Rating: 
Summary: Plagiarism, Racism & Freemasonic Subtexts
Review: For an Oxbridge Don, Tolkien sure stole a heck of a lot of his technique from Saturday morning matinee movies (Flash Gordon et al). Notice that there is a cliff-hanger at the end of each chapter and that each ensuing chapter jumps to another group of characters to create a sense of "drama". Try reading alternate chapters in the second book and see how interesting the plot development actually is (not). ...(Here, Tolkien is blatantly plagiarising from his amazed that Mathew, Mark Luke and Ringo have not sued!). Once the world of Middle Earth had been mapped out it could not have been too difficult to fill with an infinite succession of repetitive, different-but-the-same, baddies for our hairy heroes to face as they trudge from chapter to chapter. Why, when the programmers of shoot-em-up games like Quake do exactly the same basic thing (but make it much more fun), are they not lauded as great authors by the literary set? Surely they should be in for honorary degrees from Oxford University? Tolky squeezes this infinite potential for all that it is worth and we trudge through baddie after baddie, for thousands of pages. Bright ten year olds may be excused for mistaking a fat book for a great one - and let's face it this is an elbow-acher of a book. But only a feeble minded adolescent reader could ignore the other glaring problems of this piece. Not only of Tolk's limitations of style but also that the South African born author has laced his children's fantasy with his ugly, ugly views on race. If I were a responsible teacher, I would have this book removed from the school library and burned. If this "epic" isn't banned in order to save the rainforests (oh yeah, - isn't the internet supposed to reduce book production?), it certainly should be banned for Tolkien's racism. In the edition that I read (some years ago), the species that live in the middle of Middle Earth (Europe) are all elegant, cultured, decent and fair skinned (i.e. white). The "swarthy", (darkies to you and me), heathen hordes that live to the South and to the East are all featureless, baddies, worshipping evil and with characters never developed to any degree of interest. To deny a character human traits and complexities that we can relate to is the cheapest way of manipulating audience sympathies. There is even some suggestion that they ride strange beasts with big ears (African and Indian elephants). The surviving heroes (well, those who aren't so unfortunate as to have been born lower class), sail off across a great ocean to live in a Valhalla land in the West (America). Is this simple translation from existing facts and myths into thinly disguised fantasy the real source of Tolk's "vast imagination"? Whatever the answer to that question, exploit the lower class". Some lost souls rant about the great struggle between Good and Evil in this plot. "GOOD IS WHITE AND EVIL IS BLACK" is as sophisticated as it gets. This might have been OK for what is essentially a children's book, but to define Good and Evil by Race is not OK. Intelligent people are marked by their ability to out there, but it's wobbly". If you have an evening, read A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin and see how much more intelligently Good and Evil can be approached in fantasy. Whilst other racist works of the era have been deleted, The Tolkiad, it seems, generates too much money to be curbed by race laws. favour, spend six months reading a book on computer programming, or investment management instead and really improve your life. That way you might actually end up FUND RACISM - If you haven't read this book don't bother. Freemasonic content that the author loaded his book with?... guarantee of good character
Rating: 
Summary: The Lord of the Rings defines fantasy.
Review: Tolkein is the epitomy of fantasy. Anybody who reads fantasy has to read this book. To say that you are a fan of fantasy is a hypocrisy if you haven't. I read it when I was 13 and then twice more later on in my teenage years and I keep finding things that I missed the first times. There are no fantasy books out there that could even be put in the same category as The Lord of the Rings!
Rating:
Summary: A Modern Masterpiece
Review: J.R.R. Tolkein successfully molds literature and religion into this astounding opus. There is not a single series of books (apart from holy writ) that can compare with this series. Not only did Tolkein create a whole universe, but he influenced nearly every fantasy author since. His mastery of the English language and of that which inspires the human psyche are what places this series among the classics of all time. The Lord of the Rings is to literature what Berlioz's Fantastic Symphony is to classical music.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty amazing, actually
Review: ..the amazing part is when this was first written and published. What DID the reviewers first think of this book? I did find the book occasionally dragged, and that their where episodes that seemed to be digressions (like the Tom Bombadil episode). But all in all it was a great tale. Perhaps the best part, to me, was the geographical nature of the place, and the history. Tolkien really does bring Middle Earth to life with his descriptions and his maps and the 'historical' context of the tale (For those versed in geography and history its fun speculating if there are connections with real places and historical periods). Although Tolkien was a scholar of archaic language and myth the book has absolutly no feel of the antiquarian to it. I would recommend this book not so much as a fantasy but as something more akin to the sci-fi of Ursula Leguin in its ability to conjure a world.
