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Re:Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution? by Symbiote on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @11:29AM (#31908980)
I liked the idea of The Last Ringbearer, but I found the writing pretty awful, like something written by a teenager for an English assignment.

> Mordor then made its second mistake ... although, as it always is with strategic decisions, that could only be judged post factum: had the move worked, as it had every chance of doing, it would no doubt have been recorded as brilliant.

> That was when the Mirror first made a difference; imagine a contemporary fast-moving war in which one side has the advantage of spy satellites.

https://archive.org/details/TheLastRingbearerSecondEdition

Re:Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution? by drewzero1 on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @12:26PM (#31909769)
I would consider that a fault of the translation rather than the original writing, though not knowing Russian I couldn't say for sure. Translating literary works is a necessarily imperfect art, and as I understand it this translation was done on the translator's free time without compensation, so I'll take what I can get!
Re:Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution? by tut-urut-utut on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @01:18PM (#31910419)
Translator is not to blame, since he's not a professional translator. Not even sure if he is a native English speaker. He did a translation because he was a fan of the original book in Russian, and I'm grateful to him, since otherwise I would not be able to read it.

It's a pity that Tolkien Foundation actively battled any attempt to publish this book in English. Has that not been the case, I'm sure some publisher would appoint a professional translator to do a much better job at it.

Re:Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution? by drewzero1 on Tuesday June 28, 2022 @10:24PM (#31915744)
Like I said, I'll take what I can get. I don't mean to sound ungrateful.