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The Last Ringbearer
More than 15 years ago Russian scientist Kirill Yeskov tried to settle certain geographical problems in Tolkien's fantasy world. One thing led to another, and he tackled a bigger project—what if we assumed that it's no less real than our world? His conclusion was that in such a case, the story of the Ring of Power is most likely a much-altered heroic retelling of a major war—but what was that war really about?
The result of this re-appraisal was the publication in 1999 of The Last Ring-bearer—a re-thinking of Tolkien's story in real-world terms. Dr. Yeskov, a professional paleontologist whose job is reconstructing long-extinct organisms and their way of life from fossil remnants, performs essentially the same feat in The Last Ring-bearer, reconstructing the real world of Tolkien's Arda from The Lord of the Rings—the heroic tales of the Free Men of the West written in that world. We have a pretty good idea how well heroic tales map to reality from our own world...
—Yisroel Markov, Translator
The result of this re-appraisal was the publication in 1999 of The Last Ring-bearer—a re-thinking of Tolkien's story in real-world terms. Dr. Yeskov, a professional paleontologist whose job is reconstructing long-extinct organisms and their way of life from fossil remnants, performs essentially the same feat in The Last Ring-bearer, reconstructing the real world of Tolkien's Arda from The Lord of the Rings—the heroic tales of the Free Men of the West written in that world. We have a pretty good idea how well heroic tales map to reality from our own world...
—Yisroel Markov, Translator
251 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 1999
139 people are currently reading
4022 people want to read
About the author
Kirill Yeskov
13 books24 followersEskov graduated from the MSU Department of Entomology from Moscow State University in 1979. In 1986 he defended a dissertation for the Candidate of Biological Sciences at the A.N.Severtsov Institute of Animal Evolutionary Morphology and Ecology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the theme being "Spiders of Northern Siberia (horology analysis)".[1] His main scientific interests as a biologist are spiders of Siberia and Russian Far East and as a paleontologist - Paleozoic and Cenozoic eras. As of 2008[update] he is the Senior Researcher at the Laboratory of Arthropods of the Paleontological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences and vice-president of Eurasian Arachnological Society. He works at the institute since 1988. As of 2002 he had 86 scientific publications.
Eskov discovered several new genera of spiders. Among seven ones discovered by him in 1988 is Kikimora palustris Eskov, 1988[2] It belongs to Linyphiidae family, is found in Russia and Finland, and the name translates from Latin as "marsh Kikimora". Kikimora is a female spirit in Slavic mythology and Russian equivalent of the phrase, "кикимора болотная", is well-known in the Russian common language.
He is also the author of the book "History of the Earth and its lifeforms", intended as cutting edge biology textbook for high schools.
As a fiction writer he published several books, one of the most famous being The Last Ringbearer (Russian: Последний кольценосец, Polish: Ostatni Władca Pierścienia), an alternative retelling of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, based on the proverb: 'History is told by the victors' (thus showing Mordor as the 'good guys'). Among his other books is the The Gospel of Aphranius (Russian: Евангелие от Афрания, Polish: Ewangelia według Afraniusza), a dramatic portrayal of Jesus.
Eskov discovered several new genera of spiders. Among seven ones discovered by him in 1988 is Kikimora palustris Eskov, 1988[2] It belongs to Linyphiidae family, is found in Russia and Finland, and the name translates from Latin as "marsh Kikimora". Kikimora is a female spirit in Slavic mythology and Russian equivalent of the phrase, "кикимора болотная", is well-known in the Russian common language.
He is also the author of the book "History of the Earth and its lifeforms", intended as cutting edge biology textbook for high schools.
As a fiction writer he published several books, one of the most famous being The Last Ringbearer (Russian: Последний кольценосец, Polish: Ostatni Władca Pierścienia), an alternative retelling of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, based on the proverb: 'History is told by the victors' (thus showing Mordor as the 'good guys'). Among his other books is the The Gospel of Aphranius (Russian: Евангелие от Афрания, Polish: Ewangelia według Afraniusza), a dramatic portrayal of Jesus.
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March 6, 2011
Saying that The Last Ringbearer is The Lord of the Rings told from Mordor’s point of view is not entirely accurate. True, the principal characters are an army medic and scout of Mordor and an erstwhile Ranger of Ithilien but all the action takes place after the War of the Ring. Middle Earth is recast as Europe during the Cold War, with Gondor and Mordor assuming the roles of the superpowers. The “magic” of Tolkien’s vision becomes window dressing, and the novel reads more like John Le Carré fanfic than Tolkien.
Essential plot: The War of the Ring erupts between Mordor (ruled by Sauron VIII) and Gondor (ruled by Denethor of the Anarion Dynasty*) primarily because Gondor wants to choke off Mordor’s trade routes and reduce it to vassalage. More fundamentally, the Elves and the Wizards are using Gondor to destroy the growing power of technology, which threatens to destroy the traditional balance of Nature and power in the world.** Eskov’s background as a scientist and enthusiasm for technology comes through clearly in his description of Barad-Dur:
The last survivor of the Order of the Nazgul tasks Haladdin and Tzerlag with destroying the Mirror of Galadriel and the palantiri, which will close off the world of the Elves (the Far West) and prevent them from enslaving Man and condemning the world to an eternal Dark Age. In order to destroy the Mirror, Haladdin and Tzerlag must acquire two palantiri, bring one into the presence of the Mirror, simultaneously throwing the other into the fires of Orodruin (Mt. Doom). The remainder of the novel is a confusing account of their efforts to fulfill the mission divided into four parts that focus on various aspects of the quest. Part I sets up the quest. Part II recounts Haladdin’s and Tzerlag’s efforts to acquire some Seeing Stones and introduces us to the Machiavellian politics of Gondor: Aragorn has spared Faramir’s life but he and Eowyn live under house arrest in Ithilien; Aragorn is trying to get out from under the Elves’ thumb (represented by Arwen, who is his nominal “wife” but whose presence in Minas Tirith is to ensure that Men don’t get out of control). Part III is – as far as I can tell – a largely pointless diversion to Umbar, where Tangorn (the Ithilien Ranger mentioned above) has to do something to advance the cause. I’m not sure why Tangorn has to be in Umbar or what the consequences of his actions are but this is the most Le Carresque section of the novel and the hardest to get through. Part IV moves to Dol Guldur and Lothlorien, and Haladdin’s ultimate success in destroying the Mirror.
There’s an Epilogue written in light of the utterly mundane world that results and has some amusing asides, e.g., Eomer becomes a religious fanatic of a heretical Harad sect and dies fighting in the South.
As a piece of literature, The Last Ringbearer fails at nearly every level. Stylistically, it’s all over the map. In some places, Eskov attempts to write in a lyrical style – emulating Tolkien? – but the results are not good. I reproduce my favorite of the many overwrought and unintentionally comic stabs at description:
Even worse than having the author point out what concrete objects the metaphor is referring to is that this aside serves no point in the narrative.
Other times, Eskov writes in a colloquial, 21st-century idiom that jarringly plops this reader back into his easy chair before jerking him once again into Middle Earth. I can open the book at random and find numerous examples:
As when Aragorn kills the Commander-South (aka the Witch King of Angmar):
Or in Umbar:
Or this conversation between two Elves:
The attempt to create distinct and memorable characters also falls flat. The most successful effort (relatively) in that direction is Tangorn, who’s given some background and a love interest (a high-priced hetaira in Umbar). Haladdin, who you would expect to be the central character, practically disappears from the narrative after Part I, and only takes center stage again in Part IV when he orders a poor Troll off on a suicide mission and throws the palantir into Mt. Doom.
Eskov is equally ham handed at creating a sense of menace or moral evil in his bad guys. Case in point is an utterly gratuitous gang-rape and murder that establishes the villainous bona fides of Marandil, Gondor’s “chief of station” in Umbar. To Eskov’s credit, the whole vile episode happens off stage but it still reads … wrong!***
The biggest “sin” committed by Eskov, however, is that he misses the point of The Lord of the Rings and myth in general. I have read the translation of his blog post, where he laments at the “unreality” of Middle Earth’s geography and wanted to make it something that could have actually existed but that’s beside the point – and, in this case, reduces it to a novel of the Cold War. But that a limited view of what’s “real.” Myths don’t have to conform to the latest meteorological theories – if our Hero has to cross a blazing desert to find his Princess, then he rides from the Forest of Broceliande to the Sands of Araby in a couple of days. And myths aren’t meant to reflect the “real” world. As Ursula Le Guin writes in “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie”: “A fantasy is a journey. It is a journey into the subconscious mind, just as psychoanalysis is. Like psychoanalysis, it can be dangerous; and it will change you" (emphasis in the original). The Lord of the Rings addresses so many issues – the struggle between doing what’s right and resisting what’s wrong when you don’t know the correct path, the responsibilities of friendship, the promise of redemption, etc. – that when it is reduced to a spy thriller, it leaves a sour taste in your mouth.
I have no problem with de-mythologizing LotR (though I’m not sure what the point would be****) but if you’re going to reject the fantasy you have to reject all the fantasy, which Eskov does not do. He removes the magic he doesn’t need and keeps only what’s necessary to justify his storyline.
A retelling of the War of the Ring retains the mythic/fantastic elements of Middle Earth but would look at it from another’s POV or recast the myth into a different tradition. For example, an author could keep the essentially Christian Good/Evil ethic but tell it from an Orc’s point of view, or Gollum’s, or a Haradrim’s (as Sam himself asks in The Two Towers on seeing a dead Haradrim, “He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace...” (“Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”). Tolkien toys with this in “Aldarion and Erendis” and in the fragment “Tal-Elmar.”
Another option would be to recast Middle Earth in terms of another tradition, e.g., Ancient Greece. The Greeks (pre-Socratic certainly) were largely uninterested in our conceptions of Good and Evil, theirs was a mythology of Heroes. The analogy can only be pushed so far but in this vision, Boromir would be an Achilles figure; Gandalf would be Odysseus, the trickster; and the Witch King would be Hector (?). Or, as in Antigone, we could represent the War as a conflict between two admirable but incompatible visions of the good life. Eskov fumbles with this in the theme of preserving a more natural, spiritual way of life vs. the science/modernism and rationalism of Mordor but his clear preference for the latter makes the former a caricature.
In the end, I can’t recommend The Last Ringbearer to anyone. It’s a failed experiment that misses Tolkien’s purpose in writing The Lord of the Rings, offering no deeper understanding of that purpose nor anything to replace it.
* This brings up a pedantic point but there are curious lapses in Eskov’s understanding of the original story. Anarion was the younger son of Elendil and his son was the first king of Gondor. The Stewards were descended from Húrin, the steward of Minardil, and thus of the House of Húrin.
Eskov also seems to believe that Middle Earth is an alternate Earth when it is, of course, our Earth. If our myths of Atlantis are a much distorted understanding of the Drowning of Numenor, then the First Age ended around 13,000 BC, Numenor fell around 10,000 BC and the War of the Ring was fought around 6,000 BC. And talk about realism – The drowning of Beleriand was obviously caused by rising sea levels when the last Ice Age ended.
** Cf., Ralph Bakshi’s “Wizards.”
*** Also to Eskov’s credit is that he does not make the mistake of writing sex scenes.
**** I’m reminded of a creative-writing class I took as an undergraduate. I wrote a couple of short stories as SF or Fantasy and the teacher (a grad student) asked the very appropriate question – Why? What is it about your story that requires a nonrealistic setting? (This was before I had done much reading in mythic/fantastic criticism, including Le Guin’s essay, so I didn’t have a good answer but I think now I would say that I wrote in a fantastic style because I liked the genre.) Le Guin makes a distinction in the “Elfland” essay between “daydreaming” (TLR) and “dreaming” (LotR); I was daydreaming not mythologizing.
This brings up yet another reason why I’m not taken with Joe Abercrombie’s work. There’re daydreams with mythical trappings that could just as easily take place in Renaissance Italy or a thoroughly modern 21st Century. In Steven Erikson’s work, by contrast (and to bring in an author whose style is very far from Tolkien’s), the myth is integral to the story. Many scenes in the Malazan Book of the Fallen could be characterized as “daydream” but he also steps between Mundania and Faerie when he passes from the gritty realism of assassins stalking the night or the comic banter of Tehol and Bugg to the Warrens or Kruppe’s dreams, where every word carries portentous weight. And if the journey of Tavore and the Bonehunters isn’t primal myth then I don’t know what is.
FINAL NOTE: I couldn’t figure out where to put this thought above but my GR Friend Tatiana in the comments below mentions that “Orc” is not so much a biological category as a category of behavior, which reminded me of one of the many scenes in Jackson’s film version that really bothered me: The scene where Aragorn cuts off the head of the Mouth of Sauron. My first reaction was exactly that – This is how an Orc would react, not a Man of the West, and certainly not the Heir of Isildur. In the book this scene is so much more subtle and brilliant and the Mouth is cowed without a single violent gesture.
