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Summary
Summary
An unlikely hero. A perilous quest. The greatest adventure ever told.
In a quiet village in the Shire, young Frodo is about to receive a gift that will change his life forever.
Thought lost centuries ago, it is the One Ring, an object of terrifying power once used by the Dark Lord to enslave Middle-earth. Now darkness is rising, and Frodo must travel deep into the Dark Lord's realm, to the one place the Ring can be destroyed: Mount Doom.
The journey will test Frodo's courage, his friendships and his heart. Because the Ring corrupts all who bear it--can Frodo destroy it, or will it destroy him?
'The English-speaking world is divided into those who have read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and those who are going to read them.'--Sunday Times
This brand-new unabridged recording is narrated by the acclaimed actor, director and author, Andy Serkis.
Reviews (2)
Guardian Review
Two similar books were published in 1954. The first, in the US, was Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword . The second, in the UK, was JRR Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring . Both these romances drew on familiar Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon sources, but Anderson's was somewhat closer to its origins, a fast-paced doom-drenched tragedy in which human heroism, love and ambition, manipulated by amoral gods, elves and trolls, led inevitably to tragic consequences. When I read it as a boy, Anderson's book impressed me so powerfully that I couldn't then enjoy Tolkien's. Both stories involved magical artefacts of great power whose possession inclined the users to drastic evil. Both described Faery as a world of ancient, pre-human races no longer as powerful as they once were. Both had characters who quoted or invented bits of bardic poetry at the drop of a rusted helm. None the less, I couldn't take Tolkien seriously. Aside from his nursery-room tone, I was unhappy with his infidelities of time, place and character, unconvinced by his female characters and quasi-juvenile protagonists. Anderson set his tale firmly in the early part of the second millennium, in England's Danelaw, when "the White Christ" was threatening the power of all the old gods. He described how, without witch-sight, one might mistake elvish castles and towns for high, bleak mountains and boulder-strewn fells. He made it easy to believe that Yorkshire limestone could be the sparkling escarpments of Alfheim. His women were as sharply drawn and thoroughly motivated as his men. What's more, Anderson's Eddic verse was better. Admittedly, he didn't fill his book with maps, chronologies and glossaries. He had no wise, all-knowing patriarchs. His only longbeard was sinister old Odin, using all his skills to survive. Anderson's human characters belonged to the 11th century and were often brutal, fearful and superstitious. Their lives were short. Their understanding of the future was a little bleak, with the prospect of Ragnarok just around the corner. To be on the safe side, even Christian priests accommodated the Aesir. The Broken Sword opens with a bloody reaving. A land-hungry Dane cruelly destroys a Saxon family. Soon afterwards, riding out under a still, full moon, Earl Imric, ruler of all Britain's elves, encounters a Saxon witch, the sole survivor of the massacre. The witch craves vengeance against the Danes and tells Imric about the conqueror's new-born, unbaptised baby. Knowing the value of humans, who can handle iron, Imric quickly returns home to create, with a captive troll princess, a changeling he can substitute for the baby he calls Scafloc. Imric thus sets off a chain of terrible events foreshadowed by the gift brought to Scafloc's naming ceremony by the Aesir's messenger, Skirnir. The gift is an ancient iron sword broken into two pieces. Ultimately, the sword must be rejoined. This portends no good for men or elves. Meanwhile, the unwitting Danes name their troll-child Valgard. The boys grow up. Merry, graceful and brave, Scafloc is a credit to his adopted people. Equally strong, Valgard is a brooding brute. Scafloc becomes Alfeim's darling. Valgard be-comes a cruel berserker. Seduced by the witch and given greater power by Odin, Valgard soon adds fratricide and patricide to his crimes. With Jacobean relish, Anderson thickens his plot with betrayal, rapine and incest. Our human capacity for love and hate is used to further the ambitions of Aesir and Faery alike. An elvish expedition to Trollheim alerts them to the threat of a troll army massing to destroy Alfheim for ever. Valgard discovers the truth of his own origins and joins the trolls. Fatally, Scafloc falls in love with a woman he rescues from Valgard. Inevitably, as the elves are vanquished, he embarks on a journey to reforge the broken sword. Ultimately all will be defeated by their own passions. Any victories will be bitter. Tolkien's saga reflected the sentiments of sacrifice typical of post-first world war fiction. Anderson's seems to echo the existential mood of the west after the second world war. The Broken Sword has an atmosphere in common with the best 40s noir movies, themselves a reaction to the overblown romantic rhetoric of Nazism. With Mervyn Peake, Henry Treece and even TH White, Anderson influenced a school of epic fantasy fundamentally at odds with inkling reassurances. In 1971, Anderson revised his book and weakened it. Victor Gollancz, which has done such an excellent job with its series of fantasy masterworks, has had the sense to publish the 1954 original. To read it is to understand much of the origins of an alternate fantasy tradition exemplified by such writers as M John Harrison, Philip Pullman and China Mieville, who reject the comforts of the Lamb and Flag and determinedly stick closer to deeper mythic resonances. Michael Moorcock's most recent book is London Bone . To order The Broken Sword for pounds 6.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0870 066 7979. Caption: article-moorcock.1 The Broken Sword opens with a bloody reaving. A land-hungry Dane cruelly destroys a Saxon family. Soon afterwards, riding out under a still, full moon, Earl Imric, ruler of all Britain's elves, encounters a Saxon witch, the sole survivor of the massacre. The witch craves vengeance against the Danes and tells Imric about the conqueror's new-born, unbaptised baby. Knowing the value of humans, who can handle iron, Imric quickly returns home to create, with a captive troll princess, a changeling he can substitute for the baby he calls Scafloc. Imric thus sets off a chain of terrible events foreshadowed by the gift brought to Scafloc's naming ceremony by the Aesir's messenger, Skirnir. The gift is an ancient iron sword broken into two pieces. Ultimately, the sword must be rejoined. This portends no good for men or elves. Meanwhile, the unwitting Danes name their troll-child Valgard. The boys grow up. Merry, graceful and brave, Scafloc is a credit to his adopted people. Equally strong, Valgard is a brooding brute. Scafloc becomes Alfeim's darling. Valgard be-comes a cruel berserker. Seduced by the witch and given greater power by Odin, Valgard soon adds fratricide and patricide to his crimes. - Michael Moorcock.
Library Journal Review
New Line Cinema will be releasing "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy in three separate installments, and Houghton Mifflin Tolkien's U.S. publisher since the release of The Hobbit in 1938 will be re-releasing each volume of the trilogy separately and in a boxed set (ISBN 0-618-15397-7. $22; pap. ISBN 0-618-15396-9. $12). (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
