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AddA blog series in which I reread LOTR 50 years after I first read it, age 10, over the winter of 1975-76. Pippin and Merry come as a double act (not exactly ‘dumb and dumber’, but not a million miles from that either) in the Jackson film version of LOTR, providing both light relief and…
Here’s a mystery: below 8,400 meters there are no fish. There are other creatures: sea cucumbers, anemones, tiny worms, but no one has ever seen a fish. At 8,370 meters? There are fish. But not below 8,400 meters. At its deepest the ocean reaches roughly 11,000 meters, so there is plenty of space. And right below 8,400
"We were attracted to the idea of providing a play-by-play of the progression of measles in granular detail."
Woke 2 is Woke 1 with an honest relation to power.
The Fourth Age under the dominion of men isn’t going too well, is it? Did the free peoples of Middle-earth really combine to overthrow Sauron so that the world would be delivered on a plate to the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk? I think not. But how might things have worked out differently? One alternative not discussed at the Council of Elrond is that Galadriel might take the ring. While Elrond does say, ‘If any of the Wise should with this Ring overthrow the Lord of Mordor using his own arts, he would set himself on Sauron’s throne, and yet another Dark Lord would appear’,[1] Galadriel is not a ‘he’. Moreover, she is not even from the same type of story as Gandalf, Aragorn and Faramir, male characters who demonstrate their goodness by refusing to take the ring when they have the opportunity. For Galadriel is clearly a figuration of the Fairy Queen in the same way that Lórien, the enchanted realm she rules in which time passes in a different manner to outside its borders, is a figuration of fairy land or Faery, as it is sometimes known.[2]
CINDER HOUSE Available now from Tor and Bramble UK A USA Today bestseller!An Indie Next pick Sparks fly and lovers dance in this gorgeous, yearning Cinderella retelling from bestselling author Freya Marske—a queer Gothic romance perfect for fans of Naomi Novik and T. Kingfisher. Ella is a haunting. Murdered at sixteen, her ghost is furiously […]
Artemis II astronauts updated the iconic 1968 image during their 2026 loop around the Moon.
Samples collected from asteroid Ryugu contain the four genetic “letters” of DNA, reinforcing the hypothesis that the chemical origins of life were present when…
The highest ranking Black leader in NYC has thoughts about John Davidson and the 2026 BAFTA Awards Tourette's incident.
On irony poisoning and the importance of being earnest.
Ava Kofman reports on Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang, the Los Angeles couple who ran Mark Surrogacy, an agency that they used to hire more than a dozen women to carry their children.
Despite years of debate and follow-up studies, an odd streak of cosmic light still defies a final explanation. Is it a giant black hole screaming through intergalactic space?
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • HUGO AWARD FINALIST • In this poignant, heartfelt novella from the New York Times bestselling author of Spinning Silver...