Essential plot: The War of the Ring erupts between Mordor (ruled by Sauron VIII) and Gondor (ruled by Denethor of the Anarion Dynasty*) primarily because Gondor wants to choke off Mordor’s trade routes and reduce it to vassalage. More fundamentally, the Elves and the Wizards are using Gondor to destroy the growing power of technology, which threatens to destroy the traditional balance of Nature and power in the world.** Eskov’s background as a scientist and enthusiasm for technology comes through clearly in his description of Barad-Dur:
“…that amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle Earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic.” (Chapter 2)
The last survivor of the Order of the Nazgul tasks Haladdin and Tzerlag with destroying the Mirror of Galadriel and the palantiri, which will close off the world of the Elves (the Far West) and prevent them from enslaving Man and condemning the world to an eternal Dark Age. In order to destroy the Mirror, Haladdin and Tzerlag must acquire two palantiri, bring one into the presence of the Mirror, simultaneously throwing the other into the fires of Orodruin (Mt. Doom). The remainder of the novel is a confusing account of their efforts to fulfill the mission divided into four parts that focus on various aspects of the quest. Part I sets up the quest. Part II recounts Haladdin’s and Tzerlag’s efforts to acquire some Seeing Stones and introduces us to the Machiavellian politics of Gondor: Aragorn has spared Faramir’s life but he and Eowyn live under house arrest in Ithilien; Aragorn is trying to get out from under the Elves’ thumb (represented by Arwen, who is his nominal “wife” but whose presence in Minas Tirith is to ensure that Men don’t get out of control). Part III is – as far as I can tell – a largely pointless diversion to Umbar, where Tangorn (the Ithilien Ranger mentioned above) has to do something to advance the cause. I’m not sure why Tangorn has to be in Umbar or what the consequences of his actions are but this is the most Le Carresque section of the novel and the hardest to get through. Part IV moves to Dol Guldur and Lothlorien, and Haladdin’s ultimate success in destroying the Mirror.
There’s an Epilogue written in light of the utterly mundane world that results and has some amusing asides, e.g., Eomer becomes a religious fanatic of a heretical Harad sect and dies fighting in the South.
As a piece of literature, The Last Ringbearer fails at nearly every level. Stylistically, it’s all over the map. In some places, Eskov attempts to write in a lyrical style – emulating Tolkien? – but the results are not good. I reproduce my favorite of the many overwrought and unintentionally comic stabs at description:
“The shrimp were excellent. They sat on the tin plate like battle-ready triremes on the dim morning surface of the Barangar Bay: spiky rostrums in the tangle of rigging (feelers) threatening the enemy, oars (feet) hugging the body, just like they should in preparation for boarding.” (Chapter 36)
Even worse than having the author point out what concrete objects the metaphor is referring to is that this aside serves no point in the narrative.
Other times, Eskov writes in a colloquial, 21st-century idiom that jarringly plops this reader back into his easy chair before jerking him once again into Middle Earth. I can open the book at random and find numerous examples:
As when Aragorn kills the Commander-South (aka the Witch King of Angmar):
“‘Of course they won’t,’ laughed the Dunadan, ‘since they will be kneeling before the new King of Gondor! I beat you in an honest fight, one on one – so it shall be written in all the history books. As for you, they won’t even remember your name. I’ll make sure of that. Actually,’ he stopped in midstride, hunting for the stirrup, ‘we can make it even more interesting: let you be killed by a midget, some tiny little dwarf with hairy paws. Or by a broad… yes, that’s how we’ll do it.’” (Chapter 7)
Or in Umbar:
“The fat man shook and sweated, but remained silent. Having no time to spare – at any moment someone might start breaking down the door – Jacuzzi (sic) made his proposition short and to the point: ‘Ten seconds to think about it. Then I’ll start counting to five, breaking a finger at each count. On the count of six I’ll cut your throat with this razor. Look in my eyes – do I look like I’m joking?’
‘You’re from the Secret Service, right?’ the Senior Inspector mumbled mournfully, gray with terror. It was clear as day that he had not earned his stripes capturing criminals in the Kharmian Village slums.” (Chapter 51)
Or this conversation between two Elves:
“‘Clofoel of the World! You’re under arrest for treason. Stand against the wall!’
They stood facing each other, the Mirror between them; the clofoel of Tranquility had his sword out – he was not about to give that snake any chances, she was mortally dangerous as it was.
‘Unclip the dagger from your belt…now the stiletto in your left sleeve…. Kick them away with your foot! Now, we’ll talk. The magic object that Star fool’s dancers can’t find is attached to the bottom of the “table,” right? One has to drop on all fours before the Mirror to see it – surely no one will think of that. It’s impossible to find it magically – the dancers are like a dog that has to find a perfumed handkerchief hidden in a sack of crushed pepper. An excellent idea, my compliments! By the way, what is it?’
‘A palantir.
‘Whoa!’ He apparently never expected that. ‘Whose gift is it – the Enemy’s?’
‘No, Aragorn’s.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ (Chapter 66)
The attempt to create distinct and memorable characters also falls flat. The most successful effort (relatively) in that direction is Tangorn, who’s given some background and a love interest (a high-priced hetaira in Umbar). Haladdin, who you would expect to be the central character, practically disappears from the narrative after Part I, and only takes center stage again in Part IV when he orders a poor Troll off on a suicide mission and throws the palantir into Mt. Doom.
Eskov is equally ham handed at creating a sense of menace or moral evil in his bad guys. Case in point is an utterly gratuitous gang-rape and murder that establishes the villainous bona fides of Marandil, Gondor’s “chief of station” in Umbar. To Eskov’s credit, the whole vile episode happens off stage but it still reads … wrong!***
The biggest “sin” committed by Eskov, however, is that he misses the point of The Lord of the Rings and myth in general. I have read the translation of his blog post, where he laments at the “unreality” of Middle Earth’s geography and wanted to make it something that could have actually existed but that’s beside the point – and, in this case, reduces it to a novel of the Cold War. But that a limited view of what’s “real.” Myths don’t have to conform to the latest meteorological theories – if our Hero has to cross a blazing desert to find his Princess, then he rides from the Forest of Broceliande to the Sands of Araby in a couple of days. And myths aren’t meant to reflect the “real” world. As Ursula Le Guin writes in “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie”: “A fantasy is a journey. It is a journey into the subconscious mind, just as psychoanalysis is. Like psychoanalysis, it can be dangerous; and it will change you" (emphasis in the original). The Lord of the Rings addresses so many issues – the struggle between doing what’s right and resisting what’s wrong when you don’t know the correct path, the responsibilities of friendship, the promise of redemption, etc. – that when it is reduced to a spy thriller, it leaves a sour taste in your mouth.
I have no problem with de-mythologizing LotR (though I’m not sure what the point would be****) but if you’re going to reject the fantasy you have to reject all the fantasy, which Eskov does not do. He removes the magic he doesn’t need and keeps only what’s necessary to justify his storyline.
A retelling of the War of the Ring retains the mythic/fantastic elements of Middle Earth but would look at it from another’s POV or recast the myth into a different tradition. For example, an author could keep the essentially Christian Good/Evil ethic but tell it from an Orc’s point of view, or Gollum’s, or a Haradrim’s (as Sam himself asks in The Two Towers on seeing a dead Haradrim, “He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace...” (“Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”). Tolkien toys with this in “Aldarion and Erendis” and in the fragment “Tal-Elmar.”
Another option would be to recast Middle Earth in terms of another tradition, e.g., Ancient Greece. The Greeks (pre-Socratic certainly) were largely uninterested in our conceptions of Good and Evil, theirs was a mythology of Heroes. The analogy can only be pushed so far but in this vision, Boromir would be an Achilles figure; Gandalf would be Odysseus, the trickster; and the Witch King would be Hector (?). Or, as in Antigone, we could represent the War as a conflict between two admirable but incompatible visions of the good life. Eskov fumbles with this in the theme of preserving a more natural, spiritual way of life vs. the science/modernism and rationalism of Mordor but his clear preference for the latter makes the former a caricature.
In the end, I can’t recommend The Last Ringbearer to anyone. It’s a failed experiment that misses Tolkien’s purpose in writing The Lord of the Rings, offering no deeper understanding of that purpose nor anything to replace it.
* This brings up a pedantic point but there are curious lapses in Eskov’s understanding of the original story. Anarion was the younger son of Elendil and his son was the first king of Gondor. The Stewards were descended from Húrin, the steward of Minardil, and thus of the House of Húrin.
Eskov also seems to believe that Middle Earth is an alternate Earth when it is, of course, our Earth. If our myths of Atlantis are a much distorted understanding of the Drowning of Numenor, then the First Age ended around 13,000 BC, Numenor fell around 10,000 BC and the War of the Ring was fought around 6,000 BC. And talk about realism – The drowning of Beleriand was obviously caused by rising sea levels when the last Ice Age ended.
** Cf., Ralph Bakshi’s “Wizards.”
*** Also to Eskov’s credit is that he does not make the mistake of writing sex scenes.
**** I’m reminded of a creative-writing class I took as an undergraduate. I wrote a couple of short stories as SF or Fantasy and the teacher (a grad student) asked the very appropriate question – Why? What is it about your story that requires a nonrealistic setting? (This was before I had done much reading in mythic/fantastic criticism, including Le Guin’s essay, so I didn’t have a good answer but I think now I would say that I wrote in a fantastic style because I liked the genre.) Le Guin makes a distinction in the “Elfland” essay between “daydreaming” (TLR) and “dreaming” (LotR); I was daydreaming not mythologizing.
This brings up yet another reason why I’m not taken with Joe Abercrombie’s work. There’re daydreams with mythical trappings that could just as easily take place in Renaissance Italy or a thoroughly modern 21st Century. In Steven Erikson’s work, by contrast (and to bring in an author whose style is very far from Tolkien’s), the myth is integral to the story. Many scenes in the Malazan Book of the Fallen could be characterized as “daydream” but he also steps between Mundania and Faerie when he passes from the gritty realism of assassins stalking the night or the comic banter of Tehol and Bugg to the Warrens or Kruppe’s dreams, where every word carries portentous weight. And if the journey of Tavore and the Bonehunters isn’t primal myth then I don’t know what is.
FINAL NOTE: I couldn’t figure out where to put this thought above but my GR Friend Tatiana in the comments below mentions that “Orc” is not so much a biological category as a category of behavior, which reminded me of one of the many scenes in Jackson’s film version that really bothered me: The scene where Aragorn cuts off the head of the Mouth of Sauron. My first reaction was exactly that – This is how an Orc would react, not a Man of the West, and certainly not the Heir of Isildur. In the book this scene is so much more subtle and brilliant and the Mouth is cowed without a single violent gesture.
January 24, 2013
UPDATE: A lot of the negative reviews of this book seem to be based on people not being able to deal with the author’s (very clever) undercutting of long-held assumptions about who were the good guys in The Lord of the Rings. I found the text lively in terms of plot, inventive in terms of literature, and incisive in terms of geopolitics. A second reading was even better than the first go-round.
ORIGINAL REVIEW: This is a cut way above your typical fan fiction, satire, and fantasy lit in general. The author has overturned most every assumption we formed as juvenile LOTR readers, by applying the political lens of Howard Zinn (A People's History of Middle Earth?) with the sardonic wit of David Lodge and Gore Vidal... And there's a lot of added value, beyond the revisionism and the cynicism, in many original characters and scenes with little dependence on the original. I'd be very interested to see what this writer would create on his own, because the literary talent on display is impressive. Highly recommended if you ever read Tolkien.
ORIGINAL REVIEW: This is a cut way above your typical fan fiction, satire, and fantasy lit in general. The author has overturned most every assumption we formed as juvenile LOTR readers, by applying the political lens of Howard Zinn (A People's History of Middle Earth?) with the sardonic wit of David Lodge and Gore Vidal... And there's a lot of added value, beyond the revisionism and the cynicism, in many original characters and scenes with little dependence on the original. I'd be very interested to see what this writer would create on his own, because the literary talent on display is impressive. Highly recommended if you ever read Tolkien.
March 29, 2011
Note... reading fan translation issued as a free PDF.
http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570...
Great fun - a revisionist Lord of the Rings set after the defeat of Mordor, in which two Mordorians (the Orc Ranger Tzerlag and Umbarian Field Medic Haladdin) embark on a desperate plan to save their homeland (and the world) from Elvish domination, against a backdrop of power plays by Aragorn, Faramir, Galadriel and other familiar characters.
Enjoyable for a shades-of-grey morality and the endless scheming of different factions in Gondor, Umbar and Lothlorien, the book is written partly as war story and partly as spy thriller (particularly book three, a convoluted battle of wits set in Umbar's capital city). Yeskov has fun playing with the familiar orcs, trolls, elves and Nazgul but resists a simple moral inversion: while the first book introduces a Mordor that is a bastion of scientific progress in a world of barbarians, pitted against an expansionist Gondor, this soon broken down as the intrigue kicks in and we learn more about the nations involved (and Aragorn, introduced as a ruthless scoundrel, develops quietly in the background into a competent and intelligent ruler).
The main focus of the book, however, is on new characters Tzerlag, Haladdin and Baron Tangorn, with a wide supporting cast drawn from across the reimagined Middle Earth - a world alive with peoples and nations who have their own ambitions, religions and prejucides. The viewpoint skips around dozens of the minor characters, allowing detailed insight into this fully-developed world and occasionally pulling back to an unnamed historian-narrator who details the causes of the War of the Ring (which include a disastrous agricultural policy which left Mordor barren and dependent on imports to feed itself) and summaries of the major battles. Yeskov also has fun with a couple of LotR's quirks - Faramir and Eowyn's marriage and departure to Ithilien becomes a major part of the plot rather than a simple tying-up of loose ends, while Celeborn's uselessness compared to the more dynamic Galadriel is also winked at.
