[Estelyn Telcontar]

I've been plowing my way through Tolkien's book on the film, though I must confess, it's such tedious reading at times that I only manage about a chapter a week! I've made it to the big battle of Gondor, and I can understand that the author gives the characters more background and depth - after all, that's what we look for in a movie book, right? Problem is, he goes way farther than that - he adds so many absolutely useless characters, naming some of them only once or twice. How on earth are we supposed to keep track of them, let alone care enough about them to even remember them?

I mean, names like "Forlong the Fat", "Bergil", "Dúnhere, lord of Harrowdale", and even another prince, "Imrahil" to confuse things even more. And then there's a funny old crone in the hospital called Ioreth, who appears to be the fill-in for Gimli's missing comic relief. Really, couldn't Tolkien have gotten the Dwarf in there somehow instead of muddling things up with more new characters?! (Aside from the fact that if he was going to add another female, he could have made her a better role model for his feminine readers!)

You'd really think the publishers would have taken the time to go through the manuscript with a red pen, eliminating all of the unnecessary names. Weren't they thinking of the readers at all??!!