Reread leaves Rivendell with "The Ring Goes South". In which the fellowship is finally formed, some new characters get to struct their stuff, and we are reminded that nature in Middle Earth is sometimes a character in its own right.

UPDATE: The Strange Horizons fund-drive has completed one week; we're just over 70% base funded. Still a LOT of rewards left to pick up: signed book bundles by your favourite authors, patches, SH wallpaper, and some surprise add-ons coming up. Back us here: www.backerkit.com/c/projects/s...

I understand that people are enjoying the schadenfreude for Netanyahu but this is ultimately a bad development where the Lebanese government is cut out of the loop, handing the keys to Lebanon back to Tehran.

Me for 10+yrs: After 9/11, the US left abandoned foreign policy as dirty, and as a result the right dominates that idea sphere My feed for 3 days: how dare a vassal not do as we say! US money means you have to obey, regardless of security considerations or domestic politics! Me: ...as I was saying

The Great Tolkien Reread leaves Rivendell with "The Ring Goes South". In which the fellowship is finally formed, some new characters get to struct their stuff, and we are reminded that nature in Middle Earth is sometimes a character in its own right.

I make my @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org debut this week with a review of Francis Spufford's Nonesuch, a story about magic in WWII London that remains fascinated with the war (and its most esoteric corners) while telling a rollicking fantasy tale. ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2026/06/17/l...

News: THE FIFTH INFLECTION (formerly THE SENTENCE, in India) now has a cover - and it’s available for pre-order across the world! Get it here: www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Fi...

I make my @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org debut this week with a review of Francis Spufford's Nonesuch, a story about magic in WWII London that remains fascinated with the war (and its most esoteric corners) while telling a rollicking fantasy tale. ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2026/06/17/l...

I get that this is funny and god knows Riklin deserves it. But it might have been more useful to say that channel 14 - which doesn't turn a profit - is funded by American interests. And before it, a free, pro-Bibi daily newspaper funded by the Adelsons that killed several others more critical of him

The Great Tolkien Reread leaves Rivendell with "The Ring Goes South". In which the fellowship is finally formed, some new characters get to struct their stuff, and we are reminded that nature in Middle Earth is sometimes a character in its own right.

The Great Tolkien Reread leaves Rivendell with "The Ring Goes South". In which the fellowship is finally formed, some new characters get to struct their stuff, and we are reminded that nature in Middle Earth is sometimes a character in its own right.

I love the tricks that filmmakers pull to avoid having older actors do anything potentially injurious while shooting. Yeah, the camera on Widow's Bay just happens to cut off Ruth's head in this one scene so we can't see that it isn't actually ninety-year-old K Callan running up a flight of stairs.

The Great Tolkien Reread leaves Rivendell today with "The Ring Goes South". In which the fellowship is finally formed, some new characters get to struct their stuff, and we are reminded that nature in Middle Earth is sometimes a character in its own right. wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-...

The Great Tolkien Reread leaves Rivendell today with "The Ring Goes South". In which the fellowship is finally formed, some new characters get to struct their stuff, and we are reminded that nature in Middle Earth is sometimes a character in its own right. wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-...

Gotta say that @casella.bsky.social is making a very strong case for deserving a Hugo Award win. This is a really excellent podcast episode.

24-hour-update: Thanks to your generosity, we've raised $9635 already: some way to our base goal of $22K, and to our overall goal of $30K in order to keep our writers' pay at 10c/word. Our next milestone is $10K, to unlock a new poem. Get us there: www.backerkit.com/c/projects/s...

The Great Tolkien Reread is still discussing "The Council of Elrond". This essay is about hope and despair in LOTR, and the story's religious subtext (or, well, text). Also, why you should never ask "why couldn't the eagles take the Ring to Mordor?"

A pill that some people on my feed might find hard to swallow: rejecting the blood-and-soil nationalism that underpins a lot of "authentic" food discourse also means you should not dismiss all Israeli food culture (for that matter, all Israeli culture) as fake and stolen.

A reminder: Strange Horizons has no external funding, and runs entirely on community funding, through the fund-drive. Quite literally, our future is in your hands. We hope to be with you for our 27th year. Support us here: www.backerkit.com/c/projects/s...

This is basically the only food opinion I will tolerate anymore. If you're going around saying "the food in [a nation of millions] is all bad", you are either a fool or a liar, and either way I'll happily take the dishes you won't eat.

