The Children of Húrin (2007) (edit title/settings)

• Rated 1 stars

“sadly boring and in desperate need of an editor. There isn't anyone likeable in the whole story, especially the main character. If he had just listened to anyone at any point, so much tragedy could have been missed. Only remains on the shelf for Middle-Earth completeness.”

• Rated 5 stars

“Zo heeeerrlijk Tolkien”

• Rated 4 stars

“I'm a fan of Tolkien, so I'm coming from a bit of a biased angle. The first part of this book was a bit hard to plow through. It was hard keeping track of the very similar sounding ancient names of the elvish kings and locations and such. Once I got into it a bit, it was much better. The story centers around Turin, a hero of the first age, and his cursed life. What I really enjoyed was seeing this essentially noble person have his world around him constantly falling apart because of the wrathfulness in his own heart. Turin was complex in that regard, and much like ourselves, full of both good and evil. There were some obvious allegories present in the book, about God and the nature of good and evil, which is really where this book shines. As a fantastic story about high adventure a-la LotR, it's not nearly as lofty.”

• Rated 5 stars

“This expanded version of one of the three most famous stories from The Silmarillion (the tale of Húrin and his father, mother and sister) was stitched together from various fragments left behind in an unfinished form by Tolkien. As his son, Christopher Tolkien, explains in the frontmatter, however, minimal editing was involved in preparing this book, and none of the text itself was written or expanded by Christopher himself. Told in the same high narrative style as Silmarillion, but in a much more fleshed-out and detailed format, The Children of Húrin only further points toward Tolkien's literary and mythic genius. ”

• Rated 4 stars

“Dark, tragic. More accessible than The Silmarillion, less so than the Lord of the Rings. Still incredibly engaging; just remember up front that it's a tragedy; there is no happy ending.”

• Rated 3 stars

“Well-written, but darker than LOTR, and a polar opposite to The Hobbit. Interesting addition to the mythos of Middle Earth.”