The Pursuit of the Pankera

Tolkien is a master of modern fantasy for good reason! I always enjoyed the movies but never got around to reading the source material until this year. If you love the world of Middle-Earth, pick this up for more beautiful world-building. Learn about the Wild Men of the Woods, the healing herbs of Gondor, the conclave of ents, the geography of Mordor, the Scouring of the Shire, and more! Also the appendices are a lot of fun. The list of kings of Arnor and Gondor gets a little tiring, but the Lay of Aragorn and Arwen is a beautiful story showing the start of their legendary love.

I can confirm that Legolas has no dialogue to Frodo Baggins, though he is noted as joining the conversation with the Hobbits in Ithilien after the destruction of the One Ring. He presumably says something to Frodo there.

This book also fails to pass the Bechdel test, but there is more dialogue from women here than in the movies. A healer from Gondor has several paragraphs where she tells her (unnamed) relative all about King Elessar, and how magnificent he was in healing the stricken Eowyn and Merry.

(Note: review based on one of numerous rereading of the book.)

What started out as a request for another story about hobbits (after the success of "The Hobbit") grew in the telling until it became an epic tale about the quest to destroy the One Ring of Sauron; and how it was the 'least of heroes', unlooked-for even by the wise, would prove to be one to fulfil the quest and free Middle-Earth from domination by the Dark Lord.

This book has been released in many editions and in many forms over the years. The one I read was a one-volume edition that celebrates the birth of J.R.R. Tolkien and includes fifty paintings specially commissioned from artist Alan Lee.

Reading it now after watching the Peter Jackson films, it is easy to put the actors in the film into the scenes from the book, modified by the illustrations of Alan Lee of the various places in Middle-Earth. And after all these years, the words in the book still have the 'power' to bring the reader to Middle-Earth and put you in the footsteps of the Fellowship of the Ring as they strive to do what they can to thwart the plans of Sauron and distract him for the peril that is slowly entering his stronghold on hobbit feet.