Extremely engaging, and a fun twist on Tolkein's world and the fantasy tropes it introduced.
(Final note: there are some grammatical errors and awkward sentences, but considering that this a freely-distributed fan translation, commendably few - and the translator, Yisroel Markov, is working on an update and has already issued a few errata.)
http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570...
Great fun - a revisionist Lord of the Rings set after the defeat of Mordor, in which two Mordorians (the Orc Ranger Tzerlag and Umbarian Field Medic Haladdin) embark on a desperate plan to save their homeland (and the world) from Elvish domination, against a backdrop of power plays by Aragorn, Faramir, Galadriel and other familiar characters.
Enjoyable for a shades-of-grey morality and the endless scheming of different factions in Gondor, Umbar and Lothlorien, the book is written partly as war story and partly as spy thriller (particularly book three, a convoluted battle of wits set in Umbar's capital city). Yeskov has fun playing with the familiar orcs, trolls, elves and Nazgul but resists a simple moral inversion: while the first book introduces a Mordor that is a bastion of scientific progress in a world of barbarians, pitted against an expansionist Gondor, this soon broken down as the intrigue kicks in and we learn more about the nations involved (and Aragorn, introduced as a ruthless scoundrel, develops quietly in the background into a competent and intelligent ruler).
The main focus of the book, however, is on new characters Tzerlag, Haladdin and Baron Tangorn, with a wide supporting cast drawn from across the reimagined Middle Earth - a world alive with peoples and nations who have their own ambitions, religions and prejucides. The viewpoint skips around dozens of the minor characters, allowing detailed insight into this fully-developed world and occasionally pulling back to an unnamed historian-narrator who details the causes of the War of the Ring (which include a disastrous agricultural policy which left Mordor barren and dependent on imports to feed itself) and summaries of the major battles. Yeskov also has fun with a couple of LotR's quirks - Faramir and Eowyn's marriage and departure to Ithilien becomes a major part of the plot rather than a simple tying-up of loose ends, while Celeborn's uselessness compared to the more dynamic Galadriel is also winked at.
Extremely engaging, and a fun twist on Tolkein's world and the fantasy tropes it introduced.
(Final note: there are some grammatical errors and awkward sentences, but considering that this a freely-distributed fan translation, commendably few - and the translator, Yisroel Markov, is working on an update and has already issued a few errata.)
December 12, 2011
I thought this was a ripping good tale . It retells the LoTR from the perspective of Mordor and with a more realist spin on the world. Real politick is injected into Middle Earth and informs the actions of the nation states. Events aren't driven by some abstract sense of good and evil, but by realistic people making rational decisions in their own self interest. It gives the story a much more compelling thrust in my opinion. In this retelling orcs aren't doing evil for evil's sake (AKA: The Skeletor Morality). In fact orcs are just humans caught on the wrong side of history, dehumanized to make the war appear more just.
The story is about a daring mission to cripple the power and magic of the elves, who are portrayed as aspiring world conquerers and rabidly anti-technology, technology that Mordor was developing at an astonishing pace. The story takes place of a wide range of Middle Earth territory, exploring lands and peoples that Tolkien paid little to no attention to in the original trilogy. I think Eskov did a fantastic job instilling unique culture and characters into these regions. It made Middle Earth seem much deeper and richer in content. Where Tolkien offered a very narrow view of the world (tied to the Fellowship's perspectives) Eskov populates his story with a wide range of views from both sides.
At the end of the day, if you like stories that subvert the original source material you'll like this. If you enjoy more realistic takes on fantasy settings you'll like this. If you liked the original trilogy and are willing to accept this is written with a different tone and style you'll like this. If you are expecting this to be a magnificent compliment to the original trilogy/the next great Russian novel you need to readjust your expectations to the real world and just appreciate this book for the interesting story and thought experiment that it is.
The story is about a daring mission to cripple the power and magic of the elves, who are portrayed as aspiring world conquerers and rabidly anti-technology, technology that Mordor was developing at an astonishing pace. The story takes place of a wide range of Middle Earth territory, exploring lands and peoples that Tolkien paid little to no attention to in the original trilogy. I think Eskov did a fantastic job instilling unique culture and characters into these regions. It made Middle Earth seem much deeper and richer in content. Where Tolkien offered a very narrow view of the world (tied to the Fellowship's perspectives) Eskov populates his story with a wide range of views from both sides.
At the end of the day, if you like stories that subvert the original source material you'll like this. If you enjoy more realistic takes on fantasy settings you'll like this. If you liked the original trilogy and are willing to accept this is written with a different tone and style you'll like this. If you are expecting this to be a magnificent compliment to the original trilogy/the next great Russian novel you need to readjust your expectations to the real world and just appreciate this book for the interesting story and thought experiment that it is.
Read
November 14, 2019Stopped reading at 50%.
I thought this was a worthwhile idea, from what I'd heard about the book - a reimagining of the world of Tolkien from a less black-and-white, more "realistic" perspective? Interesting!
Initially, there were elements that showed promise. I liked the idea that Mordor was a city just entering an Industrial Revolution, full of academic inquiry and regular citizens living their lives. I liked that the armies of Sauron were just soldiers like any others, no better or worse than the men of Gondor, and that the Orcs were also men.
However... simply having the ideas is not enough. Unfortunately, the author does not succeed in using these basic premises to either incisively query Tolkien's worldview, OR to create an entertaining, readable novel.
Even allowing for translation difficulties, the language doesn't work. The hyper-modern slang feels awkward and uneven, and the point of view jumps around randomly.
The characters don't cohere as individuals, and the plot (a standard, unexceptional quest) is so meandering that the reader is more likely to lose track of who is doing what and why, than to feel emotionally invested in their efforts.
Ultimately, rather than being a commentary on Tolkien, mythology, or fantasy literature as a genre, the book is simply a very poor fantasy novel that borrows random elements from Tolkien's work. I didn't feel that I was either getting anything of value out of it or enjoying it - so, I'm stopping half way through.
I thought this was a worthwhile idea, from what I'd heard about the book - a reimagining of the world of Tolkien from a less black-and-white, more "realistic" perspective? Interesting!
Initially, there were elements that showed promise. I liked the idea that Mordor was a city just entering an Industrial Revolution, full of academic inquiry and regular citizens living their lives. I liked that the armies of Sauron were just soldiers like any others, no better or worse than the men of Gondor, and that the Orcs were also men.
However... simply having the ideas is not enough. Unfortunately, the author does not succeed in using these basic premises to either incisively query Tolkien's worldview, OR to create an entertaining, readable novel.
Even allowing for translation difficulties, the language doesn't work. The hyper-modern slang feels awkward and uneven, and the point of view jumps around randomly.
The characters don't cohere as individuals, and the plot (a standard, unexceptional quest) is so meandering that the reader is more likely to lose track of who is doing what and why, than to feel emotionally invested in their efforts.
Ultimately, rather than being a commentary on Tolkien, mythology, or fantasy literature as a genre, the book is simply a very poor fantasy novel that borrows random elements from Tolkien's work. I didn't feel that I was either getting anything of value out of it or enjoying it - so, I'm stopping half way through.
January 12, 2014
I made the mistake of trying to read The Last Ringbearer. I will say that the book is priced appropriately, it's free. And that's the extent of the good. When I read the puff piece in Salon I should have known that the book would be as epically awful as the review was ecstatic, but I was so taken by the idea that I had to read it anyway.
The basic idea is a re-telling of the War of the Ring from the other side. OK, excellent start. If you read Tolkien in anything but a facile way there is room for moral ambiguity in the tale (there are several scenes throughout LotR and The Hobbit where you hear Orcs talking amongst themselves and they really sound no more harmful than a bunch of drunken English soccer hooligans, which leads anyone to ask "Are they really bad or just badly ruled?"), and I was hopeful that we would get just that, a story where we find the rest of the tale. Unfortunately what we get is an angry polemic.
The problem, I think, starts with a fundamental misunderstanding of what Tolkien is doing. He's writing Norse mythology in all its heroic glory (he doesn't even disguise this in the backgrounding materials, the story of creation in The Silmarillion could come right out of one of Agricola's collections). So while he does leave room for moral ambiguity throughout the tale, it's still the epic hero's journey, and it's most moving passages are just those that come straight out of mythology (The Battle of the Pelennor, for example). It's not a didactic tale. And this is my first problem with The Last Ringbearer, it's a strictly didactic exercise. And infinitely more simplistic than LotR's detractors like to claim that *it* is. There is zero room for any moral ambiguity in this retelling. The characters are all paper cutouts (it's not even fair to call them cardboard because they don't even have that much depth) and the plot itself one dimensional. Maybe half-dimensional. And this leads to my second problem...
It's a neocon's wet dream. Middle Earth has been reengineered to reflect Sam Harris' insanity. The good, holy, democratic forces of enlightenment & technology and their philosopher king, Sauron VIII, are unfairly picked on by their superstitious, religious neighbours who decide to kill them all. And Yeskov leaves no doubts in your minds here, the enlightened Mordorians have a parliament, advanced technology, medicine, etc. and the ignoranti live in "their palaces of logs". The wizards and the evil elves conspire to cut off Mordor's food supplies (just how they would do that given that the they can only enforce an embargo on one of Mordor's borders the author doesn't get to in the 150 or so pages I read) and starve the heroic forces of social democracy to death. So, you see, Sauron has no choice, he has to attack and kill Mordor's enemies. It's not their fault. If the author had any sense of irony this might not have been so big a hurdle for me to get over. But there's not even a smidgeon of irony (in spite of the fact that his tale boils down to enlightened social democracy depleting the resources of its own land and attacking the rest of the world to keep the flow of raw materials coming in). Even in retelling the Battle of the Pelennor Éomer takes a break to give his army a religious speech to fortify their courage. And so the heroic, and vastly outnumbered, armies of Mordor nearly beat the forces of darkness. But in the end religion is just too much to overcome.
My last problem in the section of the book I managed to get through before stopping is the endless narrative lectures. Don't get me wrong, the spadework underlying a story is important, but we readers don't need to read it. Now some of the spadework is important to the story; for example the part of the tale where the Mordorians agricultural schemes destroy the arable land is an important plot point. But the endless narrative lectures about Mordorian democracy, the glories of Barad-Dur, etc. are a grand waste of time. It makes reading the tale a chore for all but the most dedicated irreligious fundamentalists. Who probably spend most of their reading time either pumping their fists or pumping themselves.
The basic idea is a re-telling of the War of the Ring from the other side. OK, excellent start. If you read Tolkien in anything but a facile way there is room for moral ambiguity in the tale (there are several scenes throughout LotR and The Hobbit where you hear Orcs talking amongst themselves and they really sound no more harmful than a bunch of drunken English soccer hooligans, which leads anyone to ask "Are they really bad or just badly ruled?"), and I was hopeful that we would get just that, a story where we find the rest of the tale. Unfortunately what we get is an angry polemic.
The problem, I think, starts with a fundamental misunderstanding of what Tolkien is doing. He's writing Norse mythology in all its heroic glory (he doesn't even disguise this in the backgrounding materials, the story of creation in The Silmarillion could come right out of one of Agricola's collections). So while he does leave room for moral ambiguity throughout the tale, it's still the epic hero's journey, and it's most moving passages are just those that come straight out of mythology (The Battle of the Pelennor, for example). It's not a didactic tale. And this is my first problem with The Last Ringbearer, it's a strictly didactic exercise. And infinitely more simplistic than LotR's detractors like to claim that *it* is. There is zero room for any moral ambiguity in this retelling. The characters are all paper cutouts (it's not even fair to call them cardboard because they don't even have that much depth) and the plot itself one dimensional. Maybe half-dimensional. And this leads to my second problem...
It's a neocon's wet dream. Middle Earth has been reengineered to reflect Sam Harris' insanity. The good, holy, democratic forces of enlightenment & technology and their philosopher king, Sauron VIII, are unfairly picked on by their superstitious, religious neighbours who decide to kill them all. And Yeskov leaves no doubts in your minds here, the enlightened Mordorians have a parliament, advanced technology, medicine, etc. and the ignoranti live in "their palaces of logs". The wizards and the evil elves conspire to cut off Mordor's food supplies (just how they would do that given that the they can only enforce an embargo on one of Mordor's borders the author doesn't get to in the 150 or so pages I read) and starve the heroic forces of social democracy to death. So, you see, Sauron has no choice, he has to attack and kill Mordor's enemies. It's not their fault. If the author had any sense of irony this might not have been so big a hurdle for me to get over. But there's not even a smidgeon of irony (in spite of the fact that his tale boils down to enlightened social democracy depleting the resources of its own land and attacking the rest of the world to keep the flow of raw materials coming in). Even in retelling the Battle of the Pelennor Éomer takes a break to give his army a religious speech to fortify their courage. And so the heroic, and vastly outnumbered, armies of Mordor nearly beat the forces of darkness. But in the end religion is just too much to overcome.
