Creatures

Rating: Rings

April 22, 2003

By David Brawn

List Price: $8.95

Paperback

Houghton Mifflin Company

---Description (from back of book): The official movie guide for children to the creatures and cultures of Middle-earth

Packed iwth photos, this fascinating introduction to the monsters and peoples in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy shows how the filmmakers have brought the inhabitants of Middle-earth to life for the big screen.

The book contains creatures familiar from the first film, from the benign hobbits to Lurtz, the ill-fated leader of the Uruk-hai, and includes races prominent in the new movie, The Two Towers, including the Rohirrim, the Easterlings, the Haradrim and the tree-like Ents.

---Exerpt: "The correct plural of the word dwarf is dwarfs, but J.R.R. Tolkien choose instead to use the "incorrect" dwarves, because it went better with elves. After writing The Hobbit, he said that he wished he had used the real historical plural for dwarf, dwarrows - a word he finally used in The Lord of the Rings when naming their great city."

Review by emplynx::

When I first heard this book was coming out, I got very excited. A book dedicated to the creatures of Middle-earth as portrayed in Peter Jackson's films; then I found out the book was for children. I admit that since I heard it was a childrens book I did not expect it to be a quality, informative book. Now I'm glad to say I was wrong. This is an amazing book for all Tolkien fans from young to old.

Creatures covers most of the creatures covered in the movies so far, from hobbits to oliphaunts. Each small section dedicated to each race or type has a beautiful high resolution picture of the creature as well as a short description. Also, the book has quotes from movie staff and actors delicately dispersed throughout the pages. Many of the quotes come from Weta's Richard Taylor, who very insightfully describes the process that went into making each character.

The book includes a beautiful fold out poster of one of my favorite creatures, the balrog. The poster show the an overhead view of the balrog, in all it's flaming glory, preparing to step onto the bridge of Kazad-dum. The poster itself is almost worth the nine dollar cost of this excellent book.

Even through all the excellent features of this book, I do have some negative comments. I wish the book covered more material. It would be nice if it had more information on each creature as well as moving on through Return of the King.

All in all, this is a great book that should be in the library of all Tolkien fans. Because of it's excellent pictures and insightful information, I give this book a 5-ring rating.

Comments:

I agreein part, it is a slim book for sure. But I think worth it just for the photos. My only concern with these books is that do sometimes confuse the event in the books with those in the movie.......hmm

Posted by: Fatty at April 22, 2003 03:01 PM

Looks like a graet book, I'll love it.

Posted by: Andrea at June 27, 2003 05:17 AM

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