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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Son_of_Thunder" data-source="post: 315000" data-attributes="member: 258">Hello fellow ENWorlders! I just have a few observations to make. I am currently re-reading The Fellowship of the Ring and I must say that WOW this book is fandangtastic. I also must say that even with Peter Jackson’s rendition I don’t think he detracted in anyway from the feel of Middle-Earth.Now, there have been some threads in the past recommending good fantasy books to read. Some have admitted that they do not like the Lord of the Rings. Let me quote from an introduction by J.R.R. Tolkien himself, in Ballantine Books Edition: Copyright renewed 1982 by Christopher R. Tolkien. Forward, pg. 9:“Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.”I laughed out loud when I read this. It proves we have opinions and that I don’t have to like Jordan or Moorcock or Cook or that hideous Martin. Secondly is the long held belief that the book was an allegory for WW II.  The following comes from pg. 10 of the Forward:“The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; hr would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dur would not have been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves.”Now given the words of some and the man who wrote the book, I’m going to believe the man who wrote the book.Finally, no matter what some have said about the influences on D&D, no other literature, that’s right literature for you bub, than Lord of the Rings has shaped the game more. Look at Original D&D for instance. What races could you play; hmmm, human, elf, dwarf and hobb… er I mean halfling. I’ll admit that influence from the game came from many sources such as that hideous Elric cra… stuff, Robert E. Howard and others, but Lord of the Rings takes precedence above all.Son of Thunder</blockquote>

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