The Rings of Will

While reviewing The Rings of Power, Arkhaven says, 'You would have to have had the hubris of Morgoth himself to take on this project. As a writer, I would have been terrified of it. If the producers had come to me to finish the Unfinished Tales by Tolkien plus some original pastiche based on the Appendixes, I would have told them. “Look, I’ll require two years prep time before I write word one. I’ll need to completely immerse myself in Tolkien’s work to the exclusion of all else. Then I have to spend a lot of time with Tom Shippey and other scholars, plus a Catholic priest with three doctorates who is really into JRR’s work. And at the end of the day, it still won’t be Tolkien, just so you know.”*

Quite right. 

We could do Star Wars no prob. Who couldn't? After growing up with Kirk and coming of age with Picard, we'd feel comfortable delving into Star Trek. But LoTR? Forget it. You know, we've never really read LoTR. Hard to believe but true. We much preferred the knockoff written by Dennis L. McKiernan, the first real novels we ever read. 

We don't plan to ever write sword and sorcery. [He says now, -Ed] A novel about a destroyer in Okinawa or a Coast Guard Cutter in the North Atlantic...that might be fun. [Let's look once again at the sales numbers for A March Through Hell, shall we? -Ed]

We have a few offbeat ideas for World War 1990 short stories, or story lines. We'd like to write about a combat medical unit in the field and maybe a civilian hospital in Germany. Also we'd love to do a long story about Dover, Delaware dealing with all the dead coming home. Reminder, Mrs. Stroock is from Dover and we went to school there for three years, 92-95. We know the town. Think about the sheer, overwhelming grief as the city mobilized its resources to deal with the influx of dead, their bereaved, etc etc. Hell of story.  

*As for the review, The Rings of Power is exactly the show we'd thought it'd be. We've no plans to watch. Same goes for House of the Dragon.