Mapping Middle Earth

If you have just come back from the Mars Colony and haven't heard yet about the new Lord of the Rings film coming out in Xmas 2001, then the £2m marketing campaign the film-makers will shortly be unleashing in the UK will no doubt remedy that.

In a response to the ever-growing flood of emails concerning Tolkien and his works, HarperCollins, Tolkien's official UK publisher, is launching a new website.

Designed by the same in-house team that bought you fireandwater.com, the aim of the new site is to introduce Tolkien's work to new readers and offer content to his many fans.

The website's style is based on Tolkien's own drawings for the original book jackets, designs that have been reinstated on new editions being released this year.

The site also features archive interviews with Tolkien and various examples of his artwork, offering a introduction to Tolkien the man and his key works - some of the most popular books of the 20th Century.

They are also promising that the world of Middle-Earth will be unveiled on the site via a selection of interactive maps - which will be well worth seeing.

Tolkien enthusiasts who sign up as members of the site can receive news on the film and its tie-ins, as well as diary dates for a number of planned interviews with members of the film crew.

Tolkien Trivia
J.R.R. Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892. After serving in the First World War, he embarked upon an academic career and was recognised as one of the finest philologists in the world.

He is best known as the creator of Middle-Earth and author of the classic works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. His books have been translated into over 40 languages and sold many millions of copies worldwide.

He was awarded a CBE and an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Oxford University in 1972. He died in 1973 at the grand old age of 81.

In a millennial polls undertaken in 2000, Tolkien was chosen as Author of the Century, and in 1997, The Lord of the Rings was voted Book of the Century in a poll sponsored by Channel 4 and bookseller Waterstone's.

Much to the chagrin of the literary critics of course, who think fantasy should be hidden away somewhere behind the crime section and Black Lace novels, no doubt.

Good old Tolkien ... dead since the 1970s and he's still socking it to them!

Visit www.tolkien.co.uk for the full monty.

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Time Travis. 01/10/2001
We could do with some decent Middle Earth maps. The best ones I have seen to date were in an RPG. There's a book of them you used to be able to buy (it's on my shelf somewhere); but what a con, it looked like it was drawn by a five year old with an Etch-O-Sketch.

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