The SF Site: Featured Reviews Archive

The reviews are sorted alphabetically by authors' last name -- one or more pages for each letter (plus one for Mc). All but some recent reviews are listed here. Links to those reviews appear on the Recent Feature Review Page.

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Roverandom by J.R.R. Tolkien
reviewed by Trent Walters
This is a children's fantasy under whose spell Trent occasionally forgot he was critiquing. It follows the picaresque adventures of Rover the dog after a wizard transforms him into a toy dog and his subsequent trials and tribulations in a toy shop, on a beach, to the moon, through the dream world beyond, under the Deep Blue Sea, and back again.

Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien
reviewed by Trent Walters
A dumber-yet-luckier than your average-Joe is the hero of this 1949 farcical fantasy. Originally written for his children and later revised for an adult audience, this book straddles the fence and lacks the richness or texture of The Hobbit. On the other hand, a reader can gain much understanding of Tolkien as a writer at work.

Poems from The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
reviewed by Trent Walters
It is what it says. It prints up the poems from The Hobbit for a book of its own, alongside Tolkien's colour illustrations. The poems are probably more at home in their original context but do spark some of the energy, separated from the native text. But if you prefer Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" to William Carlos William's "The Red Wheelbarrow," this may be the book for you.

Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien
reviewed by Trent Walters
One of the more fetching pieces of Tolkien "literary" memorabilia, this book gives us the letters written to his children at Christmas, along with a number of distinctive colour illustrations. One can almost read between the lines as the children grow too old to write to Santa, or as the times may have grown a little rough for the Tolkien family Christmas gift-giving.

The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien and illustrated by Alan Lee
reviewed by James Seidman
It's been 60 years since its first publication. If you are one of the few people who has never read The Hobbit, James says it should be on your "must-read" list. This is one of the most important and seminal works in fantasy fiction.

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