Books

The Two Towers

JRRT packs two separate books into one volume. 

The first is the story of everyone other than Frodo, Sam, and Gollum. Merry and Pippin get captured by orcs, escape, meet the ents, and go with them to Isengard to fight Saruman. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli follow hot on their heels, meeting the riders of Rohan and a resurrected Gandalf on the way. And then the good guys all smash up the bad guys at Helm’s Deep. Peak LOTR. 

The second book is the story of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum advancing the ring roughly from Moria to Mordor. That’s the slowest, weakest section of the entire series. I think the whole series, but this book in particular, would benefit from heavy abridging. 

I’m not going to try to sell anyone on reading this. You probably already know if you should. It’s fantasy canon, outside the world of recommendation and rating. 

I will say that my boys still fight imaginary orcs many months after finishing these, so they’re definitely still relevant.

The River of Doubt

Millard tells the story of TR’s ill fated trip into the Amazon.

The story itself is great. The book is full of interesting characters. But the storytelling does justice to neither, and the book falls flat.

It’s at its best just reciting a litany of jungle horrors.

Two stars for its class.

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I’m increasingly convinced that virtually all concepts are interesting enough and it’s all execution. 

See Vernon, Florida by Errol Morris as an extreme example

Few things suck as bad as experiencing an interesting concept and having it not realize its full potential.