What do you think?
Rate this book
The Science of Middle-earth: A New Understanding of Tolkien and His World
The surprising and illuminating look at how Tolkien's love of science and natural history shaped the creation of his Middle Earth, from its flora and fauna to its landscapes.
The world J.R.R. Tolkien created is one of the most beloved in all of literature, and continues to capture hearts and imaginations around the world. From Oxford to ComiCon, the Middle Earth is analyzed and interpreted through a multitude of perspectives.
But one essential facet of Tolkien and his Middle Earth has been science. This great writer, creator of worlds and unforgettable character, and inventor of language was also a scientific autodidact, with an innate interest and grasp of botany, paleontologist and geologist, with additional passions for archeology and chemistry.
Tolkien was an acute observer of flora and fauna and mined the minds of his scientific friends about ocean currents and volcanoes. It is these layers science that give his imaginary universe—and the creatures and characters that inhabit it—such concreteness. Within this gorgeously illustrated edition, a range of scientists—from astrophysicists to physicians, botanists to volcanologists—explore Tolkien’s novels, poems, and letters to reveal their fascinating scientific roots.
A rewarding combination of literary exploration and scientific discovery, The Science of Middle-earth reveals the hidden meaning of the Ring’s corruption, why Hobbits have big feet, the origins of the Dwarves, the animals which inspired the dragons, and even whether or not an Ent is possible.
Enhanced by superb original drawings, this transportive work will delight both Tolkien fans and science lovers and inspire us to view both Middle Earth—and our own world—with fresh eyes.
The world J.R.R. Tolkien created is one of the most beloved in all of literature, and continues to capture hearts and imaginations around the world. From Oxford to ComiCon, the Middle Earth is analyzed and interpreted through a multitude of perspectives.
But one essential facet of Tolkien and his Middle Earth has been science. This great writer, creator of worlds and unforgettable character, and inventor of language was also a scientific autodidact, with an innate interest and grasp of botany, paleontologist and geologist, with additional passions for archeology and chemistry.
Tolkien was an acute observer of flora and fauna and mined the minds of his scientific friends about ocean currents and volcanoes. It is these layers science that give his imaginary universe—and the creatures and characters that inhabit it—such concreteness. Within this gorgeously illustrated edition, a range of scientists—from astrophysicists to physicians, botanists to volcanologists—explore Tolkien’s novels, poems, and letters to reveal their fascinating scientific roots.
A rewarding combination of literary exploration and scientific discovery, The Science of Middle-earth reveals the hidden meaning of the Ring’s corruption, why Hobbits have big feet, the origins of the Dwarves, the animals which inspired the dragons, and even whether or not an Ent is possible.
Enhanced by superb original drawings, this transportive work will delight both Tolkien fans and science lovers and inspire us to view both Middle Earth—and our own world—with fresh eyes.
- GenresNonfiction
432 pages, Paperback
Published April 12, 2022
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 2, 2024
As a collection of essays, this book is a little bit silly because it's speculative science. As a collection of academic authors, this book is a bit dry at times and a bit more interesting at others, depending on the skill of the writer to engage readers, or how interested individual readers are in certain disciplines.
Personally I was much more interested in the first half of the book, which dealt more with social/soft scientific discussions. No kidding, though, because I'm a folklorist. Hard science can and does often interest me, but I felt like it was just kind of a waste of time to speculate on because Tolkien wasn't a scientist and probably didn't think that thoroughly on, say, biology. This is all towards the second half of the book, but I just didn't enjoy it.
Also, the audiobook narrator pronounces "Gollum" as "guh-LOOM" and I cannot let that go. What planet are you from, dude? We have a canonized suggestion for how to pronounce Gollum (the mimicking of his choking, hacking cough) and you still choose it to be the word that you get pretentiously unique with?! I hate these narrators who do that. Why do they do that?!?!
Personally I was much more interested in the first half of the book, which dealt more with social/soft scientific discussions. No kidding, though, because I'm a folklorist. Hard science can and does often interest me, but I felt like it was just kind of a waste of time to speculate on because Tolkien wasn't a scientist and probably didn't think that thoroughly on, say, biology. This is all towards the second half of the book, but I just didn't enjoy it.