My last problem in the section of the book I managed to get through before stopping is the endless narrative lectures. Don't get me wrong, the spadework underlying a story is important, but we readers don't need to read it. Now some of the spadework is important to the story; for example the part of the tale where the Mordorians agricultural schemes destroy the arable land is an important plot point. But the endless narrative lectures about Mordorian democracy, the glories of Barad-Dur, etc. are a grand waste of time. It makes reading the tale a chore for all but the most dedicated irreligious fundamentalists. Who probably spend most of their reading time either pumping their fists or pumping themselves.
April 30, 2011
Absolutely brilliant! We've all heard that history is written by the victor. Well, imagine that The Lord of the Rings is a historical text written by the victors in the War of the Ring, and imagine that the absolute Good vs. Evil depicted in TLOTR is nothing but propaganda written by said victors to excuse/justify their acts. Russian scientist and author Kirill Eskov has written a brilliant reimagining of the War of the Ring (and the time following the defeat of Morder) from the point of view of the Mordorians and their allies.
In this brilliant tale, 'orcs' and 'trolls' are merely other races of humans, and the notion of referring to them as horned, clawed, evil monsters was merely a way of justifying the 'final solution' to the Mordorian problem. Gandalf and Aragorn are power-hungry, manipulative types, who will do anything to control Middle Earth. They come from the backwards, superstitious North where 'magic' allows them to rule the day, and they are threatened by the advances in science and technology (not to mention rational thinking!) coming from the land of Mordor, where an industrial revolution is burgeoning. They make a rather foolish alliance with the Elves (who are, in fact, scheming to control all of mankind) in order to affect their 'final solution.' The tale of The Last Ringbearer begins as the survivors of the genocide in Morder come together to form a resistance...
I read the English translation by Yisroel Markov (which can be downloaded for free). It's quite a great translation, although while Markov has an impressive vocabulary and is accurately able to express Eskov's wit in English, he has some trouble with the past-perfect and present-prefect tenses, so that every now and then the reader is reminded that this translation was not done by a native English speaker. I'm an English teacher, so this sort of thing jumps out at me, although it did not affect my enjoyment of the book. I would like to read the original Russian version at some point.
It should be noted that this book will make a lot more sense to those who have read Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (or who have at least seen the movies). For someone who is unfamiliar with TLOTR, this book would undoubtedly be difficult to follow.
In this brilliant tale, 'orcs' and 'trolls' are merely other races of humans, and the notion of referring to them as horned, clawed, evil monsters was merely a way of justifying the 'final solution' to the Mordorian problem. Gandalf and Aragorn are power-hungry, manipulative types, who will do anything to control Middle Earth. They come from the backwards, superstitious North where 'magic' allows them to rule the day, and they are threatened by the advances in science and technology (not to mention rational thinking!) coming from the land of Mordor, where an industrial revolution is burgeoning. They make a rather foolish alliance with the Elves (who are, in fact, scheming to control all of mankind) in order to affect their 'final solution.' The tale of The Last Ringbearer begins as the survivors of the genocide in Morder come together to form a resistance...
I read the English translation by Yisroel Markov (which can be downloaded for free). It's quite a great translation, although while Markov has an impressive vocabulary and is accurately able to express Eskov's wit in English, he has some trouble with the past-perfect and present-prefect tenses, so that every now and then the reader is reminded that this translation was not done by a native English speaker. I'm an English teacher, so this sort of thing jumps out at me, although it did not affect my enjoyment of the book. I would like to read the original Russian version at some point.
It should be noted that this book will make a lot more sense to those who have read Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (or who have at least seen the movies). For someone who is unfamiliar with TLOTR, this book would undoubtedly be difficult to follow.
March 8, 2012
(I am humbled by the amount of love and devotion it takes to 1) Write a novel-length transformational/derivative work 2) Translate it into another language.)
This is one of the books I read for the Good Books panel at FOGcon. I would not have if it hadn't been an "assignment", and I'm glad I did. It is interesting and varied. There is a story about strategic war decisions, and a story about spycraft, and a story about weapons design, and a palace intrigue story, and an overarching story of competing technologies and the virtue of persistence and redundant planning.
At times, I was reminded of WWII desert rat movies, and of Robert Jordan, and Tom Clancy, and the Scarlet Pimpernel, and Churchill. This is a good thing.
Like all the best transformational literature, it is a good story in itself, and it inverts and twists your understanding of the original text. And I will confess. I only sort of love the original text. I read it once, when I was that age, but never really felt called to go back to it. A lot of what I was thinking about when I read it was the movies, which also worked.
This is a like the Middle-Earth version of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
I have a lot of thinkful thoughts about the racial representations, and history being written by the victors, and resistance movements, but I think I will handwave at them for now.
A note on the translation: I don't read Russian, so I have no idea how true it is to tone and quality, but the language is very very unlike Tolkien, probably deliberately. It is more colloquial and modern, which suits the pov of the characters as not deliberately embracing archaic and courtly language. There are a couple times when I was thrown out of the text by "you guys" type things, but it was not a dealbreaker by any means, and on the whole, I did not spend all my time thinking about the fact that this was a text in translation.
Read if: You liked the original and/or war books -- this is absolutely a war book, and war is hell. You wonder about the motivations of the elves. You wanted a less valorous and courtly world. You would like to read about metaphysics.
Skip if: You will be put out that neither the elves nor Aragorn appear in a very nice light. You hate political intrigue novels. You dislike sprawling multi-storyline stories.
Notes:
* If you are going to read this, get a GOOD Middle-Earth map. You'll thank me later.
* I have converted this to .epub. The diacriticals got lost, but otherwise I am pretty happy with it. If you can't read .pdfs on your mobile device, let me know, and I will give you the epub
This is one of the books I read for the Good Books panel at FOGcon. I would not have if it hadn't been an "assignment", and I'm glad I did. It is interesting and varied. There is a story about strategic war decisions, and a story about spycraft, and a story about weapons design, and a palace intrigue story, and an overarching story of competing technologies and the virtue of persistence and redundant planning.
At times, I was reminded of WWII desert rat movies, and of Robert Jordan, and Tom Clancy, and the Scarlet Pimpernel, and Churchill. This is a good thing.
Like all the best transformational literature, it is a good story in itself, and it inverts and twists your understanding of the original text. And I will confess. I only sort of love the original text. I read it once, when I was that age, but never really felt called to go back to it. A lot of what I was thinking about when I read it was the movies, which also worked.
This is a like the Middle-Earth version of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
I have a lot of thinkful thoughts about the racial representations, and history being written by the victors, and resistance movements, but I think I will handwave at them for now.
A note on the translation: I don't read Russian, so I have no idea how true it is to tone and quality, but the language is very very unlike Tolkien, probably deliberately. It is more colloquial and modern, which suits the pov of the characters as not deliberately embracing archaic and courtly language. There are a couple times when I was thrown out of the text by "you guys" type things, but it was not a dealbreaker by any means, and on the whole, I did not spend all my time thinking about the fact that this was a text in translation.
Read if: You liked the original and/or war books -- this is absolutely a war book, and war is hell. You wonder about the motivations of the elves. You wanted a less valorous and courtly world. You would like to read about metaphysics.
Skip if: You will be put out that neither the elves nor Aragorn appear in a very nice light. You hate political intrigue novels. You dislike sprawling multi-storyline stories.
Notes:
* If you are going to read this, get a GOOD Middle-Earth map. You'll thank me later.
* I have converted this to .epub. The diacriticals got lost, but otherwise I am pretty happy with it. If you can't read .pdfs on your mobile device, let me know, and I will give you the epub
March 7, 2011
I want to thank Terence for putting his soul in my soul's stead, so to speak, by finding and reading this book for me, so I don't have to. His analysis is so accurate and detailed (though I did bite the bullet and read it myself last night) that I won't even try to go into any depth about it, other than to say I completely agree that this isn't worth reading, and that the story isn't really worthy of the grandeur of the setting, and could easily have been set in any other fictional world like Dumas' France or indeed Le Carre's England.
But, for me there's a but, because I read the guy's article about why he wrote it first, and came to like him from that, I read it not as I read a book by a new author but something like the way I'd read fanfic written by a friend, with much, much lower expectations, in other words, and on that level I found it clever and funny. I interpreted the over-the-top metaphors as deliberate parodies of pot-boiler writing style, and cracked up about them. The juxtaposition of spy thriller style with Tolkien characters I found fairly entertaining for most of the book.
I did have a hard time keeping the characters straight mostly because their internal voices seemed identical to each other man, troll, or orc. The creepy attitude toward women is what I'm guessing bad potboilers display, since the main love interest is very clever and powerful, and not a dumb blonde type, so it doesn't seem to be coming from the author.
There was one theme with which I did resonate, and which made me feel that some book of this sort this wasn't out of place: namely Tolkien didn't like technology, or rather, he liked technology right up to what existed (I'm guessing) in rural England in the time of his youth: waterwheels, wheelbarrows, hand tools, umbrellas, and not at all anything that came later such as the internal combustion engine (for those of us without handy waterfalls). He was quite against, say, the use of bombers in WW2, and thought the very idea was horrific, like the winged mounts of the Nazgul or something, as he wrote to his son Christopher.
And that needs an answer, I think. All the baddies in Tolkien's books use engines, steam, higher technology, and the goodguys have magic, sweetly babbling brooks, and such for their weapons of defense. Our world here has definitely plumped for the higher-tech vision, and I wouldn't have it any other way. So I liked the fact that science, which is really such a glorious pursuit, so much higher than the magic which was its predecessor in power in our human minds, perhaps, I liked that it was cast as the good-guy in this manuscript.
As for the rest, well I spent one night at it and didn't count it wasted. I think this was way better than, say, David Brin whose dreck I tried to wade through a while back; a terrible writer! But I can't actually recommend it to anyone else. As an amusement between friends I thought it was funny and clever. I did want to know what happened. But compared with real books by real writers, not so much.
But, for me there's a but, because I read the guy's article about why he wrote it first, and came to like him from that, I read it not as I read a book by a new author but something like the way I'd read fanfic written by a friend, with much, much lower expectations, in other words, and on that level I found it clever and funny. I interpreted the over-the-top metaphors as deliberate parodies of pot-boiler writing style, and cracked up about them. The juxtaposition of spy thriller style with Tolkien characters I found fairly entertaining for most of the book.
I did have a hard time keeping the characters straight mostly because their internal voices seemed identical to each other man, troll, or orc. The creepy attitude toward women is what I'm guessing bad potboilers display, since the main love interest is very clever and powerful, and not a dumb blonde type, so it doesn't seem to be coming from the author.
There was one theme with which I did resonate, and which made me feel that some book of this sort this wasn't out of place: namely Tolkien didn't like technology, or rather, he liked technology right up to what existed (I'm guessing) in rural England in the time of his youth: waterwheels, wheelbarrows, hand tools, umbrellas, and not at all anything that came later such as the internal combustion engine (for those of us without handy waterfalls). He was quite against, say, the use of bombers in WW2, and thought the very idea was horrific, like the winged mounts of the Nazgul or something, as he wrote to his son Christopher.
And that needs an answer, I think. All the baddies in Tolkien's books use engines, steam, higher technology, and the goodguys have magic, sweetly babbling brooks, and such for their weapons of defense. Our world here has definitely plumped for the higher-tech vision, and I wouldn't have it any other way. So I liked the fact that science, which is really such a glorious pursuit, so much higher than the magic which was its predecessor in power in our human minds, perhaps, I liked that it was cast as the good-guy in this manuscript.
As for the rest, well I spent one night at it and didn't count it wasted. I think this was way better than, say, David Brin whose dreck I tried to wade through a while back; a terrible writer! But I can't actually recommend it to anyone else. As an amusement between friends I thought it was funny and clever. I did want to know what happened. But compared with real books by real writers, not so much.
July 1, 2019
Genial la historia de la Guerra del Anillo desde un punto de vista totalmente original, y genial también el tono de la novela: fresco, irónico, un poco paródico, pero sin pasarse. La historia se sostiene por sí sola, no únicamente por ser una revisión de otra historia ya contada. Y mucha trama de espionaje, no sé si he visto de verdad o solo he querido ver un homenaje a las novelas de espías, tipo Le Carré o Forsyth. Igual son cosas mías.
January 10, 2015
unauthorized sequel to tolkien. attempts to present mordor's perspective of the war, i.e., that feudal-fundamentalists turned back the clock of history by destroying a progressive industrial state. that's damned interesting, and there's plenty of speculation as to how the setting and story might have developed along these lines.
so, then, kinda a cool experiment in bakhtinian dialogic reimagining of a well known text, which text is a nasty old right vision of monarchism, ethnic cleansing, xenophobia, and so on.
all that said (and, as with my comments on the Stanek, I don't want to beat up on a self-published writer who's just trying to make it), it's got some severe rhetorical deficiencies at the sentence level (20th century slang shows up, say) and a few fatal defects in the larger discursive structure (imbalances between scene and summary; lengthy detours in the narrative that may not serve the ends).
so, then, kinda a cool experiment in bakhtinian dialogic reimagining of a well known text, which text is a nasty old right vision of monarchism, ethnic cleansing, xenophobia, and so on.
all that said (and, as with my comments on the Stanek, I don't want to beat up on a self-published writer who's just trying to make it), it's got some severe rhetorical deficiencies at the sentence level (20th century slang shows up, say) and a few fatal defects in the larger discursive structure (imbalances between scene and summary; lengthy detours in the narrative that may not serve the ends).
March 15, 2016
Videoreseña del libro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xgY9...
