aaronj21's Reviews (912)

An epic book from the late great master of fantasy. Tolkien knew his mythology and his sagas so he took the best story elements from his vast knowledge and crafted his own masterpiece set in his own fantasy world. Yes it's a little slow at first (Middle Earth book of Genesis), yes there are dozens of very tricky names to keep track of (and everyone's children have names very near their parents 'Halmir, Hareth, Hurin, Huror' etc.) and yes it's mostly about immortal elves so you're stuck with some of the same people screwing up in the exact same way for literally hundreds of years (sons of Fëanor *cough*cough*) but it's also extremely interesting, well written, and so much fun. Tolkien was a master world builder and this was his favorite work, the saga and history that sets the stage for the events of Lord of the Rings (Please Amazon, do not mess this up with your ambitious, read fool-hardy, planned original series, I'm begging you!) .