Yes, Shev has always been this cool.

I'm not as old as those two geezers talking about LotR, but I agree with them. Never read the simulacrum (or whatever it's called) tho. Should I?

imo, only if youre a tolkien world nut. or an aspiring christian. its got a pretty sweet creation story, but it also gets pretty slow.

it basically describes the entire world, how it came to existence, how the lucifer-type figure rebelled, tempted the elves away, how the humans were introduced later.

just dont expect to be carried through by momentum. the stories constantly jump from 40 page long awesome ones to 5 page long wtf ones to 500 years later. and you have to read it several times before you get a decent grasp of the history of the first and second ages. there is a shit-ton of historical geography and historical figures that you might have seen mentioned in one or two phrases from the trilogy.

so basically, if youre hardcore, go for it. its a good testing ground. i didnt make it through on my first try in high school, and was just like wtf is this.

if you want to delve a little* deeper into tolkiens world, theres a good stand-alone book that his son released recent-ish that expounds on one of those 40-page stories from the silmarillion (jrr's son basically waded through thousands of pages of notes and brought together some of these untold stories). anyways, try: "the children of hurin". very tragic story. btw, most of the silmarillion is tragic in nature, not many happy endings... it basically paves the way for the trilogy, where the feelgood ending finally happens.

i didn't realize how many people can't discern between an arrest and a conviction...additionally i made the false assumption that people were innocent until proven guilty in a court of law

"...in a court of law"

You might have missed that part.

yeah what monte said, if you cut out "aspiring christian". cause i feel that tolkiens creation story has far more common ground with germanic mythology than with christianity.

one thing is for sure though. harry potter is a much easier read.

ill trust you on that one shev. tolkien was a beast in scandanavian/germanic/northerneuro mythology. and prob was bad of me to suggest the christian thing. i lol'd at his response to the media demanding to know what the symbolism of the ring was. some demanded that it was sin, some demanded it was the atomic bomb, and in the end he was just like FUUUUUUUUUUUU, its just a goddamn ring!!!

The ring was power....nothing more/nothing less