"La Historia la escriben los vencedores". Es una gran verdad. Y como muchas veces el Bien y el Mal absolutos no existen, el bando vencedor habrá cometido actos muy poco loables que tapará, bien por medio del subterfugio, bien por medio de la propaganda. De hecho, muchas leyendas y narraciones mitológicas no son más que explicaciones dadas a posteriori en las que se habla de ayudas divinas y malvados muy malvadosos a los que había que detener de cualquier forma porque eran enviados del Mal.
"El Señor de los Anillos" es una narración mitológica. Es una epopeya. Esa es su base y su finalidad: Tolkien trataba de crear una mitología, un folklore, puramente "inglés", sin mezclas externas (que esa idea sea un poco pueril es lo de menos). No hay medias tintas, ni tonos grises, ni antihéroes en "El Señor de los Anillos" (Gollum no cumple esta función). Una vez terminó "La Guerra del Anillo" y se dio fin a la Tercera Era, las malvadas gentes de Mordor... desaparecieron. Sin más. Eso, si "El Señor de los Anillos" fuera mínimamente realista, no hubiera sucedido así, a no ser que alguien hubiera comenzado una guerra de exterminio contra ellos.
Y eso es precisamente lo que hace "El último anillo": considerar "El Señor de los Anillos" mito e intentar contar una historia basada en ese universo, pero tratando de darle un fondo y desarrollo más realistas, o al menos, menos dado a entender el mundo en blancos y negros absolutos. Y lo hace con mucho sentido del humor. Porque "El último anillo" es una sátira. Esa es la razón por la que Kirill Yeskov no utiliza los verdades nombres que aparecen en la obra de Tolkien (por eso y por derechos de copyright), es más divertido adivinar a qué hace referencia.
"El último anillo" se lo debe todo o casi todo a la existencia de "El Señor de los Anillos", por supuesto, pero también funciona como obra independiente. Es mucho más divertida si conoces la obra que satiriza sólo porque así sabes en qué personajes se basan Altogorn, Aramir, Eohwyn, Gandrelf, Seoman... etc. pero creo que se puede leer sin haber leído antes la novela de Tolkien. No sé quién querría hacerlo así, pero se puede. Al fin y al cabo, Kirill Yeskov hace algo muy curioso con esta novela: convierte un relato de fantasía épica en una novela de espías al estilo de las de le Carré. No bromeo. Esta novela bebe mucho de las novelas sobre espías de la Guerra Fría de autores tales como Forsyth o el propio le Carré. Así que A alguien que espere leer una historia de fantasía y/o que odie las historias de espías, esta novela le defraudará.
"El último anillo" es una historia en la que se trama un complot por aquellos que perdieron la "guerra del Anillo", y por ello está llena de gambitos, juegos de información y contrainformación, mentiras, cierta acción y mucho ocultamiento. Es una historia de espías clásica. Los personajes están lo bastante bien dibujados y tienen el carisma suficiente para llevar el peso de la narración, que es detallista sin sobrecargar, y que sobre todo brilla en ofrecerte con un humor cáustico una visión de las estrategias geopolíticas de la Tierra Media... perdón, Midgard, si Tolkien se hubiera molestado un poquito siquiera en dibujarlas. Yeskov crea toda una serie de civilizaciones para Mordor... perdón, Umbror, dotándola de interés y profundidad. Para ello utiliza culturas y civilizaciones de nuestro mundo (Opar es sin duda Italia, por ejemplo), pero ello no le resta validez. Incluso crea reglas económicas y diferentes monedas, algo que Tolkien jamás necesita hacer porque su mundo es mitológico.
Puede que a los fans más puristas de Tolkien les horrorice esta historia que, al fin y al cabo, le da la vuelta a la filosofía que desarrolla el maestro inglés en sus novelas, pero yo no le vi ningún problema y es más, me divirtió muchísimo más porque adoro la obra de Tolkien y no podía más que reírme y asentir frente a los argumentos que lanza Yeskov, como que el Anillo Único era una mentira y una chufla para evitar que los Occidentales invadieran Mord--Umbror, razón por la cual los Espectros van como sí mismos, vestidos todo de negro y llamando la atención preguntando por los Bolsón a través de toda la Comarca, en vez de disfrazarse y robar el anillo directamente si es lo que realmente hubieran querido. Sólo por esa ocurrencia ya hubiera valido la pena la novela. Pero "El último anillo" es una historia muy digna y muy entretenida de espías, con mucho sentido del humor (aunque advierto que no a todos hará gracia), que trata de crear un suspense muy conseguido (nunca sabes del todo si el plan funcionará) en un mundo de fantasía.
Todos aquellos que se sientan intrigados por una historia así deberían darle una oportunidad, aquellos que quieran una historia con mucha fantasía (esta novela apenas contiene nada de eso) o a quienes las novelas de suspense político les dejan indiferentes, no creo que les guste esta novela.
"La Historia la escriben los vencedores". Es una gran verdad. Y como muchas veces el Bien y el Mal absolutos no existen, el bando vencedor habrá cometido actos muy poco loables que tapará, bien por medio del subterfugio, bien por medio de la propaganda. De hecho, muchas leyendas y narraciones mitológicas no son más que explicaciones dadas a posteriori en las que se habla de ayudas divinas y malvados muy malvadosos a los que había que detener de cualquier forma porque eran enviados del Mal.
"El Señor de los Anillos" es una narración mitológica. Es una epopeya. Esa es su base y su finalidad: Tolkien trataba de crear una mitología, un folklore, puramente "inglés", sin mezclas externas (que esa idea sea un poco pueril es lo de menos). No hay medias tintas, ni tonos grises, ni antihéroes en "El Señor de los Anillos" (Gollum no cumple esta función). Una vez terminó "La Guerra del Anillo" y se dio fin a la Tercera Era, las malvadas gentes de Mordor... desaparecieron. Sin más. Eso, si "El Señor de los Anillos" fuera mínimamente realista, no hubiera sucedido así, a no ser que alguien hubiera comenzado una guerra de exterminio contra ellos.
Y eso es precisamente lo que hace "El último anillo": considerar "El Señor de los Anillos" mito e intentar contar una historia basada en ese universo, pero tratando de darle un fondo y desarrollo más realistas, o al menos, menos dado a entender el mundo en blancos y negros absolutos. Y lo hace con mucho sentido del humor. Porque "El último anillo" es una sátira. Esa es la razón por la que Kirill Yeskov no utiliza los verdades nombres que aparecen en la obra de Tolkien (por eso y por derechos de copyright), es más divertido adivinar a qué hace referencia.
"El último anillo" se lo debe todo o casi todo a la existencia de "El Señor de los Anillos", por supuesto, pero también funciona como obra independiente. Es mucho más divertida si conoces la obra que satiriza sólo porque así sabes en qué personajes se basan Altogorn, Aramir, Eohwyn, Gandrelf, Seoman... etc. pero creo que se puede leer sin haber leído antes la novela de Tolkien. No sé quién querría hacerlo así, pero se puede. Al fin y al cabo, Kirill Yeskov hace algo muy curioso con esta novela: convierte un relato de fantasía épica en una novela de espías al estilo de las de le Carré. No bromeo. Esta novela bebe mucho de las novelas sobre espías de la Guerra Fría de autores tales como Forsyth o el propio le Carré. Así que A alguien que espere leer una historia de fantasía y/o que odie las historias de espías, esta novela le defraudará.
"El último anillo" es una historia en la que se trama un complot por aquellos que perdieron la "guerra del Anillo", y por ello está llena de gambitos, juegos de información y contrainformación, mentiras, cierta acción y mucho ocultamiento. Es una historia de espías clásica. Los personajes están lo bastante bien dibujados y tienen el carisma suficiente para llevar el peso de la narración, que es detallista sin sobrecargar, y que sobre todo brilla en ofrecerte con un humor cáustico una visión de las estrategias geopolíticas de la Tierra Media... perdón, Midgard, si Tolkien se hubiera molestado un poquito siquiera en dibujarlas. Yeskov crea toda una serie de civilizaciones para Mordor... perdón, Umbror, dotándola de interés y profundidad. Para ello utiliza culturas y civilizaciones de nuestro mundo (Opar es sin duda Italia, por ejemplo), pero ello no le resta validez. Incluso crea reglas económicas y diferentes monedas, algo que Tolkien jamás necesita hacer porque su mundo es mitológico.
Puede que a los fans más puristas de Tolkien les horrorice esta historia que, al fin y al cabo, le da la vuelta a la filosofía que desarrolla el maestro inglés en sus novelas, pero yo no le vi ningún problema y es más, me divirtió muchísimo más porque adoro la obra de Tolkien y no podía más que reírme y asentir frente a los argumentos que lanza Yeskov, como que el Anillo Único era una mentira y una chufla para evitar que los Occidentales invadieran Mord--Umbror, razón por la cual los Espectros van como sí mismos, vestidos todo de negro y llamando la atención preguntando por los Bolsón a través de toda la Comarca, en vez de disfrazarse y robar el anillo directamente si es lo que realmente hubieran querido. Sólo por esa ocurrencia ya hubiera valido la pena la novela. Pero "El último anillo" es una historia muy digna y muy entretenida de espías, con mucho sentido del humor (aunque advierto que no a todos hará gracia), que trata de crear un suspense muy conseguido (nunca sabes del todo si el plan funcionará) en un mundo de fantasía.
Todos aquellos que se sientan intrigados por una historia así deberían darle una oportunidad, aquellos que quieran una historia con mucha fantasía (esta novela apenas contiene nada de eso) o a quienes las novelas de suspense político les dejan indiferentes, no creo que les guste esta novela.
May 14, 2023
The beginning was boring, the ending was abrupt but the middle part was pretty cool. But don't expect a typical fantasy novel.
November 1, 2018
-La historia la escriben los vencedores, como pasó en la Tierra Media según cree este autor.-
Género. Narrativa fantástica.
Lo que nos cuenta. En el libro El último anillo (publicación original: Последний кольценосец, 1999), un experimentado explorador orco (perdón, orocueno) y un médico herido escapan de la derrota de su ejército y de las patrullas elfas mientras caminan por Mordor (perdón, Umbror). Y es que La guerra del anillo ha concluido y Mor… Umbror, un país tranquilo, amante de la tecnología y de la ciencia, ha sido derrotado, junto a su aliado Isengard (perdón, Fuerteferro) por una coalición de las naciones del oeste, con el apoyo de los elfos (u orquestada por ellos…) y del Consejo Blanco, con Gandalf (perdón, Gandrelf) a la cabeza y con interés en eliminar todo rastro de tecnología y que el conocimiento mágico, lo tradicional, sea lo que impere en toda la Tierra Me… perdón, Midgard
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Narrativa fantástica.
Lo que nos cuenta. En el libro El último anillo (publicación original: Последний кольценосец, 1999), un experimentado explorador orco (perdón, orocueno) y un médico herido escapan de la derrota de su ejército y de las patrullas elfas mientras caminan por Mordor (perdón, Umbror). Y es que La guerra del anillo ha concluido y Mor… Umbror, un país tranquilo, amante de la tecnología y de la ciencia, ha sido derrotado, junto a su aliado Isengard (perdón, Fuerteferro) por una coalición de las naciones del oeste, con el apoyo de los elfos (u orquestada por ellos…) y del Consejo Blanco, con Gandalf (perdón, Gandrelf) a la cabeza y con interés en eliminar todo rastro de tecnología y que el conocimiento mágico, lo tradicional, sea lo que impere en toda la Tierra Me… perdón, Midgard
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
February 28, 2011
Take the Lord of the Rings, add the premise that "History is written by the victors," and consider further that:
* The elves are generally considered dangerous and untrustworthy
* The riders of Rohan are basically illiterate peasants, albeit very dangerous ones
* There is indication that Mordor has something to do with technological advances
This tale begins with a Mordorian military scouting unit that was out of contact at the time of the destruction of Sauron's forces. In keeping with "History written by victors,"
* The orcs, trolls, and such are neither inherently evil, nor stupid or incompetent; it's just that like the Huns of WWI, the writers characterized them thus.
* The *essentially* dangerous thing about Mordor wasn't the "evil magic," it was that Sauron was encouraging his subjects to pursue scientific innovation, which would eventually overrun illiterate others.
* Nazgul weren't evil; they were seeking to help to guide the innovative impulses. But to the writers of LOTR, that *was* evil...
* The new conflict is about the Mordorian unit seeking to destroy the Mirror of Galadriel, so as to prevent the Elves from transforming the world into a "dirty backwater of Aman," the magical world that they came from.
The bulk of this tale is a "spy war," where the members of the secret services of the various powers of Middle Earth thrust, parry, and deflect. There's a realism to this; surely Gondor, Mordor, and the elves all have spy masters that act against one another. Somewhat humorously, Rohan and the hobbits never play into this; the Shire is only just barely mentioned.
Politics makes for strange bedfellows, and there are some twisty trails before a conclusion is arrived at.
Quite entertaining!
* The elves are generally considered dangerous and untrustworthy
* The riders of Rohan are basically illiterate peasants, albeit very dangerous ones
* There is indication that Mordor has something to do with technological advances
This tale begins with a Mordorian military scouting unit that was out of contact at the time of the destruction of Sauron's forces. In keeping with "History written by victors,"
* The orcs, trolls, and such are neither inherently evil, nor stupid or incompetent; it's just that like the Huns of WWI, the writers characterized them thus.
