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eBook – The Empire Striketh Back

eBook –  The Empire Striketh Back Full title :  William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back By : Ian Doescher  Iillustrations :  Nicolas Delort Score : 9/10 Year : 2014 Publisher : Quirk Books  eISBN :  978-1-59474-716-8 Based on  978-1-59474-715-1 (hard cover) Pages : 176 *  Language : English From Goodreads : Hot on the heels of the New York Times best seller William Shakespeare’s Star Wars comes the next two installments of the original trilogy: William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back  (and not reviewed as yet,  William Shakespeare’s The Jedi Doth Return.) Return to the star-crossed galaxy far, far away as the brooding young hero, a power-mad emperor, and their jesting droids match wits, struggle for power, and soliloquize in elegant and impeccable iambic pentameter. Illustrated with beautiful black-and-white Elizabethan-style artwork, these two plays offer essential reading for all ages. Something Wookiee this way comes!  *** As he explains at the end, Ian Doescher
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Book – Master of Middle-Earth



Book – Master of Middle-Earth : 
The achivement of J.R.R Tolkien 

Author: Paul Kocher 
Score: 7/10
Year: 1972
Publisher: Penguin Books 
ISBN 0-14-00-3877-9
Pages 222 (start at 7*)

Language: English 

 In 7 chapters, Paul Kocher shows his knowledge and understanding of JRR Tolkien's stories and content as available by the date of first publication of this small book, 1972. 

 In his analysis, he spoils a lot of information to those who haven't read the stories beforehand, so I suggest you do so before reading this critic. This is why I didn't read portions of chapter 7 (Seven Leafs) pertaining to other stories, not always Middle-Earth related, that Tolkien had published. 


In the first chapter (starting page 7), Middle-Earth : an imaginary world? Mr Kocher discusses the notions of fantasy and imagination of this world, using Tolkien's own words and opinions on the matter. 

 He then discusses, in chapter 2, The Hobbit, contrasted with the Lord of the Rings, ever present in most of this literary critic, through added aspects and characters in chapters 3 (Cosmic Order), 4 (Sauron and the Nature of Evil), 5 (The Free Peoples) and 6 (Aragorn). 

 For instance, in chapter 2 (starting page 22) about The Hobbit, Mr Kocher presents the writing style, aiming mostly for children audiance, through the content and language, but includes some more adult topics that would be even more present, but with less humour and a very different style in the Lord of the Rings. 

 In 3 (starting page 35; Cosmic Order) he discusses the religious background in Middle-Earth : the Valar, free-will, fate, and how good must previal over evil in this world. Evil discussed further in 4 (starting page 54, Sauron and the Nature of Evil). 

 The 'Free peoples' in Middle-Earth are those who have free-will and their relative orders of importance according to Treebeard and to the Elves. This is the topic of chapter 5 (starting page 74)

 In 6 (starting page 117), all about Aragorn, his quests, how he wasn't seen as a prominent figure in the early critics of the Lord of the Rings, who used to focus only on Frodo. This 6th chapter isn't only about Aragron and how Tolkien wrote him - not knowing which direction he was going to give him in the earlier writing stages. It's also about various relationships between Aragorn and the other members of the Fellowship, and more broadly other people in the story. 

 Chapter 7 is the one I didn't read fully. It is called Seven Leaves, and explores various Tolkien publications as follows : 
  1. Leaf By Neagle (p 144)
  2. The Lay of Aortou and Itroun (p 151)**
  3. Farmer Giles of Ham (p 158)
  4. The homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's son (p. 165)
  5. Smith of Wootton major (p. 173) **
  6. Imram (p. 181) **
  7. The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (p. 188) 
Several of these stories are included in the Tolkien reader, presented in the following order there : 
The homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's son ; Farmer Giles of Ham; The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. 

Between Farmer, and T. Bombadil is Tolkien's essay Tree and leaf, from which Paul Kocher derived some of his information and details for this current book - and gave its title to this 7th chapter. 

The stories I marked with 2 stars ** are those which I haven't read, and decided to avoid their respective portions in this present book, so I can remain spoiler-free until I can read the original stories. 

 I appreciate that at times, I learned a few new things. Mr Kocher knows his materials, and actually had fewer sources to use for this essay. Indeed, since then, Christopher Tolkien had edited and published many other books his father had written but not released in his lifetime, so we, the readers, may know even more than Kocher. Despite of this, he knows quite a bit and shares his passion for these stories, their litterary structures, content and topics dear to JRR Tolkien. 

 Paul writes well, and draws on all possible sources available to him, but in the end, still lacks certain elements that a bigger, broader book would have given. This one is a bit too short, and now slightly outdated by the host of additional information and fiction one can access, not the least from Tolkien's son, Christopher. 

 This is an overall good book but also, very spoilery to anyone who isn't already familiar with everything. 
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