The fighting game Sifu, where the revenge seeking martial artist main character is revived by a magical talisman, gives players a chance to upgrade skills after each death, but ages the protagonist by 1 year after every defeat. The Adventures of Tom Bombadil: A delightful collection of verse in praise of Tom Bombadil, staunch friend of the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings.Games in the rogue-like genre take a similar approach to Soulslike RPGs by giving in-game explanations for why characters revive while introducing new mechanics for making death feel real and letting players 'fail forward.' In the hack-and-slash rogue-like Hades, for instance, death doesn't stick for the demigod Zagreus because they're already in the Greek Underworld death in Hades forces players to start their run all over again, but also gives them the chance to level up and talk with colorful NPCs.

The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son: A short play inspired by The Battle of Malden, an Old English poem with no ending and no beginning that describes a historical tenth-century battle between the English and Viking invaders.įarmer Giles of Ham: An imaginative history of the distant past that follows the unheroic Farmer Giles as he attempts to capture a somewhat untrustworthy dragon. Tree and Leaf: Professor Tolkien’s now-famous essay “On Fairy-stories” and the short story “Leaf by Niggle” examine and illustrate the form and treatment of fantasy narratives. From short stories of fantastical adventures to essays on imagination and the narrative form, The Tolkien Reader gathers some of these fascinating and hard-to-find works into one volume.

Tolkien was also a distinguished academic and professor whose writings and lectures expand beyond the scope of his beloved Middle-earth. Renowned around the world as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. An absorbing collection of stories, poems, and commentaries by the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings

The Tolkien Reader by J.R.R. Tolkien