* The *essentially* dangerous thing about Mordor wasn't the "evil magic," it was that Sauron was encouraging his subjects to pursue scientific innovation, which would eventually overrun illiterate others.
* Nazgul weren't evil; they were seeking to help to guide the innovative impulses. But to the writers of LOTR, that *was* evil...
* The new conflict is about the Mordorian unit seeking to destroy the Mirror of Galadriel, so as to prevent the Elves from transforming the world into a "dirty backwater of Aman," the magical world that they came from.
The bulk of this tale is a "spy war," where the members of the secret services of the various powers of Middle Earth thrust, parry, and deflect. There's a realism to this; surely Gondor, Mordor, and the elves all have spy masters that act against one another. Somewhat humorously, Rohan and the hobbits never play into this; the Shire is only just barely mentioned.
Politics makes for strange bedfellows, and there are some twisty trails before a conclusion is arrived at.
Quite entertaining!
July 3, 2011
It's probably a good idea to read the author's essay on Salon.com before tackling this book. He's a Russian geologist or palaeontologist or something and wrote it because he was puzzling over some geological oddities of Middle Earth (i.e., single continent but no mid-continent mountain range, and also what's on the rest of the map south and east of Morder that you never see?).
The first part, where LoTR is recapped from the Mordorians' perspective, was interesting and rather creative (who knew it was all a plot by the elves to take over Middle Earth??), but then it turns into a military/spy thriller and I got bored with it. Not really my genre. Some people have called it fanfic, but I'm not sure it qualifies as that since it's actually been published and won a couple of awards in Russia.
The translation was done by someone in their spare time, just because they thought it was interesting, so no professional editing, which it would have benefited from -- for example, the tense shifts all over the place, which drove me crazy. Presumably it isn't this way in the award-winning original Russian. If you like Tolkien, military-oriented fantasy, and John Le Carre & Co., you'll probably enjoy it. Since I only like the first of those three things, I didn't get much out of it and in fact didn't finish it.
The first part, where LoTR is recapped from the Mordorians' perspective, was interesting and rather creative (who knew it was all a plot by the elves to take over Middle Earth??), but then it turns into a military/spy thriller and I got bored with it. Not really my genre. Some people have called it fanfic, but I'm not sure it qualifies as that since it's actually been published and won a couple of awards in Russia.
The translation was done by someone in their spare time, just because they thought it was interesting, so no professional editing, which it would have benefited from -- for example, the tense shifts all over the place, which drove me crazy. Presumably it isn't this way in the award-winning original Russian. If you like Tolkien, military-oriented fantasy, and John Le Carre & Co., you'll probably enjoy it. Since I only like the first of those three things, I didn't get much out of it and in fact didn't finish it.
October 25, 2020
Excellent, required reading for LoTR fans, a wonderful "Real Politik" antidote to the unquestioning heroic stances of LoTR characters.
For example, hobbits are hardly mentioned, Elves are assholes, Wizards are devious and untrustworthy, Orcs are effective soldiers, Mordor is the secular jewel of the world, the main character is a regular human using science to get things done.
In other words, imagine a more balanced point of view for interpreting the state of affairs in Middle Earth.
Some commenters complained about bad writing, the diversion away from the main character in the middle. I didn't mind those bits at all. I took the whole thing as a nice presentation of a pre-industrial world, fascinating and rich in detail, one where every culture seems to have the ethic of striving for excellence.
I found it engaging, and now on my second reading, even more compelling.
For example, hobbits are hardly mentioned, Elves are assholes, Wizards are devious and untrustworthy, Orcs are effective soldiers, Mordor is the secular jewel of the world, the main character is a regular human using science to get things done.
In other words, imagine a more balanced point of view for interpreting the state of affairs in Middle Earth.
Some commenters complained about bad writing, the diversion away from the main character in the middle. I didn't mind those bits at all. I took the whole thing as a nice presentation of a pre-industrial world, fascinating and rich in detail, one where every culture seems to have the ethic of striving for excellence.
I found it engaging, and now on my second reading, even more compelling.
August 21, 2025
Valoración exacta: 4/10
Este libro sería sin dudas una de mis mayores decepciones del año, si no fuera porque había visto algunas reseñas antes de leerlo, de modo que estaba, hasta cierto punto, prevenido.
Es que el libro tenía todo, absolutamente todo, para encantarme. La idea de hacer una secuela de El señor de los anillos, pero contada desde el punto de vista de los orcos, bajo la tan conocida premisa de: “la historia la escriben los ganadores, pero siempre hay otra versión de los hechos, que ha sido silenciada”, es sencillamente genial. Pero a medida que lo iba leyendo, descubrí que la novela tiene muchas otras de las características que me encanta encontrar en una obra. Por ejemplo, está repleto de referencias y alusiones a nuestra actualidad: algunas tremendamente obvias; otras un poco más sutiles, pero que ahí están. Me encantan las obras alegóricas, que nos hablan de mucho más que lo expresado explícitamente en sus páginas.
Tenía todo para enamorarme y, sin embargo, no lo hizo. Salvo algunas partes aisladas, el libro se me hizo largo, lento, interminable. Las razones son varias:
Primero, en un libro inspirado en El señor de los anillos esperas encontrarte, al menos en parte, algo del tono épico que tiene la obra de Tolkien. Pues no. El libro tiene distintos estilos a lo largo de la historia: se divide en cuatro partes, y podríamos decir, sin miedo a exagerar, que cada una de ellas tiene un tono diferente. Pero ninguna nos recuerda ni un poco a Tolkien. Las batallas, por ejemplo, cuando no son directamente elididas, se parecen más a lo que leerías en un libro de historia o de táctica militar que a un relato épico medieval. Hay excepciones, pero pueden contarse con los dedos de una mano.
Que el libro tengo un estilo propio, original, tampoco tendría nada de malo si ese estilo estuviera bien logrado. Pero no es el caso. En muchos pasajes, la obra intenta ser paródica e irónica. De hecho, casi juraría que el autor ha leído algo de Terry Pratchett e intenta imprimirle a su novela un estilo similar. Pero, para que esto ocurra, debe ser capaz de generarnos cierta risa, y, la verdad, no lo consigue prácticamente en ningún momento.
Segundo, hay un error que para mí es fundamental en la estrategia narrativa. En la primera parte del libro, se nos revela que los protagonistas deben afrontar una misión trascendental, de la que depende el destino del mundo. Se nos rebela la misión, sí, pero no el plan que eligen para llevarla a cabo: eso no lo descubriremos casi hasta el final. Sin dudas, la idea tras este ocultamiento era generar suspenso. Pero no funciona. Por eso, en la segunda y -especialmente- la tercera parte del libro, vamos a ver a algunos de los protagonistas dando tumbos de aquí para allá, haciendo cosas que no parecen tener ningún sentido. La tercera parte adopta el formato de una novela de espionaje, con Tangorn (uno de los protagonistas) esquivando y dejando en ridículo una y otra vez a tres servicios de inteligencia diferentes. Podría haber sido interesantísimo, ver como el prota se va a acercando lentamente, y con mucha habilidad, a la consecución de su objetivo. El problema es que nunca entiendes cuál es ese objetivo, por lo tanto todo lo que hace parece carecer de propósito, y, como lector, te pierdes, te aburres y, en algún punto, es probable que hasta pienses en tirar el libro por la ventana. Al final, todas las piezas encajan en la cuarta y última parte, pero para entonces es probable que algunos lectores se hayan cansado y hayan dejado el libro sin terminar. Yo, les confieso, pensé en hacerlo al menos en un par de ocasiones.
Tercero, el final: Como dije, al comienzo de la cuarta parte, todas esas piezas sueltas que fuimos acumulando en las partes anteriores, súbitamente logran encajar y, al fin, tenemos un panorama completo del plan. Durante algunas páginas, la historia fluye y es, sin duda, el mejor momento de la novela. Hasta que Yeskov lo vuelve a arruinar con otro error de novelista principiante. En esta ocasión, tenemos una de las peores prolepsis que haya visto en cualquier novela. Si alguien escribiera un artículo sobre cómo no debe utilizarse la prolepsis, el final de El último anillo debería aparecer como ejemplo destacado, sin ninguna duda.
Para quienes no conozcan este recurso, la prolepsis es una especie de auto-spoiler controlado: el narrador adelanta algo de lo que ocurrirá en el futuro, pero sin revelarnos cuándo ni cómo se llegará a ese momento. Bien empleada, tiene el recurso de generar mucha tensión y suspenso. Un ejemplo de buen uso de este recurso lo encontramos en El hobbit, de Tolkien: varias veces el relato nos habla de cosas que ocurrirían en la Batalla de los Cinco Ejércitos; tanto se la nombra, que el lector siente ansiedad por llegar a ese momento.
Pero en El último anillo, como ya dije, el recurso está pésimamente empleado: Yeskov nos anticipa el final (en lugar de prolepsis, termina siendo un spoiler en toda regla) y luego pretende generar suspenso introduciendo ciertos giros que “hacen creer” que el plan podría fallar: claro que nadie se lo cree, porque ya nos avisó de entrada lo que ocurriría, por lo que todas las páginas empleadas en ese intento de generar suspenso terminan siendo una mera pérdida de tiempo.
La verdad que fue una pena: una premisa excelente, que resulta prácticamente estropeada por los fallos de un escritor novato. Pensé en valorarla en dos estrellas, que equivaldría a un aplazo, pero aún con las cosas que le critico, hubo suficientes aspectos del libro que me gustaron, como para justificar una tercera estrella: la prosa de Yeskov por momentos es agradable, con unas descripciones de paisajes y escenarios bastante interesantes. Y la idea general, aún a medio lograr, es lo bastante original e interesante como para que tenga su mérito.
Este libro sería sin dudas una de mis mayores decepciones del año, si no fuera porque había visto algunas reseñas antes de leerlo, de modo que estaba, hasta cierto punto, prevenido.
Es que el libro tenía todo, absolutamente todo, para encantarme. La idea de hacer una secuela de El señor de los anillos, pero contada desde el punto de vista de los orcos, bajo la tan conocida premisa de: “la historia la escriben los ganadores, pero siempre hay otra versión de los hechos, que ha sido silenciada”, es sencillamente genial. Pero a medida que lo iba leyendo, descubrí que la novela tiene muchas otras de las características que me encanta encontrar en una obra. Por ejemplo, está repleto de referencias y alusiones a nuestra actualidad: algunas tremendamente obvias; otras un poco más sutiles, pero que ahí están. Me encantan las obras alegóricas, que nos hablan de mucho más que lo expresado explícitamente en sus páginas.
Tenía todo para enamorarme y, sin embargo, no lo hizo. Salvo algunas partes aisladas, el libro se me hizo largo, lento, interminable. Las razones son varias:
Primero, en un libro inspirado en El señor de los anillos esperas encontrarte, al menos en parte, algo del tono épico que tiene la obra de Tolkien. Pues no. El libro tiene distintos estilos a lo largo de la historia: se divide en cuatro partes, y podríamos decir, sin miedo a exagerar, que cada una de ellas tiene un tono diferente. Pero ninguna nos recuerda ni un poco a Tolkien. Las batallas, por ejemplo, cuando no son directamente elididas, se parecen más a lo que leerías en un libro de historia o de táctica militar que a un relato épico medieval. Hay excepciones, pero pueden contarse con los dedos de una mano.
Que el libro tengo un estilo propio, original, tampoco tendría nada de malo si ese estilo estuviera bien logrado. Pero no es el caso. En muchos pasajes, la obra intenta ser paródica e irónica. De hecho, casi juraría que el autor ha leído algo de Terry Pratchett e intenta imprimirle a su novela un estilo similar. Pero, para que esto ocurra, debe ser capaz de generarnos cierta risa, y, la verdad, no lo consigue prácticamente en ningún momento.
Segundo, hay un error que para mí es fundamental en la estrategia narrativa. En la primera parte del libro, se nos revela que los protagonistas deben afrontar una misión trascendental, de la que depende el destino del mundo. Se nos rebela la misión, sí, pero no el plan que eligen para llevarla a cabo: eso no lo descubriremos casi hasta el final. Sin dudas, la idea tras este ocultamiento era generar suspenso. Pero no funciona. Por eso, en la segunda y -especialmente- la tercera parte del libro, vamos a ver a algunos de los protagonistas dando tumbos de aquí para allá, haciendo cosas que no parecen tener ningún sentido. La tercera parte adopta el formato de una novela de espionaje, con Tangorn (uno de los protagonistas) esquivando y dejando en ridículo una y otra vez a tres servicios de inteligencia diferentes. Podría haber sido interesantísimo, ver como el prota se va a acercando lentamente, y con mucha habilidad, a la consecución de su objetivo. El problema es que nunca entiendes cuál es ese objetivo, por lo tanto todo lo que hace parece carecer de propósito, y, como lector, te pierdes, te aburres y, en algún punto, es probable que hasta pienses en tirar el libro por la ventana. Al final, todas las piezas encajan en la cuarta y última parte, pero para entonces es probable que algunos lectores se hayan cansado y hayan dejado el libro sin terminar. Yo, les confieso, pensé en hacerlo al menos en un par de ocasiones.
