Scott, I have told many students about your habit of “reading but not really paying attention” over the years. My clearest memory of that comment was during a Book Center basement meeting just after _White Gold Wielder_ came out. You finished the newest (and last) Covenant book before anyone else had even gotten their hands on it.

I remember being annoyed at the time because you wouldn’t/couldn’t share a juicy tidbit, but in my classroom I usually tell the story as a way of illustrating how NOT to spoil a great book for your friends. Somewhere in the years since I left T-ville, it occurred to me that your “inattention” might simply have been a polite way of saving us from our youthful impatience.

I know it’s off-topic for this post, but I wanted to add a heartfelt shout-out for the late, great Mrs. Carlton. She was my 8th grade English teacher during my first year in T-ville. Without her guidance, I might never have fallen in with the Flail. I often think of her when I find myself pushing “weird” kids to hang out together. It was a great thing she did for us.

And finally, I do have something topical to contribute… Two books that I haven’t seen mentioned in your blog, but which I heartily believe you would love:

1. A Trip to the Stars by Nicholas Christopher – This story takes place in a recognizable late-20th-century USA, but its characters inhabit a fabulously rich world of obscure history, myth & ancient literature, scientific curiosities, and pure fancy. Its plot is a fairly straightforward separated siblings who spend several hundred pages searching for each other. But its fantasy world embedded in modern reality is superior to any similar example I’ve encountered. It’s one of my small shelf regulars.

2. Eucalyptus by Murray Bail – This story takes place in Australia, during what seems to be the 19th-century. It’s about a young woman whose widower father, unable to seriously contemplate his daughter’s maturity, decides to award her (in marriage) to the man who can successfully identify every species of eucalyptus in his expansive collection. As the “contest” develops, the young woman (and the reader) is secretly courted by an interloper who tells her the most unassuming yet inescapably memorable tales you’re ever likely to encounter. This is another short shelf stalwart at my house.

Neither book could strictly be considered “Fantasy” or “Speculative Fiction,” but each contains more true fantasy on every page than the entire Brian Herbert ouevre. And on the off chance that any of you are B.H. fans, please understand this oddly-positioned-and-unnecessarily-provocative opinion as a reprise of my favorite role vis-a-vis the Pun Fund.

I first encountered Lovecraft as a college freshman–I read him just after dusk, under a lamppost at a bench on the quad (this was at Grand Canyon University, a private Baptist university in Phoenix, back in 1990–future biographers take note). What a revelation–the delicious chill and that wonderful sense–rarer and rarer as one gets older–Here is another author whose work will bring me great pleasure and delight (in this case, of the goosebump-inducing sort). I immediately wrote two Lovecraft pastiches for my Creative Writing course that semester. Derivative stuff–but they certainly did set the tone for much of my work two decades later!

I am so glad you turned me onto _October Dreams_. I have used selections from it in my English courses, and this fall when I teach Eng Lit 120: The Horrid Thing: Fear in American Fiction and Film, I’m sure I will turn to it again.

Grant C. Sterling, “How Thor Became an Angel: The Religious Development of Tolkien’s Silmarillion“ (Mythopoeic Society Mythcon 29)

Sterling, Grant C. “‘The Gift of Death’: Tolkien’s Philosophy of Mortality.” Mythlore 82,21.4 (Winter 1997): 16-18, 38

I know he’s probably got more out there. He was one of those folks like “I am Wallowing” who can probably recite word for word entire passages of the Silmarillion and who has spent a lot of time thinking through the writing.

(Sadly I have not read any of his stuff on Tolkien, he didn’t send me any reprints.)

That’s fantastic! It was literally a giant barn-shed like facility.

My only problem with it was that it seemed horridly disorganized back in the mid 80’s.

I have burned in my mind the image of a rainy fall day when some friends from Urbana and I were aimlessly driving around Central Illinois and wound up at the book barn. For the various trips I made there, that one stands out in my mind.

One of the guys I worked with in Decatur found a great book there that was strangely illustrated aphorisms and snippets of poetry. We took some of those and (since we worked in a screenprinting shop) turned them into t-shirt designs and printed them. I still have one of those.

I agree that the Children of Hurin is a fine treatment of ‘Narn i hin Hurin’, which, like ‘The Fall of Gondolin’ Tolkien meant as independent tales with the background of what became The Silmarillion uniting them.

I am not at all convinced that, even had he lived 30 more years, J.R.R. would have ‘finished’ The Silmarillion. It was, as Christopher said, completely disordered and took nearly five years to put in the form it first appeared in. I believe J.R.R, would simply have kept tinkering, never reaching a state he would have considered as finished.

“… so that soon he listened perforce, and she wove into words the loneliness, the emptiness and the darkness of the Void where once he walked alone. All his court was thrown down and slumber and his head dropped upon his chest, as the weight of the Silmarils in his crown became an increasing burden. Then suddenly like a gathering avalanche he fell, and hurled from his throne lay prone upon the floor of Hell. A deep silence fell.” … from memory (hope I am close!)

Do you guys know about The Old Book Barn in Decatur? It’s out there by Hickory Point Mall. That is a regular stop on my visits home — it’s an ENORMOUS used-book store with an entire room devoted to fantasy and sf. It’s incredibly well organized, and I’ve found some real treasures there!

Yeah . . . Mom and Dad opened the store because they loved books, plain and simple.