Also, the audiobook narrator pronounces "Gollum" as "guh-LOOM" and I cannot let that go. What planet are you from, dude? We have a canonized suggestion for how to pronounce Gollum (the mimicking of his choking, hacking cough) and you still choose it to be the word that you get pretentiously unique with?! I hate these narrators who do that. Why do they do that?!?!
September 5, 2023
It's hard to properly review an anthology: do you overrate a collection with an amazing essay? Does the whiplash of different styles lead you to underrate the whole thing? In the case of translation, does my lack of French lead me to dislike things merely because it loses that veneer of originality when it gets turned to English?
Unfortunately, even trying to account for my biases, I don't think that The Science of Middle-earth succeeded for me. The goal of the project isn't entirely clear: you might think from the cover or the blurb that you're going to learn something new about Middle-earth, and that probably does sell more copies, but it would be more accurate to say that this book is a bunch of scientists using Middle-earth as a pretext to talk about their various specialties and to playfully see how they might fit with what we know of Middle-earth.
So far, so good--and any confusion is as much a problem of judging a book by its cover as anything else: and some of the essays were particularly good at this. The problem is that there doesn't seem to have been anyone proofreading the essays for basic Middle-earth facts. I didn't exactly expect every single contributor to be familiar with the ins and outs of The Nature of Middle-earth or the footnotes of Unfinished Tales, for example, but there were some enormous misses that even a moderate fan of The Lord of the Rings might have identified, such as one author asserting that Bilbo was 1000 years older than Gollum, or another suggesting that both Hobbits and Men descended from Númenóreans. It's difficult without knowing the original French to guess if some things, especially the smaller ones, but they are unlikely to have all been, and I am reviewing the translation as I have it.
In short, while I am relatively confident in the scientific rigour of the contributors as regards their own discipline, I cannot vouch for the same degree of rigour in their knowledge of Tolkien, and in a book about science, the far looser treatment of Tolkienian lore is an imbalance, which did not leave this reader satisfied.
I should mention, though, that I finished the book: and that is an indicator that I did find things to enjoy. As I said, the scientific knowledge *does* seem to be there, and if you enjoy learning things, there is much to learn--and some excellent speculation, even, at times, about Middle-earth. But with so much dross, my enjoyment was not unalloyed.
Unfortunately, even trying to account for my biases, I don't think that The Science of Middle-earth succeeded for me. The goal of the project isn't entirely clear: you might think from the cover or the blurb that you're going to learn something new about Middle-earth, and that probably does sell more copies, but it would be more accurate to say that this book is a bunch of scientists using Middle-earth as a pretext to talk about their various specialties and to playfully see how they might fit with what we know of Middle-earth.
So far, so good--and any confusion is as much a problem of judging a book by its cover as anything else: and some of the essays were particularly good at this. The problem is that there doesn't seem to have been anyone proofreading the essays for basic Middle-earth facts. I didn't exactly expect every single contributor to be familiar with the ins and outs of The Nature of Middle-earth or the footnotes of Unfinished Tales, for example, but there were some enormous misses that even a moderate fan of The Lord of the Rings might have identified, such as one author asserting that Bilbo was 1000 years older than Gollum, or another suggesting that both Hobbits and Men descended from Númenóreans. It's difficult without knowing the original French to guess if some things, especially the smaller ones, but they are unlikely to have all been, and I am reviewing the translation as I have it.
In short, while I am relatively confident in the scientific rigour of the contributors as regards their own discipline, I cannot vouch for the same degree of rigour in their knowledge of Tolkien, and in a book about science, the far looser treatment of Tolkienian lore is an imbalance, which did not leave this reader satisfied.
I should mention, though, that I finished the book: and that is an indicator that I did find things to enjoy. As I said, the scientific knowledge *does* seem to be there, and if you enjoy learning things, there is much to learn--and some excellent speculation, even, at times, about Middle-earth. But with so much dross, my enjoyment was not unalloyed.
August 29, 2022
This was an extremely fun read. I don't agree with all of the opinions in the book, but that is the beauty of speculative biology.
I'm an agricultural education major, and this book got me more interested in biology. It also taught me more about nomenclature and made me want to revisit the Tolkien universe again.
I'm an agricultural education major, and this book got me more interested in biology. It also taught me more about nomenclature and made me want to revisit the Tolkien universe again.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews