Re: The Fellowship Of The... King?

[Louis Epstein]

Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Dec 2023 18:35:16 -0000 (UTC), O. Sharp wrote:
>> Wow. I was unaware of this until I saw an article about it in the New York
>> Times this morning.
>>
>> It seems someone named Demetrious Polychron - which sounds like an alias
>> to me, but I guess that's really his name - started writing a sequal to

Perhaps by deliberate adoption,but hard to believe that it would be a
birth name.

>> _LotR_. That's all right, I suppose, even though JRRT himself had started
>> working on a sequal but abandoned it ("I could have written a 'thriller'
>> about [a Fourth Age plot against Gondor] and its discovery and overthrow
>> but it would have been just that. Not worth doing." _Letters_ #256), and
>> if _he_ decided it wasn't worth it I'm surprised someone _else_ would try
>> it.
>>
>> A blurb that hasn't been removed from the web yet describes the plot,
>> beginning in the "22nd year of the reign of High King Elessar. Elanor
>> Gamgee Gardner, daughter of Samwise, is about to celebrate her debutante
>> party" - really? was the Shire really based on the antebellum South all

I don't think the Southern USA invented society debuts,
but the Suza certainly wouldn't have institutionalized them.

>> this time? - "when Blue Wizards from the East arrive with terrible news:
>> the original Rings of Power have been discovered." Seems odd, with the One

I assume that this would be some lesser prototype-ish rings
as distinct from the Great Rings?

>> destroyed, the Three departed West, and the Nine presumably destroyed in
>> the fall of the Barad-dur; but we'll let that pass. "Dark forces seeking

The Witch-King's ring was I think abandoned in the Pelennor Fields
("The Nine the Nazgul keep",Gandalf said) and I could see it being
the nexus of a would-be Fourth Age Dark Lord,but that's not the
avenue this fanficker tried.

>> the return of Morgoth, Sauron's former master, hope to recover the Rings
>> of Power that will enable Morgoth to bring all of Middle-earth under his
>> control. Elanor and her two Hobbit friends, Fastred and Theo (son of Merry
>> Brandybuck), join Crown Prince Eldarion (the Half-elven son of King
>> Elessar and Queen Arwen), his uncles Elladan and Elrohir, and Alatar, one
>> of the Blue Wizards, on a quest to find the Rings of Power and prevent
>> Middle-earth from falling to Morgoth's servants of evil."

This would be in the Tale of Years if it happened,and it isn't,
and it didn't.

>> A little wacky, a bit unlikely, and frankly not all that engaging from
>> that description, but what the hell; tastes differ. I've written much
>> stupider things myself. "Saruman's Diary", f'rinstance. :) And people
>> have a right to amuse themselves, and to write what they want to write.
>> If Polychron had limited himself to fan-fiction, I suppose everything
>> would have been okay.
>>
>> But in hopes of going further he contacted the Tolkien Estate, looking to
>> get permission to start publishing his sequal. The Estate declined,
>> unsurprisingly, and informed him of their general policy of not licensing
>> literary sequals or extensions to Tolkien's works.
>>
>> ...And that's where it all went sideways, because it seems Polychron
>> decided to not worry about the Estate's wishes, or indeed their
>> copyrights; he went ahead and self-published the first volume of his
>> sequal, _The Fellowship Of The King_ (yes, "King"; you read that right),
>> in 2022.
>>
>> And shortly afterwards, in what I have to say was a pretty extraordinary
>> display of chutzpah, Polychron then tried to sue the Tolkien Estate and
>> Amazon(!), claiming the Amazon video series "Lord of the Rings: Rings of
>> Power" infringed on _his_ copyright(!!), and asked the court for two
>> hundred fifty million dollars in compensation (yes, again, you read that
>> right).

In for a penny of foolishness,in for a pound.

>> ...That case got dismissed as "frivolous". :) The judge in the case
>> ordered Polychron to pay the Estate and Amazon $134,000 in legal fees (I
>> assume this was somewhat less frivolous for him); and the court also
>> ordered that all copies of _The Fellowship Of The King_ be destroyed.
>>
>>
>> As an exercise for the two or three of you who still visit
>> rec.arts.books.tolkien, or indeed any of Usenet, I invite you to suggest a
>> moral to today's story. :)
>
> That brings to mind this exchange in "Tucker's Courtroom Coup", which
> was episode 3 of the very funny (and therefore prematurely canceled)

No,"The Associates" was cancelled because its morose theme song made
people change the channel during opening titles rather than stick
around for the funny parts.

> lawyer show /The Associates/. At the end of a trial, the head of the
> firm (Wilfrid Hyde-White) has some comments after observing Tucker
> Kerwin (Martin Short) in action:
>
> Marshall: Well, my boy, what lesson did you learn from this, eh?
>
> Kerwin: Never ask a witness a question to which I don't already know
> the answer?
>
> Marshall: That's a good lesson. I know a better one: Don't be a
> flaming jackass!
>
> I think Polychron could have benefited from such advice. I read the
> same article you did, and he struck me as being a bit mentally
> unbalanced, feeling he _must_ get his writing out there, come what
> may.

Perhaps he can be the next Donald Trump?

-=-=-
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at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.