Review: The Children of Hurin

It has been several years since I last read The Lord of the Rings, and even longer since I last read The Silmarillion.  Returning to Middle-Earth was a better treat than I had at first expected.  The first time I had read The Silmarillion, in middle-school in the 1980s, I found it to be interesting, although tedious in places.  Two of the longest tales (and therefore the most tedious) were the tales Of Beren and Luthien and Of Turin Turambar.  I found that I just had to plow through them to "get on with the story" of the First Age.

Yet as I matured, subsequent readings of both The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion have left me wanting more.  The books are too short, and lacking the level of detail that I wanted to see.  Fortunately, The Children of Hurin fills some of that in.  I still want more, but I was very pleased to see what I did.  For example, in Of Turin Turambar, the story describes what happens and the interactions of kings and lords, with some description of the lands in which Turin travels, but there is very little detail of daily life.  Yet in The Children of Hurin, we learn more about what life was like in Turin's childhood in Dor-Lomin, especially through his interactions with Sador Labadal.  Turin lives in a hall akin to Anglo-Saxon tradition, with Lady Morwen ruling the hall in her husbands absence.  There are servants and livestock, etc.  In The Silmarillion, there is no indication of this at all.  We don't know if the Edain are a pastoral people, or farmers, or what.  This story gives us some clues. 

There is something almost relaxing in reading the beautiful elvish names in the text, and it is easy to submerse oneself in the tale.  Words like Dor-Lomin, Nargothrond, Finduilas, Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Eithel Ivrin...  they all beg the reader to pause and try out the words aloud.  Tolkien knew what he was doing when he created his languages, and it is a tragedy that they could not have been given full vocabularies. 

The Children of Hurin expands greatly upon the tale as presented in The Silmarillion, and in its expansion it gives more humanity and immediacy to the tale, which makes it more compelling.  It leaves the reader wishing that all the tales of Tolkien had been expanded at least to this degree, and gives some scope to the magnitude of Tolkien's legacy.  Tolkien led a long and fruitful life, but I wish he had lived at least another century or two so he could have had the time to flesh out the rest of his world and give it the treatment it deserves. 

Writing: The Charge of the Danoans, Chapter Three

The following is Chapter Three of my second novel submission to Black Library, entitled The Charge of the Danoans.  

Chapter One, Part 1 is located here.

Chapter One, Part 2 is located here.

Chapter Two, Part 1 is located here.

Chapter Two, Part 2 is located here.

Chapter Two, Part 3 is located here.

Writing: The Charge of the Danoans, Chapter Two, Part 3

The following is Part 3 of Chapter Two of my second novel submission to Black Library, entitled The Charge of the Danoans.  

Chapter One, Part 1 is located here.
Chapter One, Part 2 is located here.
Chapter Two, Part 1 is located here.
Chapter Two, Part 2 is located here.

Writing: The Charge of the Danoans, Chapter Two, Part 2

The following is Part 2 of Chapter Two of my second novel submission to Black Library, entitled The Charge of the Danoans.  

Chapter One, Part 1 is located here.
Chapter One, Part 2 is located here.
Chapter Two, Part 1 is located here.

Writing: The Charge of the Danoans, Chapter Two, Part 1

The following is Part 1 of Chapter Two of my second novel submission to Black Library, entitled The Charge of the Danoans.  

Chapter One, Part 1 is located here.

Chapter One, Part 2 is located here.

Writing: The Charge of the Danoans, Chapter One, Part 2

The following is Part 2 of Chapter One of my second novel submission to Black Library, entitled The Charge of the Danoans.  

Chapter One, Part 1 is located here.

Writing: The Charge of the Danoans, Chapter One, Part 1

What follows is the first three chapters of The Charge of the Danoans, the second of my novel submissions to Black Library back in 2010.  I will be serializing the first three chapters in roughly 2,000-3,000 word blocks, posted every couple of days (typically Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  The total length of the three chapters of The Charge of the Danoans is approximately 17,000 words.  

Here is the setting:  In the Arcadia Sector, the Tau Empire begins their attack on Imperial space with an invasion of the Imperial planet of Danoan.  Aware that Danoan's strategic position makes an attack on it likely, the Imperium has given it a small garrison of Imperial Guard in addition to the Planetary Defense Forces, but nowhere near enough.  The situation looks grim for the Imperial defenders as the Tau put their plan into motion...