Grand unified books thread

[Sheilbh]

One thing that we should see is the publication of that re-reading of Tolkien from a Russian author - which I think is still not available in English because of the estate. But it sounds fascinating from my understanding it's a shorter re-telling of the LOTR from the perspective of a basically precociously industrialising Mordor while the elves and hobbits and wizards coming against them represent reactionary, pseudo-feudalist agrarian societies.

No idea if it's good but it sounds very interesting.

[crazy canuck]

I am looking forward to see what can be produced once the estate loses control over content.

I predict:

• A massive amount of AI schlock.
• A significant amount of Hollywood formula big budget stuff (I include games in this) with medium to no amount of soul.
• A significant amount of "Tolkien, but with a cool twist!" Most of it will be terrible, but there'll be a few things that are interesting.
• A significant amount of indie/ low budget "trying to stay true to the spirit of Tolkien". Some of them may even succeed at that goal.
• A few obviously political attempts to co-opt Tolkien for whatever agenda. They'll be uniformly terrible, whether you agree with the agenda or not.
• Some Tolkien based crypto scams.
• A good number of Tolkien based board and card games, running the gamut from terrible to good.

I remember a time when I admired your optimism 


One thing I am hoping for is the someone takes a run a creating a table top RPG game based on the Silmarillion (similar to what Iron Crown almost pulled off back in the day).

By the way, I gave permission to Mrs. CC to give all my old D&D stuff to the local hobby shop. She came back and said they insisted on giving her money for what she was giving them.  And they gave her quite a lot of money. Turns out she didn't just take the D&D stuff.  She took all my (to me priceless) out of print and never to return Iron Crown Rolemaster collection.  A little part of me died inside.  But to her it was all the same stuff.

[Sophie Scholl]

By the way, I gave permission to Mrs. CC to give all my old D&D stuff to the local hobby shop. She came back and said they insisted on giving her money for what she was giving them.  And they gave her quite a lot of money. Turns out she didn't just take the D&D stuff.  She took all my (to me priceless) out of print and never to return Iron Crown Rolemaster collection.  A little part of me died inside.  But to her it was all the same stuff.

Ooof. I have the Minas Ithil book (and awesome giant map!) and a lot of the pdf's. If you want, I can send some of them your way. They aren't a true substitute for the physical books, but they might help ease the pain a little. 

[Jacob]

Yikes 

[crazy canuck]

By the way, I gave permission to Mrs. CC to give all my old D&D stuff to the local hobby shop. She came back and said they insisted on giving her money for what she was giving them.  And they gave her quite a lot of money. Turns out she didn't just take the D&D stuff.  She took all my (to me priceless) out of print and never to return Iron Crown Rolemaster collection.  A little part of me died inside.  But to her it was all the same stuff.

Ooof. I have the Minas Ithil book (and awesome giant map!) and a lot of the pdf's. If you want, I can send some of them your way. They aren't a true substitute for the physical books, but they might help ease the pain a little. 

I will keep that in mind

[Neil]

LOTR or Dune, or even Star Wars to an extent, got a lot of value from the feeling we got a glimpse of a much larger universe. Our current tendency to over-explain everything reduces quite a bit the mystique and mystery of these stories.

Agreed.  On of my favorite authors, Roger Zelazny, used to write a short story featuring the main characters and settings of the novel he wanted to write, and then erased the short story so that it would be in the back of his mind when he wrote the novel, but would never appear in print to ruin the mystique of the novel.

I remember the first time I read Lord of Light.  I thought I'd missed something.

[Neil]

By the way, I gave permission to Mrs. CC to give all my old D&D stuff to the local hobby shop. She came back and said they insisted on giving her money for what she was giving them.  And they gave her quite a lot of money. Turns out she didn't just take the D&D stuff.  She took all my (to me priceless) out of print and never to return Iron Crown Rolemaster collection.  A little part of me died inside.  But to her it was all the same stuff.

Ooof. I have the Minas Ithil book (and awesome giant map!) and a lot of the pdf's. If you want, I can send some of them your way. They aren't a true substitute for the physical books, but they might help ease the pain a little. 

It's amazing how the values of those things add up.  I've been cataloguing my library for insurance purposes, and the hundreds of gaming books that I have added up to a pretty significant percentage of the overall value.

[grumbler]

One thing that we should see is the publication of that re-reading of Tolkien from a Russian author - which I think is still not available in English because of the estate. But it sounds fascinating from my understanding it's a shorter re-telling of the LOTR from the perspective of a basically precociously industrialising Mordor while the elves and hobbits and wizards coming against them represent reactionary, pseudo-feudalist agrarian societies.

No idea if it's good but it sounds very interesting.

Available for download as a pdf Here

It is an okay read. Nothing special except for the role reversal.

[Admiral Yi]

Who's doing the invading in the Leninist version?

