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The Fall of Gondolin

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The Fall of Gondolin

By: Christopher Tolkien, J. R. R. Tolkien
Narrated by: Timothy West, Samuel West
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Summary

Presented for the first time as a standalone work, the epic tale of The Fall of Gondolin reunites fans of The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings with Elves, Balrogs, Dragons & Orcs and the rich landscape unique to Tolkien’s Middle-earth. This brand new unabridged audio book is read by Timothy West & Samuel West.

Gondolin, beautiful but undiscoverable, is central to the enmity of two of the greatest powers in the world.

Morgoth of the uttermost evil seeks in vain to discover the marvellously hidden city of his Elven enemies, while the gods in Valinor refuse to support Ulmo Lord of Waters' designs to protect it.

Into this world comes Tuor, cousin of Túrin, and guided unseen by Ulmo he sets out on the fearful journey to Gondolin to warn them of their coming doom. Then Morgoth learns through an act of supreme treachery all that he needs to mount a devastating attack on the city, with Balrogs and dragons and numberless Orcs.

©2018 J. R. R. Tolkien (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers Limited Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Literary Fiction Magic Feel-Good
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Critic reviews

"Never did [Tolkien] write a more sustained account of battle. With dragons and fiery balrogs galore, the attack on Gondolin makes Peter Jackson’s souped-up cinema battles look like tabletop games." (The Times)

"It’s a load-bearing pillar in the grander narrative that eventually came to encompass better-known works. Tolkien explicitly expressed his wish later in life that the three Great Tales of Middle-earth’s early days — The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien, and The Fall of Gondolin — along with The Lord of the Rings and other writings, should be considered as 'one long Saga of the Jewels and the Rings'." (Entertainment Weekly)

"The text is rife with references to characters and creatures that come to play a role in The Lord of the Rings...one passage in particular seems to set up one of the most famous scenes from the LOTR trilogy." (Time)
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Christopher Tolkien is here engaged in presenting a restoration of his father's work on a key tale at the culmination of the First Age (I think) of Middle Age. So it's fitting that the father and son team of Samuel and Timothy West read this audio book.
Samuel tells the tale, whilst the elder, Timothy, reads the linking and explanatory narrative and notes, basically representing Christopher Tolkien. And it works superbly well, as it did in the similarly formatted 'Beren and Luthien.'
The most substantive sections are an early version of the tale that tells of Tuor, a human, seeking out the elf city of Gondolin to pass on a warning. There follows a terrible betrayal and the titular fall of the last Elf stronghold of Gondolin at the hands of army of monsters led by the Dark Lord 'Melko' (later Morgoth). The other substantive version in this book is from a later text and focuses on Tuor encountering the Sea-God Ulmo and journeying to find the hidden city accompanied by the elf Voronwe, encountering perils on the way and then finding the passage to the Kingdom, having a tense encounter with some elf guards before progressing through a series of majestic gates.. and then that version ends.
Making sense of these different versions and telling the story of how they evolved makes for a fascinating narrative on how a story evolves with the life of its author, and the reasons for its later abandonment.
This is not a jumping on point for those new to Tolkien, you will need to have read the major works of the Legendarium (The Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion) to get the most out of it, but its a wonderful addition, and the West's reading is superb, combing scholarly erudition with a poetic and resonant reading.

Wonderful Father and Son reading

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This is a wonderfully put together piece of work chronicling the story of the Fall of Gondolin, very much in the same vien as Beren and Luthien. It isn't a continuous story but rather fragmented pieces (often repeated) that form the story as a whole and show its evolution.

Be warned this is very in depth and will only be of interest to those who have read and enjoyed the Silmarillion.

Excellent piece of work (But be warned!)

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Loved it. Epic story and brilliant performance by the narrators. Christopher Tolkien is sadly missed.

Immersive

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Great additional story from the Tolkien Universe. Well told and interesting to learn about the additional storylines and history.

Great additional story from the Tolkien Universe

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Very interesting but mostly around Tolkien's story development rather than a true novel. It gives a few versions of the same story as Tolkien developed it over the years. I very much enjoyed it as a Tolkien fan but it wouldn't be for everyone.

For Tolkien fans

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