Further to using one of his paintings as an illustration for this week's Great Tolkien Reread post, here is a discussion of the inimitable Tolkien fan artist Cor Blok, with quotes from his book A Tolkien Tapestry and tons of reprints of his art.

My library unexpectedly acquired licenses for thousands of comics and graphic novels yesterday. So on a lark, I read some of the recent Star Trek comics. Nothing really did it for me, but I did really appreciate this page in which Shaxs, from Lower Decks, delivers a beatdown.

The Great Tolkien Reread is still discussing "The Council of Elrond". This essay is about hope and despair in LOTR, and the story's religious subtext (or, well, text). Also, why you should never ask "why couldn't the eagles take the Ring to Mordor?"

Further to using one of his paintings as an illustration for this week's Great Tolkien Reread post, here is a discussion of the inimitable Tolkien fan artist Cor Blok, with quotes from his book A Tolkien Tapestry and tons of reprints of his art.

I have reached That Chapter in The Return of the King

I have reached That Chapter in The Return of the King

The Great Tolkien Reread is still discussing "The Council of Elrond". This essay is about hope and despair in LOTR, and the story's religious subtext (or, well, text). Also, why you should never ask "why couldn't the eagles take the Ring to Mordor?"

Further to using one of his paintings as an illustration for this week's Great Tolkien Reread post, here is a discussion of the inimitable Tolkien fan artist Cor Blok, with quotes from his book A Tolkien Tapestry and tons of reprints of his art.

The Great Tolkien Reread is still discussing "The Council of Elrond". This essay is about hope and despair in LOTR, and the story's religious subtext (or, well, text). Also, why you should never ask "why couldn't the eagles take the Ring to Mordor?"

Strangely compelling art. The image of the ents marching on Isengard is unsettling.

The Great Tolkien Reread is still discussing "The Council of Elrond". This essay is about hope and despair in LOTR, and the story's religious subtext (or, well, text). Also, why you should never ask "why couldn't the eagles take the Ring to Mordor?"

Further to using one of his paintings as an illustration for this week's Great Tolkien Reread post, here is a discussion of the inimitable Tolkien fan artist Cor Blok, with quotes from his book A Tolkien Tapestry and tons of reprints of his art. www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2026/06/tolk...

Oh man, this one really hurts. Thank you for Giles, and then for decades of playing oily bastards who were nothing like Giles and clearly having a ball with that. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Not that long ago, a bunch of people I follow approvingly quoted an essay by a Platner supporter who handwaved the Nazi tattoo because “he obviously didn’t know what it was”. Any of you guys want to say something now?

This 👇

The Great Tolkien Reread is still discussing "The Council of Elrond" today. This essay is about hope and despair in LOTR, and the story religious subtext (or, well, text). Also, why you should never ask "why couldn't the eagles take the Ring to Mordor?" wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-...

Really enjoyed this, and was also reminded of @goldwagnathan.bsky.social's discussion of moral choices and magic being related to one another in LOTR.

This series is great, and is particularly doing a fantastic job of highlighting things which are not the usual fare in discussions of what is IMO one of the most significant novels of the modern Western canon. Absolutely worth reading

The Great Tolkien Reread is still discussing "The Council of Elrond" today. This essay is about hope and despair in LOTR, and the story religious subtext (or, well, text). Also, why you should never ask "why couldn't the eagles take the Ring to Mordor?" wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-...

@lawgunsmoney.bsky.social is having its annual fund drive. If you’d like me to keep posting random opinions and recommendations on one of the last surviving blogs on the internet, please consider donating. www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2026/06/have...

-Meander, Spiral, Explode mentioned -Star Wars' droid ethics critiqued -Turdus migratorious & Roy Batty appearances What else could it be: @premeemohamed.com joins to discuss Gene Wolfe's THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS!

The Great Tolkien Reread returns with the first of two discussions of "The Council of Elrond". In this essay, we consider LOTR's attitude towards knowledge and the pursuit of it - does taking a thing apart to find out what it is make one a fool?

Hamnet: I was feeling sorry for this lady until she started talking loudly in the theater.

Follow-up now that I've watched the whole season: I still think that overall this is one of the best shows of the year, but there's no denying that the second half of the show is weaker than the first.

If you love Tolkien (as I do) then you can never say that a conservative can't make great art. But there's more than one kind of conservative, and the kinds of arts they make often reflect those differences very powerfully.