[Razgovory]

I'm reading Anthony's Beever's Russian Civil war book: AKA Everyone is a psychotic asshole.  I've read stuff on this before, but it really just endorses my theory that the Communism was terrible because the Russians were terrible.  If I was a Russian at that time would be to do what my ancestors did in reality: Get the fuck out of there.

[Savonarola]

I read MC5: An Oral Biography of Rock's Most Revolutionary Band ().  Their story is almost the complete story of the counter culture in Detroit.  They started by playing teen dance parties and frat parties.  Their manager was John Sinclair the founder of the Detroit Artist Workshop and they lived on Cass Corridor, at the time the center of Detroit's alternative art scene.  As the 60s progressed the Detroit Artist Workshop became Trans-Love Energies (it was in the spirit of the times.)  A local teacher, Russ Gibb, who DJed teen parties on the weekends took a vacation in San Francisco and wanted to create a Detroit version of the Filmore in Detroit, so he rented the Grande (pronounced Grand-ee) Ballroom and the MC5 were the house band (their "Little brother" band was The Stooges.)  Then the riots happened and the band and Sinclair moved into a commune in Ann Arbor.  Inspired by the Yippies (and thinking that the Students for Democratic Society were squaresville) Sinclair started his own jokey youth party The White Panther Party (which grew increasing more serious, and eventually bombed a CIA building.)  Then the hard drugs came in, and everyone ended up in the bummer tent (actually two of the member of the MC5 ended up in prison.)  Then the lead singer's wife became an investment banker and eventually vice president at one of the Detroit banks.

They also fit into the broader sixties narrative too; they performed at the Yippie gathering that was held during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968 (and managed to get out right before the police.  Abbie Hoffman had seized the microphone and was ranting while they broke down the sound system around him.)  They agreed to give the art collective "Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker" some time before their show at the Fillmore East, which set off a riot and concert promoter Bill Graham nearly lost an eye in the ensuing melee.  John Sinclair was sentenced to 10 years in prison for giving an undercover cop two joints (he served two and a half as Michigan's marijuana laws would be declared unconstitutional by the state supreme court a couple years later.)  Abbie Hoffman (in a recurring theme) seized the mike while The Who was performing at Woodstock and started ranting about Sinclair, until Pete Townshend hit him on the head with a guitar and threatened to kill the next person who came up on stage.  Then there was the concert for John, which was attended by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

The story of the band was mostly just a sad story, and most of the members kept implying that, had things gone a little different, they would have survived.  The first album ("Kick out the Jams") is a masterpiece of proto-punk; but at the time Rolling Stone gave it a terrible review and said they couldn't play their instruments.  Determined to prove that they could play their instruments they had a very young John Landau (who would become Bruce Springsteen's co-producer) produce their second album - it's not bad (and certainly more in tune than their first album), but it mostly sounds like The MC5 doing a Chuck Berry impersonation, it just doesn't work.  The third album, "High Times" is better, it takes the ideas of the previous album and gives them a lot more of the MC5's power, but it didn't have a hit, didn't find an audience and the entire band was doing heroin by that point, so they fell apart.

There's a quote in the beginning (I think it was from Rob Tyner, the lead singer) that said something to the effect that what the Beach Boys were to the sun and surf of southern California, the MC5 were to the smoke and factories of Detroit, I thought that was appropriate.

[Savonarola]

For some 60's utopianism, here is the White Panther Party's State/Meant:

1.) We want freedom. We want the power for all people to determine our own destinies.

2.) We want justice. We want an immediate and total end to all cultural and political repression of the people by the vicious pig power structure and their mad dog lackies the police, courts and military. We want the end of all police and military violence against the people all over the world right now!

3.) We want a free world economy based on the free exchange of energy and materials and the end of money.

4.) We want free access to all information media and to all technology for all the people.

5.) We want a free educational system, utilizing the best procedures and machinery our modern technology can produce, that will teach each man, woman and child on earth exactly what each needs to know to survive and grow into his or her full human potential.

6.) We want to free all structures from corporate rule and turn the buildings over to the people at once!

7.) We want free time and space for all humans—dissolve all unnatural boundaries!

8.) We want the freedom of all prisoners held in federal, state, county or city jails and prisons since the so-called legal system in America makes it impossible for any man to obtain a fair and impartial trial by a jury of his peers.

9.) We want the freedom of all people who are held against their will in the conscripted armies of the oppressors throughout the world.

10.) We want free land, free food, free shelter, free clothing, free music, free medical care, free education, free media, EVERYTHING FREE FOR EVERYBODY!

It sort of sounds like Star Trek (the MC5 were fans, although John Sinclair had banned television in the commune.) 

There was some Minister of Religion or the like in the White Panther movement who did a passable Baptist preacher, and he would whip up the crowd at the beginning of the show.  He does the opening monologue on the album "Kick out the Jams."

(There was also a Minister of Fucking in the Street, once again, it was the spirit of the age.)