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Michael Martinez announces new book projects - Lord of the Rings news - J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

July 04, 2000 at 11:52:01

Michael Martinez will be releasing a history book about Tolkien's Middle-earth sometime in 2001. The book, offered to traditional publishers since 1999, has been hard to find a market for because Martinez "does not have the proper credentials".

If a traditional print publisher doesn't pick up the books in the next few months, Martinez will turn to Internet opportunities and self-publish the book through print-on-demand services. His research into Tolkien's imaginary history has been heralded as the most thorough and in-depth work on Tolkien's work to date by those who have seen early chapters. Part of one chapter was published in the journal Other Hands.

No other resource has ever been published which approaches the scale and detail that the Martinez book brings to Tolkien research. The author touts the project as "the book which answers many questions fans have long been asking without response to". One publisher did express interest in the project in 1999 but their limited resources prevented publication.

In related news, Martinez announced at Dragoncon that Parma Endorion: Essays on Middle-earth, has been rewritten and will be offered as a free eBook on many Web sites in an effort to help build a market for the history book. Parma Endorion has been cited in numerous dissertations, master's theses, and high school and university research papers. The existing Web site will be taken down and the new eBook will be translated into several languages (French, Spanish, and Norwegian translators have the new manuscript already, and an inquiry has been received about a possible Portuguese translation). Martinez is hoping to "help open doors for other Tolkien researchers on the Internet which have long been closed."

No accurate count for downloads of Parma Endorion are available. Martinez reports that visitors to the Web site have numbered in the thousands through the years but various technological problems with hit counters and statistics programs have made it impossible to track interest in the Web site. The new eBook will be watched over by more current technology. Proposed formats for the book include Rocket eBook, Palm, and Microsoft formats, but details are still being worked out.

The current Parma Endorion, Martinez says, contains numerous typographical errors, some out-of-date material, and a few factual errors which have been pointed out to him through the years. The present format makes it impossible to accurately and easily update the Web site.

More details on both projects will be posted as they become available.