The Complete Tolkien Companion

When I first saw the rather average to poor ratings that this book has received, I was very surprised. I remember getting the book as part of as part of a set from The Science Fiction Book Club when I graduated from junior high (1980!!). By that time I had read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit several times, but never The Silmarillion, which was also part of the set. I vividly remember staying up late at night reading the entries of this book, sometimes just to refresh my memory, sometimes for more information, sometimes just to read the same stories over and over again. I never tired of the world Tolkien created, and he left me in awe as a teenager. I'm far from being a teenager, but am still in awe of his creation. When I finally got around to reading The Silmarillion, I found this book to be indispensable. As a 14-year old - and while I would consider myself an advanced reader for my age back then, I was by no means a prodigy - The Silmarillion was a difficult but incredibly magnificent read. In all honesty, I compared it to the Christian Bible and Bullfinch's Mythology, and found that I enjoyed it far greater than either, and any mythology I had read previously (which was quite a bit). If we can analogize Morgoth's war with the Valar as Satan's with heaven, then I can safely say (IMHO) that Tolkien's interpretation (although it wasn't allegory - we all know that he despised allegory in fiction - but certainly the similarities between Manwe and Melkor/Morgoth are significant and unavoidable) was more interesting than anyone who has ever attempted to re-tell that story. Or tell a similar story of "great evil thrown down by forces of good". Which means, in essence, better than just about every epic fantasy ever written. Okay, I'm back from my tangent. :-) Without The New Tolkien Companion, I would have been utterly lost back then. Tolkien's world was so rich and detailed, that I had a certain amount of difficulty following along. Imagine, a reader of fantasy, and mythology, having difficulty keeping up with the "different" names in the books, as well as the numerous story lines. When turning to this book, it always helped give me that extra piece of information that I needed to get a full picture of what I was reading. It never bothered me that there weren't page numbers or references to back anything up, because I found that Tyler far more often than not (in fact, I can't think of a "not" example) got things right. What I appreciated most about this book, and here is where it differs greatly from Foster's The Complete Guide to Middle-earth, is that Tyler's entries told stories. Foster's - an excellent book - also gave the necessary identifying information, but because he "indexed" his text with references to the books, he had built-in limitations on space (not to mention that god-awful cover art that for some reason "we" all loved back then - look at the hat on Aragorn!). Regardless, this isn't meant to be a comparison between the two

Once you have read LOR for fun, the next times are for research. I liked this book because it is easy to carry and has everything that you will want to know, or need to know, about LOR. A must for keeping tract of the characters, their names in four languages and the geography. An amazing compilation!

This book brings a major bundle of "extra" tidbits about all the major players and places in Middle earth, and is a MUST read for all Tolkien fans! It fills in many of the "holes" you find yourself pondering over after reading the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. It is the "Perfect" fifth book! Rick W.

I started Tolkiens adventure from the begining (The Silmarillion)and had bought The "J.R.R. Tolkien Handbook" (Colin Duriez) which is good, but as I read some people, places or things where not found there. This " Complete Tolkien Companion" has everything! I love it. I will recomend it highly, and always have it handy on this wonderous journey . "The road goes ever on...I must follow if I can".

Unlike some of the other reviewers of this book, I for one did like it very much in fact. Of course it doesn't have every last tidbit of every last detail for all the entries. It is already over 700 pages for gosh sakes. If the author tried to cram in any more info, we probably could no longer afford the book and it would have to have an incredibly flimsy bind on it in order to accommodate that many pages. The bind would also most likely fall apart. I recommend this book not for the Tolkien scholar but rather for the vast majority of Tolkien fans out there who just want to have an all-encompassing recourse to refer. I found this book particularly helpful when I was reading the Silmarillion for the first time (which in itself is a daunting task with so many proper names tossed around. I used the Companion book in order to figure out the basics of some of the important people, places and things. As far as encyclopedias of Tolkien are concerned, this book is probably one of the best compared to others out there. Excellent resource.