Newly translated book telling Lord of the Rings from the bad guys' point of view

[Forlong the Fat]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

So...ummm...Forlong. I take it you didn't care for the book then? Or am I reading too much into your statements?

I will say that I have seen "fuzzy clusters" and "prickly icy crumbs" previously. Unfortunately, I was under the effects of hallucinogenics at the time.

*blinks*

Ummm...what were we talking about again?

No. I'm not overly fond of it. But I wouldn't ordinarily feel compelled to demonstrate in detail that terrible writing is terrible. What bothers me is how many people, including a reviewer on Salon, suggest that this is an acceptable execution of an intriguing idea. It is not. And I think the reviewers know very well that it's not (how could anyone read that first paragraph and think this is anything but very bad amateur writing?) but they pretend it has some merit to feed a perception that there is something wrong, sociologically or otherwise, with LOTR that should be redressed by a responsive text. The Salon reviewer actually compared it with a work that apparently responds to Gone With the Wind, showing the distortion of the portrayal of slave relations in that work. That is a valid point I'm sure (though one wonders how many people who aren't aware that Gone With the Wind is a less than accurate portrayal of American history are like to read that or any other book). But telling the "other side" of a story that is entirely made up and takes place in an invented world, and portrays a conflict with a magical being who is essentially the right hand man of lucifer, aided by the inventions of lucifer, is hardly comparable.

[Alfirin]

To be fair, this isn't the first story I have heard of that tried to tackle this vein. Years ago, in some fanatasy collection I recall reading a story that was sort of meant to be the same attempt of telling LOTR from the other side (the difference being, this was telling it from the other side in circumstances where the other side won) Don't remember the title unfortunately (if it's any help I rememeber that in that version the Sauron character was referred to as the "Dark Brother). I though that was fairly decently written.

[Nerwen]

But Forlong, are you sure the whole thing isn't a parody or something? What you quote sounds rather that way.