Monday, February 28, 2011

WHERE THE SHADOWS LIE . . .

So, yesterday I found out, thanks to a friend in England* about yet another modern-day real-world book featuring Tolkien, or at least his writings, as major elements in the plot -- as in, 'what the world thinks is fantasy turns out to all be true'. This time it's not a Dan-Brown wannabe, as in MIRKWOOD, but a detective novel called WHERE THE SHADOWS LIE, by Michael Ridpath, the first of projected 'FIRE & ICE' series. The amazon site, where it's available for pre-order, has two reviews that praise it to the moon -- suspiciously enough, since the book won't be available until August. Perhaps, although they give no indication as to this, they read the English edition, where it's been out since last summer. Here's the plot synopsis from amazon.com:


"Amid Iceland's wild, volcanic landscape, rumours swirl of an eight-hundred-year-old manuscript inscribed with a long-lost saga about a ring of terrible power. A rediscovered saga alone would be worth a fortune, but, if the rumours can be believed, there is something much more valuable about this one. Something worth killing for. Something that will cost Professor Agnar Haraldsson his life. Untangling murder from myth is Iceland-born, Boston-raised homicide detective Magnus Jonson. Seconded to the Icelandic Police Force for his own protection after he runs afoul of a drug cartel back in Boston, Magnus also has his own reasons for returning to the country of his birth for the first time in nearly two decades - the unsolved murder of his father. And as Magnus is about to discover, the past casts a long shadow in Iceland. Binding Iceland's landscape and history, secrets and superstitions in a strikingly original plot that will span several volumes, Where the Shadows Lie is the first in a thrilling new series from an established master."

Taken along with the recent books by Dowling and Hillard, does this mean we're on the cusp of a flood of Tolkien-as-character/it's-all-real/modern-day Middle-earth fiction like the 'Tolk-clones' explosion of the seventies & eighties? Are Hillard and Dowling and Ridpath the McKiernans and Donaldsons and Brooks of this new decade?

I sure hope not.



--JDR



*thanks, Jessica

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4 comments:

  1. David BratmanMarch 1, 2011 at 4:59 AM

    The description on amazon.co.uk of the UK edition is even more informative:

    "Amid Iceland's wild, volcanic landscape, rumours swirl of an ancient manuscript containing a long-lost saga about a ring of terrible power. The manuscript, which is believed to have inspired Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, exists...but why is it worth killing for? Untangling murder from myth is Iceland-born, Boston-raised homicide detective Magnus Jonson. Seconded to the Icelandic Police Force for his own protection after he runs afoul of a drug cartel back in Boston, Magnus also has his own reasons for returning to the country of his birth for the first time in nearly two decades - to investigate the unsolved murder of his father. Binding Iceland's landscape and history, secrets and superstitions in a strikingly original plot that will span several volumes, Where the Shadows Lie is a thrilling new series from an established master."

    Notice 1) that the manuscript is said to be believed to have inspired LOTR. This suggests that Tolkien is not a character, but a reference, perhaps like the passing Inklings references in Edmund Crispin, Colin Dexter, and Laurie R. King (the latter two of which were hardly worth the effort of reading the books to find them); 2) it is, at least in the blurb, not Tolkien's LOTR, but Tolkein's! Whoever "Tolkein" may be.

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  2. MagisterMarch 2, 2011 at 10:59 AM

    Sounds like it might be interesting...

    Off-topic: I'm now checking Dunsany's Tales of Wonder/The Last Book of Wonder, and there are some pretty big differences there: punctuation, paragraphing, "Mallieutown" (UK) vs. "Mallintown" (US), "Langside" (UK) vs. "Lingwold" (US), added phrases in the US text, etc. Quite exciting!

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  3. John D. RateliffMarch 2, 2011 at 3:23 PM

    Hi David
    Thanks for the additional information. Looks like it's a book that plays off against the Tolkien's-world'is'real! meme, but not have JRRT as a character, as you say. Perhaps you'll need to add another category to yr list of Inklings-in-fiction it this trend keeps up.

    Magister: more on Dunsany always welcome here! We'll have to arrange at some point to bring all yr errata together.

    --John R.

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  4. MagisterMarch 3, 2011 at 11:29 AM

    Well, technically speaking I think that what I've found in the US edition are revisions, not errors, but they are nevertheless quite exciting. So far, everything I've noticed has been for the better (IMHO, "Lingwold" is better than "Langside", and "jewellers" is more PC than "Jews" in "The Bird of the Difficult Eye"). I've always been under the impression that Dunsany never revised anything, but he seems to have done so this time.

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