Rating:
Summary: Confusing review
Review: cboerens@ford.com writes: Everyone survives in it. Excuse me? For one, Boromir, one of the Fellowship, dies, as does Frodo's foil, Gollum. Tolkien's opinion was that Good will conquer Evil, but always at heavy cost to Good. Frodo may not have died, but he is left stricken and pained -- and in the end, all of the Old leaves Middle-Earth -- Frodo, Bilbo, Gandalf, the Elves, and so on -- a spiritual death.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Tolkiens' book challenges the imagination of the reader to climb to the pinnacles of the Misty Mountains, to cross the Land of Shadow, to strive from Barrad-dur to Minas Tirith, and to delve into the very hearts of its many characters. A truly epic work is one that sucessfully combines high adventure, catharsis and dynamic characterization. Tolkien sets the standard with what C.S. Lewis called visions that "burn like fire or pierce like cold iron." Here are true heroes leaping from Tolkiens' mind and medieval Britain onto the page for the reader. A cunning linguist of such times, his passages flow like poetry, so that like a master's symphony, no word is out of place. The Oxford scholar has succeeded in writing the definitive fantasy novels that still stand as firm and brilliant today as when they were penned fifty years ago.
Rating:
Summary: Like something that fell through a wormhole
Review: That a gray Oxford don, a Professor of English, no less, could have such a rich inner life as to write Lord of the Rings is bewildering, befuddling. It would be no less surprising to learn than Margaret Thatcher writes funny childrens' books, or that Sly Stallone dresses like an Orthodox Jew and plays Grandmaster-level chess in Central Park now and then. There is no explanation, of course. Even Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien's biographer, seemed adrift when he tried to penetrate past the outer veils of Tolkien's mines of the imagination. The book is too long. Whole chunks of it read like unconscious parody; other parts are altogether too priggish to please modern audiences. And yet the books still hold. Why? I like to think it's because of the fecundity of Tolkien's imagination. His prose may be purplish and precious, and his plotting may sometimes plod, but these books, to paraphrase Walt Whitman, contain multitudes -- multitudes of multitudes. Read them for that.
Rating: 
Summary: Where are the women?
Review: I read the book (only) twice at the age of 11 and 14, and thought it was the best book ever. But as I don't any longer think of "Bluesbrothers" as the best movie ever I must admit that even in the LoR there are simply too many things missing: 1) Where are the women? I have a little daughter (4month) and I will not give her the book, because all the heroes are male (see deserves more than beeing a princess) 2) Where is the loss of important people? Dead of people we love is an important part of our lifes. In the LoR all heroes survife: its a fairy tale nothing more. (As Tolkine says, too. 3) Where are the problems between the main charaters? Look at Star Trek TNG: The first episodes are terrible boring, because "we all love eachother" - Star Trek DS9, which had no such restrictions, is much better - right from the beginning. So it is truely a very good book, but only with respect to a very limmited part of human life.
Rating:
Summary: Nichtdestotrotz ein fabelhaftes Buch!
Review: Nach 278 Reviews was kann ich noch dazu sagen? An manche Stellen ist es ein bisschen langweilig, und das Ganze mit Tom Bombadil konnte man auslassen, aber im Allgemeinen ist es eine tolle, spannende, Geschichte mit viel Fantasie. Ich glaub' es ist fuenf Sternen wert. Die illustrierte Version ist uebrigens sehr schoen.
Rating:
Summary: Bury me with this book.
Review: ...No matter what my lawyers say
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