Tercero, el final: Como dije, al comienzo de la cuarta parte, todas esas piezas sueltas que fuimos acumulando en las partes anteriores, súbitamente logran encajar y, al fin, tenemos un panorama completo del plan. Durante algunas páginas, la historia fluye y es, sin duda, el mejor momento de la novela. Hasta que Yeskov lo vuelve a arruinar con otro error de novelista principiante. En esta ocasión, tenemos una de las peores prolepsis que haya visto en cualquier novela. Si alguien escribiera un artículo sobre cómo no debe utilizarse la prolepsis, el final de El último anillo debería aparecer como ejemplo destacado, sin ninguna duda.
Para quienes no conozcan este recurso, la prolepsis es una especie de auto-spoiler controlado: el narrador adelanta algo de lo que ocurrirá en el futuro, pero sin revelarnos cuándo ni cómo se llegará a ese momento. Bien empleada, tiene el recurso de generar mucha tensión y suspenso. Un ejemplo de buen uso de este recurso lo encontramos en El hobbit, de Tolkien: varias veces el relato nos habla de cosas que ocurrirían en la Batalla de los Cinco Ejércitos; tanto se la nombra, que el lector siente ansiedad por llegar a ese momento.
Pero en El último anillo, como ya dije, el recurso está pésimamente empleado: Yeskov nos anticipa el final (en lugar de prolepsis, termina siendo un spoiler en toda regla) y luego pretende generar suspenso introduciendo ciertos giros que “hacen creer” que el plan podría fallar: claro que nadie se lo cree, porque ya nos avisó de entrada lo que ocurriría, por lo que todas las páginas empleadas en ese intento de generar suspenso terminan siendo una mera pérdida de tiempo.
La verdad que fue una pena: una premisa excelente, que resulta prácticamente estropeada por los fallos de un escritor novato. Pensé en valorarla en dos estrellas, que equivaldría a un aplazo, pero aún con las cosas que le critico, hubo suficientes aspectos del libro que me gustaron, como para justificar una tercera estrella: la prosa de Yeskov por momentos es agradable, con unas descripciones de paisajes y escenarios bastante interesantes. Y la idea general, aún a medio lograr, es lo bastante original e interesante como para que tenga su mérito.
December 1, 2013
The premise is certainly intriguing: What if The Lord of the Rings was a piece of propaganda written by the victors? Sadly, this book doesn't deliver.
The demythologizing "historical revisionism" part is grounded on some good ideas, and I mostly liked it. Unfortunately, that part takes only a minute proportion of the page count. Most of the book is devoted to spinning a convoluted cloak-and-dagger tale that takes at least twice as long as it should, in a setting even less believable than the original's.
Yeskov says he's not a writer, but he doesn't need to, because you can tell. The POV keeps switching back and forth, sometimes confusingly. The style is all over the place. Events and battles are described whose outcome has no effect on the plot. We are offered the detailed backstory of a very minor character who's mentioned exactly four times, while other, more important characters we know only by their names.
An epilogue states that the narrative is based on a centuries-old "Orocuen" (Orc) oral tradition. Never mind that oral traditions tend to drift with the passing generations: How did the Orocuens know about events no one is supposed to have witnessed? How did they know what the characters were thinking or dreaming? An omniscient narrator doesn't fit well with this documentary approach, and you certainly can't get away with it when you're purporting to tell how things really happened. And while we're at it: How come the narrator, implied to be a Middle-earth writer, knows about the real world and keeps mentioning it? (And let's not get all famdomish and say Middle-earth is not another world, but a fictional past of our world.)
My favorite part is probably this:
The premise of the book deserved to be better served. The foundations are solid. Sadly, the edifice built on them isn't.
The demythologizing "historical revisionism" part is grounded on some good ideas, and I mostly liked it. Unfortunately, that part takes only a minute proportion of the page count. Most of the book is devoted to spinning a convoluted cloak-and-dagger tale that takes at least twice as long as it should, in a setting even less believable than the original's.
Yeskov says he's not a writer, but he doesn't need to, because you can tell. The POV keeps switching back and forth, sometimes confusingly. The style is all over the place. Events and battles are described whose outcome has no effect on the plot. We are offered the detailed backstory of a very minor character who's mentioned exactly four times, while other, more important characters we know only by their names.
An epilogue states that the narrative is based on a centuries-old "Orocuen" (Orc) oral tradition. Never mind that oral traditions tend to drift with the passing generations: How did the Orocuens know about events no one is supposed to have witnessed? How did they know what the characters were thinking or dreaming? An omniscient narrator doesn't fit well with this documentary approach, and you certainly can't get away with it when you're purporting to tell how things really happened. And while we're at it: How come the narrator, implied to be a Middle-earth writer, knows about the real world and keeps mentioning it? (And let's not get all famdomish and say Middle-earth is not another world, but a fictional past of our world.)
My favorite part is probably this:
The premise of the book deserved to be better served. The foundations are solid. Sadly, the edifice built on them isn't.
May 4, 2015
I can't begin to express how much I disliked this story. I blame part of it on reading a translation from the original language and part of it on just horrible story-telling.
I very rarely stop reading a book but I didn't even get halfway through this. I was so excited for a different view and voice for Lord of the Rings. What I got was a poor attempt at political thriller with barely recognizable characters. It reads more like the bad LotR fic I wrote in middle school than the, apparently, award-winning work it is supposed to be.
Save your time. Pass this one over. Read Legolas by Laura instead. At least you can get a laugh out of that one.
I very rarely stop reading a book but I didn't even get halfway through this. I was so excited for a different view and voice for Lord of the Rings. What I got was a poor attempt at political thriller with barely recognizable characters. It reads more like the bad LotR fic I wrote in middle school than the, apparently, award-winning work it is supposed to be.
Save your time. Pass this one over. Read Legolas by Laura instead. At least you can get a laugh out of that one.
December 19, 2013
My first thought was “Not another writer so devoid of ideas that he has to ‘borrow’ The Lord of the Rings mythology.” In the first 5 pages, the dread set in. Yet, I continued, and I’m so glad I did.
This novel has a great sense of detail. It mixes realism and magical elements with ease. It’s political. It’s funny. At times it reads like a documentary. The mixture of these elements is blended perfectly.
This novel turns Tolkien’s original perspective upside down. Throughout the novel, I kept remembering the saying: History is written by the victors.
Yeah, it’s great.
This novel has a great sense of detail. It mixes realism and magical elements with ease. It’s political. It’s funny. At times it reads like a documentary. The mixture of these elements is blended perfectly.
This novel turns Tolkien’s original perspective upside down. Throughout the novel, I kept remembering the saying: History is written by the victors.
Yeah, it’s great.
Read
April 10, 2019130 páginas. Hasta aquí hemos llegado :\
June 21, 2019
This is a bilingual review from a reader of the Russian original (and a native speaker). I invite you to scroll down =)
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Ничего себе, сколько я вижу здесь положительных отзывов от англоязычных читателей! Похоже, кому-то хорошо зашла основная идея, т.к. перевод явно слабенький (проглядела несколько страниц, сама читала по-русски, разумеется).
Я ничего не имею против самого Еськова и могу понять, почему ему захотелось что-то такое написать. Всегда надо быть готовым посмотреть с другой стороны, это правильно и вполне замечательно. Но эта книга - прекрасная иллюстрация того, что настоящие писатели не зря едят свой хлеб, и писать книги тоже надо уметь.
Показалось, что Властелин колец чрезмерно бинарно подходит к вопросам добра и зла? Почитайте Последнего кольценосца, увидите, что такое действительно, непрошибаемо бинарно. Толкиновский орк куда ближе к человеку, чем еськовский эльф. В чём там был смысл перево��ота наоборот?..
Стилистически Еськова шатает из пафоса в расхлябанность и обратно, с периодическими заходами в наукообразие и поучениями читателя. Сюжет со второй половины разваливается совсем. Персонажи плоские, о речевом портрете автор вообще не слыхал никогда.
Ну и я бы сказала всё же, у Толкина вполне имеется объяснение экономических и природных аспектов Средиземья - просто у него хватило ума всё в одну книгу не пихать, чтобы не испортить литературный эффект (и даже о составлении пухлых приложений к последнему тому по многочисленным просьбам он, говорят, пожалел). Ну а тут литературного эффекта всё равно не ожидалось, почему бы и не напихать всё, так?
===================================================================
Wow, so many positive reviews from the readers in English! I suppose all you guys really liked the starting premise, or else why? The translation didn't seem very good to me - of course I only skimmed some pages, having read the book itself in Russian.
I've really got nothing against Yeskov and totally understand the wish to write something on these lines. One should always be ready for a look at the other side, that's the only way to honesty and understanding. But the one thing this book does really well is illustrate why writing is a profession and a skill, and you cannot simply write down whatever came into your mind just then and have it count as a good book.
Has a thought ever crossed your mind that LoTR is a little too straightforward in its binary division between good and evil? Read The Last Ringbearer and find out what binary division really is. The Tolkien's orc is way more human and relatable than the Yeskov's elf. What exactly is the sense of simply reversing the roles?..
The style staggers between unjustifiable pathos and sloppy colloquialisms, interspersed with science-like infodumps and didactic authorial monologues. The plot barely holds up in the second half of the book. The characters are flatter than a flounder, and the author had obviously not even heard what is meant by a speech portrait.
And, after all, I should say Tolkien did give some thought to the economic and geographical aspects of his Middle-Earth; he's simply had enough sense not to stuff it all into the book and spoil the literary effect (I've heard it said that he'd even regretted providing the appendices to the third volume). Whereas here no literary effect was ever expected, so go ahead and put it all in, hey?
==========================================================
Ничего себе, сколько я вижу здесь положительных отзывов от англоязычных читателей! Похоже, кому-то хорошо зашла основная идея, т.к. перевод явно слабенький (проглядела несколько страниц, сама читала по-русски, разумеется).
Я ничего не имею против самого Еськова и могу понять, почему ему захотелось что-то такое написать. Всегда надо быть готовым посмотреть с другой стороны, это правильно и вполне замечательно. Но эта книга - прекрасная иллюстрация того, что настоящие писатели не зря едят свой хлеб, и писать книги тоже надо уметь.
Показалось, что Властелин колец чрезмерно бинарно подходит к вопросам добра и зла? Почитайте Последнего кольценосца, увидите, что такое действительно, непрошибаемо бинарно. Толкиновский орк куда ближе к человеку, чем еськовский эльф. В чём там был смысл перево��ота наоборот?..
Стилистически Еськова шатает из пафоса в расхлябанность и обратно, с периодическими заходами в наукообразие и поучениями читателя. Сюжет со второй половины разваливается совсем. Персонажи плоские, о речевом портрете автор вообще не слыхал никогда.
Ну и я бы сказала всё же, у Толкина вполне имеется объяснение экономических и природных аспектов Средиземья - просто у него хватило ума всё в одну книгу не пихать, чтобы не испортить литературный эффект (и даже о составлении пухлых приложений к последнему тому по многочисленным просьбам он, говорят, пожалел). Ну а тут литературного эффекта всё равно не ожидалось, почему бы и не напихать всё, так?
===================================================================
Wow, so many positive reviews from the readers in English! I suppose all you guys really liked the starting premise, or else why? The translation didn't seem very good to me - of course I only skimmed some pages, having read the book itself in Russian.
I've really got nothing against Yeskov and totally understand the wish to write something on these lines. One should always be ready for a look at the other side, that's the only way to honesty and understanding. But the one thing this book does really well is illustrate why writing is a profession and a skill, and you cannot simply write down whatever came into your mind just then and have it count as a good book.
Has a thought ever crossed your mind that LoTR is a little too straightforward in its binary division between good and evil? Read The Last Ringbearer and find out what binary division really is. The Tolkien's orc is way more human and relatable than the Yeskov's elf. What exactly is the sense of simply reversing the roles?..
The style staggers between unjustifiable pathos and sloppy colloquialisms, interspersed with science-like infodumps and didactic authorial monologues. The plot barely holds up in the second half of the book. The characters are flatter than a flounder, and the author had obviously not even heard what is meant by a speech portrait.
And, after all, I should say Tolkien did give some thought to the economic and geographical aspects of his Middle-Earth; he's simply had enough sense not to stuff it all into the book and spoil the literary effect (I've heard it said that he'd even regretted providing the appendices to the third volume). Whereas here no literary effect was ever expected, so go ahead and put it all in, hey?
January 30, 2018
I should explain why I disliked so this book. It is a mix of "this book is not for me" (I honestly did not expect some spy story a la James Bond when opening this one. That part is not bad, just not for me), problem of translation (Well, I think it's the translation, but I don't read russian so I can't be certain) and things that I honestly intensely disliked. My review will be negative, if you liked the book you may not want to read what's follow.
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First of all, the good, for there's some after all. I liked the beginning, the explanation about why the climate of Mordor is so shitty. (They tried an irrigation technique and fucked up) That was scientific, from the point of view of Mordor's inhabitants, yep, I liked that!
Ok, good done.
I was disappointed by "The orcs are actually humans but propaganda". I wanted to read about orcs, being orcs. You can humanise non-human characters, show their culture, without an "ACTUALLY they are humans as well". I find that a solution of facility (even more when there is an human culture on the Mordor side, hello Haradrim, that is not a lot talked about). So yeah, when you promise me a story from the point of view of the villains, I want it from the point of view of the villains.
The absence of transition between Ye Old English a la Tolkien and modern linguistic was super jarring. I had, several time, to look back to check if yes, it was a book and not a fanfic, if I was on the right document, or if someone had tampered with my document to put their fanfic in it. Be this for the author or the translator: For the love of all that is holy to you, choose a tone and keep it.
I couldn't keep to the middle of the book, I disliked it so. Here I was, there was only one female character (I would have made an excuse with "yeah but Tolkien didn't make many female characters either" but Yeskov had a full new cast of male characters so no excuse), and the narration keep using the lexicon and mannerism of a five-years old child for her, even in sexual situation which is creeping me out a lot. It's even worse that this character is Eowyn.
Speaking of canon characters, I expected something a bit more subtle than "all the canon characters are actually cliche assholes".
Yeskov is not subtle in his characterisation. Really not.
Spy book parts: Well, it's not my stuff and not what I expected when I opened a Lord of the Ring book, so I can't really judge on the quality of that plot itself.
The scene with the Nazgul and "Technology good, Magic bad" was in my opinion a bit shoehorned, and too much of "pof, exposition and author opinion in bonus". Again, don't know if author or translator, a writing more subtle here could have make me love this scene, I think. All that plot of "Technology good, Magic bad" was like that, I think. Again, I wanted something more subtly writing, the point of view of the villains not a huge "ACTUALLY, THEY are evil". That's easy, too easy.
Yeskov is good at writing scientific stuff and it's interesting, really. He's not to write characterisation and plots, in my opinion.
This is a (bit weird) fanfic of the Lord of the Ring, with a plot that would be better served in an original universe rather than in the Lord of the Ring.
-----
First of all, the good, for there's some after all. I liked the beginning, the explanation about why the climate of Mordor is so shitty. (They tried an irrigation technique and fucked up) That was scientific, from the point of view of Mordor's inhabitants, yep, I liked that!
Ok, good done.
I was disappointed by "The orcs are actually humans but propaganda". I wanted to read about orcs, being orcs. You can humanise non-human characters, show their culture, without an "ACTUALLY they are humans as well". I find that a solution of facility (even more when there is an human culture on the Mordor side, hello Haradrim, that is not a lot talked about). So yeah, when you promise me a story from the point of view of the villains, I want it from the point of view of the villains.
The absence of transition between Ye Old English a la Tolkien and modern linguistic was super jarring. I had, several time, to look back to check if yes, it was a book and not a fanfic, if I was on the right document, or if someone had tampered with my document to put their fanfic in it. Be this for the author or the translator: For the love of all that is holy to you, choose a tone and keep it.
I couldn't keep to the middle of the book, I disliked it so. Here I was, there was only one female character (I would have made an excuse with "yeah but Tolkien didn't make many female characters either" but Yeskov had a full new cast of male characters so no excuse), and the narration keep using the lexicon and mannerism of a five-years old child for her, even in sexual situation which is creeping me out a lot. It's even worse that this character is Eowyn.
Speaking of canon characters, I expected something a bit more subtle than "all the canon characters are actually cliche assholes".
Yeskov is not subtle in his characterisation. Really not.
Spy book parts: Well, it's not my stuff and not what I expected when I opened a Lord of the Ring book, so I can't really judge on the quality of that plot itself.
The scene with the Nazgul and "Technology good, Magic bad" was in my opinion a bit shoehorned, and too much of "pof, exposition and author opinion in bonus". Again, don't know if author or translator, a writing more subtle here could have make me love this scene, I think. All that plot of "Technology good, Magic bad" was like that, I think. Again, I wanted something more subtly writing, the point of view of the villains not a huge "ACTUALLY, THEY are evil". That's easy, too easy.
Yeskov is good at writing scientific stuff and it's interesting, really. He's not to write characterisation and plots, in my opinion.
This is a (bit weird) fanfic of the Lord of the Ring, with a plot that would be better served in an original universe rather than in the Lord of the Ring.
October 4, 2012
The Last Ringbearer is based on the premise that The Lord of the Rings was a history written by the victors, to make them look noble and justified in their actions. It is written as a revisionist history of the events following the War of the Ring.
It's a very different picture. Mordor had been a peaceful civilization, developing technology and on the verge of an industrial revolution. Barad-Dur was a thriving city of poets, writers, and intellectuals. Then the traditionalist forces of the west, spearheaded by Gandalf, pushed Gondor and Mordor into war. It's very well done - the author has an excellent knowledge of Tolkien's world, and the War of the Ring, but paints an entirely new picture.
The main characters are Haladdin, a human Field Medic in the Mordorian army; Tzerlag, an Orcish scout, and Tangorn, a Gondorian noble. They are given a mission to try to stop the Elves from dominating middle-earth, so that humans, orcs, and trolls can live peacefully together and progress towards a technological civilization.
As a novel, it's a bit clunky in places; parts of it are somewhat anachronistic, even given the premise that it a modernistic, revisionist take on the Lord of the Rings. Parts are a bit difficult to follow - when the various secret services are battling it out in Umbar, I found it somewhat difficult to work out who was on which side. But, as a huge Tolkien fan since my early teens, I found it a fascinating take on the story, and I'll find it hard to think about Tolkien's world in the same way again.
The original is in Russian, by Kirill Eskov. It has been translated into English, and is downloadable here: http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/280578.... It's a fan translation - the author apparently has no intention to publish an official english translation, due to the litigious nature of the Tolkien estate. It's a sad indictment of modern copyright law that a work like this can't be published - LOTR has become a part of our culture's shared imagination, and these laws prevent us building freely on these shared ideas.
It's a very different picture. Mordor had been a peaceful civilization, developing technology and on the verge of an industrial revolution. Barad-Dur was a thriving city of poets, writers, and intellectuals. Then the traditionalist forces of the west, spearheaded by Gandalf, pushed Gondor and Mordor into war. It's very well done - the author has an excellent knowledge of Tolkien's world, and the War of the Ring, but paints an entirely new picture.
The main characters are Haladdin, a human Field Medic in the Mordorian army; Tzerlag, an Orcish scout, and Tangorn, a Gondorian noble. They are given a mission to try to stop the Elves from dominating middle-earth, so that humans, orcs, and trolls can live peacefully together and progress towards a technological civilization.
As a novel, it's a bit clunky in places; parts of it are somewhat anachronistic, even given the premise that it a modernistic, revisionist take on the Lord of the Rings. Parts are a bit difficult to follow - when the various secret services are battling it out in Umbar, I found it somewhat difficult to work out who was on which side. But, as a huge Tolkien fan since my early teens, I found it a fascinating take on the story, and I'll find it hard to think about Tolkien's world in the same way again.
The original is in Russian, by Kirill Eskov. It has been translated into English, and is downloadable here: http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/280578.... It's a fan translation - the author apparently has no intention to publish an official english translation, due to the litigious nature of the Tolkien estate. It's a sad indictment of modern copyright law that a work like this can't be published - LOTR has become a part of our culture's shared imagination, and these laws prevent us building freely on these shared ideas.
April 17, 2013
The idea behind Kirill Yeskov's The Last Ringbearer is killer: Retell The Lord of the Rings from a Mordorian perspective. And at times, this tale comes close to living up to the promise of this premise. Mordor is a fallen superpower, its industrial riches and technological innovation stripped and stolen by the Elven victors in the War of the Rings, and the hapless Orc medic Haladin seems set to be a compelling protagonist as he begins his Nazgûl-given quest, the object of which is a Mission: Impossible-style infiltration of Lothlórien to destroy Galadriel's mirror. But Yeskov wanders and ponders and riffs and between the constant intrusion of modern, Russian-flavored tropes, weak word choices in the translation (characters tend to respond "drily", and Faramir calling Éowyn "babe" is simply embarrassing), and a vast cast of largely undifferentiated characters, the result is much closer in tone to Penny Arcade's The Song Of The Sorcelator fan fiction than Tolkien's masterful prose. Occasionally The Last Ringbearer demonstrates flashes of awesome, such as the chapter-long riff on the Far Harad slave trade and a slave rebellion that begets an empire, but the book is otherwise largely a slow slog through knee-deep mud. If you're looking for an epic fantasy novel that innovatingly pays tribute to Professor Tolkien with a Russian sensibility, might I instead recommend Bradley P. Beaulieu's The Winds of Khalakovo?
July 1, 2012
Advertencia: ningún fanático ortodoxo de Tolkien debe acercarse a este libro.
Ahora sí, pasemos a mi opinión personal.
"Si la historia la escriben los que ganan, eso quiere decir que hay otra historia"
Este libro aporta una mirada diferente a la Tierra Media. Por suerte (y en algunos momentos por desgracia) el autor no intenta emular el estilo de Tolkien. La novela está escrita con un lenguaje actual, y abundan los insultos y alguna que otra alusión sexual. La idea es interesante, los personajes también (casi todos). Es un libro entretenido.
A diferencia de Tolkien, Kirill Yeskov se introduce en cuestiones prácticas de la guerra, como el abastecimiento de tropas, el espionaje, los crímenes cometidos en pos de un objetivo "bueno".
El libro no es perfecto. Se podría el uso de comparación con elementos tecnológicos actuales (como comparar un olifante con un tanque de guerra) que saca un poco del ambiente, y una narración irregular, con algunos problemas estructurales tal vez. Los capítulos en los que se centra en cuestiones como el abastecimiento de una nación, sistema de riego o cosas así son interesantes, pero a la vez densos y no dejan avanzar la trama. También suele explayarse en historias que no tienen mucho que ver con la historia principal y que si se sacaran del libro se agilizaría. Un ejemplo de esto es la historia de los Surenios, que aunque es interesante por sí sola no aporta nada a la trama.
Ahora sí, pasemos a mi opinión personal.
"Si la historia la escriben los que ganan, eso quiere decir que hay otra historia"
Este libro aporta una mirada diferente a la Tierra Media. Por suerte (y en algunos momentos por desgracia) el autor no intenta emular el estilo de Tolkien. La novela está escrita con un lenguaje actual, y abundan los insultos y alguna que otra alusión sexual. La idea es interesante, los personajes también (casi todos). Es un libro entretenido.
A diferencia de Tolkien, Kirill Yeskov se introduce en cuestiones prácticas de la guerra, como el abastecimiento de tropas, el espionaje, los crímenes cometidos en pos de un objetivo "bueno".
El libro no es perfecto. Se podría el uso de comparación con elementos tecnológicos actuales (como comparar un olifante con un tanque de guerra) que saca un poco del ambiente, y una narración irregular, con algunos problemas estructurales tal vez. Los capítulos en los que se centra en cuestiones como el abastecimiento de una nación, sistema de riego o cosas así son interesantes, pero a la vez densos y no dejan avanzar la trama. También suele explayarse en historias que no tienen mucho que ver con la historia principal y que si se sacaran del libro se agilizaría. Un ejemplo de esto es la historia de los Surenios, que aunque es interesante por sí sola no aporta nada a la trama.
March 15, 2014
I started this book with high hopes, since I rather like alternative viewpoint stories. The very beginning was promising, with a lovely description of a desert sunset. However, I was jerked out of the land of Middle-earth by the use of the word "smartass". I certainly don't want the author to be emulating the writing style of Tolkien, as I think that might be very difficult, but the modern writing style did nothing for me. In addition, the constant misspelling of Middle-earth as Middle Earth I found rather irritating. I suspect that a lot of the problems might be because it is a translation, but as I can't read Russian, I can't say for sure. As it happened, I didn't feel inclined to battle my way through this book, and when I reached Chapter 3, which was about the climate of the region, I gave up.
I think I'll leave Middle-earth stories to Tolkien.
I think I'll leave Middle-earth stories to Tolkien.
January 25, 2019
magnificent. Almost as good as the real Lord of the Rings, and in many places better. But then, russian authors are very stylish writers. Only, in this case one can't believe that this is his only literary excursion. He writes so well, one just can't believe he is not a professional writer.
It is more of a spy novel than an adventure, and large parts of it read more like John le Carre than Tolkien (the large part of the novel devoted to the spy war in Umbar went maybe a bit too far). It is, of course, almost as exciting and gripping as the original, and the characters are definitely more fully sketched and realistic. My only gripe is how he seems to denigrate western intellectuals belonging to the Communist tradition in a very unfair way. Highly recommended for fantasy fans wanting something a little bit more from their Tolkien
It is more of a spy novel than an adventure, and large parts of it read more like John le Carre than Tolkien (the large part of the novel devoted to the spy war in Umbar went maybe a bit too far). It is, of course, almost as exciting and gripping as the original, and the characters are definitely more fully sketched and realistic. My only gripe is how he seems to denigrate western intellectuals belonging to the Communist tradition in a very unfair way. Highly recommended for fantasy fans wanting something a little bit more from their Tolkien
February 17, 2011
A must-read for Lord of the Rings junkies. What if LOTR was merely the whitewashed story of the War of the Ring as told by the victors? This is the story of that war from the Southern and Eastern perspective...along with a new post-war quest. At points it gets a bit too obsessed with technical detail, but overall it's an engrossing new take on Middle Earth.
Read Salon's review of the book: http://www.salon.com/books/laura_mill...
Download the free official pdf: http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570...
Read Salon's review of the book: http://www.salon.com/books/laura_mill...
Download the free official pdf: http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570...
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