J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth is one of the most violent worlds in literary history, with combat left, right and centre against all manner of creatures. If only there was some way to effectively learn about and understand each battle in turn, from a third-person perspective rather than steeped in the narratives of Tolkien’s works. Well, keep looking avid reader, because David Day’s The Battles of Tolkien certainly isn’t it.
Characterised by its bizarre neon-red Lino cover, a classic Tolkien colour apparently, the book does give some nice historical and mythological context for some of the decisions Tolkien made in creating his battles. And the artwork on display throughout its pages is of a high-quality, with battle maps and other schematics which provide a baseline for understanding the most famous battles in Middle Earth…to an extent.
But where one may then hope for a recount of the battle, the key moments and the players who made it possible, what tactics were used and why, and their successes and failures, you will be sorely disappointed. Each and every battle simply tells a reader to go to another publication of Tolkien’s or read about the battle in the original text. Whilst I am a big advocate for reading the originals instead of just using a reference guide, by adding no account of the battle at all, it negates almost the entire purpose of the book.
Additionally, due to the size constraints of the book itself, the strategic maps of each battlefield are not entirely helpful, with much of the map space taken up by emblems of different figures or groups in the skirmish, leaving little room for arrows directing movements, and even less for the location itself. Whilst the people in the battles matter much more than the ground they fight on, having so many smaller pictograms imposed on top of a map drawn in the same style makes finding each picture a game in itself, a Middle Earth Where’s Wally?, if you will.
David Day’s wander through the battles of the world of Middle Earth is an underwhelming look at some of literature’s finest moments, providing little extra context to the battles themselves. With no recounts of what happens in these skirmishes, only directing readers to read Tolkien’s work themselves, those picking up this book are left to wonder what the point of this publication in the first place is.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
The Battles of Tolkien (ISBN: 978-0-7537-3109-3) was published in 2016
