Also, I tried to read the Silmarillion once. THAT was a struggle.
Christopher Tolkien calls himself an “editor” but I’m not sure he understands what the word means.
Christopher Tolkien knows what the word means. He studied English at Oxford and later became a lecturer and tutor in English Language there. He published Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, which he translated from Icelandic. He was given the Bodley Medal by the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. According to Wikipedia, the medal is awarded to individuals who have made “outstanding contributions...to the worlds of communications and literature” and who have helped the library achieve “the vision of its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley, to be a library not just to Oxford University but also to the world”.
That is to say, he’s extremely literate. If he didn’t understand what the word “editor” means he would have looked it up in a dictionary. I’m almost positive he has one.
Uh, who is recommending these books to these people and why aren't they at least reading the descriptions?
(Or perhaps that was the intent. Sigh...)
It is so much more epic. Did you find the Balrog in LotR impressive? Imagine a hundred balrogs riding on dragons storming the the elven city Gondolin. You find Sauron an impressive evildoer? He was only the Lieutenant to Morgoth. You can argue that this is just inconsistent unedited early material, but I don't care. ;)
The first time through, it's as has been said, the stories aren't very detailed, they're more like old testament books. You definitely have to use your imagination. Also, more and more of the lore is revealed here as well. And then there are the names. Oh, the names! So many to keep track of!
I think I really started to get the Silmarillion on maybe the third read. After that it gets easier and easier the more you retain of the stories. It is certainly my favorite Tolkien book after probably five reads or so and I find the stories to be really rich and interesting now.
You're right, though, Sauron? But a servant of Morgoth! The stories regarding the Silmarils are my favorite of all of Tolkien's stories, which, of course, span many stories. And don't forget Ungoliant for pure unbridled evil!
10 years later I came back and read it again. This time I had read more mythology and understood the Silmarillion as a book of mythology. I very much enjoyed it the second time. I think age, experience, and expectations had a lot to do with how I viewed it that second time. It's a totally different book than the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Anyone who isn't expecting that will end up disappointed.
As noted elsewhere, the vast majority of the work in the posthumously published Tolkien material was written by JRR himself.
Especially if you've read the multiple variations of the stories in Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle-Earth series, you'll be really, really familiar with the repetition.
I'd hope for a completed poetic version, but as a life-long Tolkien fan, I'll be buying it regardless.
I was a huge Tolkien fan as a child and tried to read the Silmarillion when I was about 10, having already read LOTR and The Hobbit multiple times by that age. I think I did finish the Silmarillion, but I found it tedious enough that I didn't look at Tolkien again for quite some years.
The first half of the book is collected published works of his (columns, articles, etc.) including an introduction to P.G. Wodehouse's posthumously published and unfinished Sunset at Blandings. In that introduction he makes it clear how fascinating he thinks it is to see a master at work. I think, based on that, he wouldn't be too upset to see that he got the same treatment.
That said, The Salmon of Doubt is very much unfinished and for me isn't the best part of the collection by far. Still worth a try, even if you just don't read that last section.
I read Patrick O'Brian's posthumous and unfinished book, The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey, and it contained O'Brian's final hand-written notes. Truly from a "master at work".
On the other hand, though it is of course quite different from a posthumously released book by the author himself, it is quite relevant given that part of the reason Adams wanted to turn Salmon of Doubt into a Hitchhikers book was that Mostly Harmless was quite bleak (I seem to remember claims he intentionally ended it the way he did to prevent being badgered about another sequel):
I quite enjoyed "And Another Thing..." by Eoin Colfer, written as a sixth book in the HHGTG series. I read it with some trepidation, but enjoyed it. It wasn't quite the same of course, but he managed to match the style surprisingly well, and it did give the series a much more upbeat ending.
I think both are examples that it is possible to do post-humous releases both of the authors own work and sequels without it going badly.
I think that very much boils down to marketing and readers, though. If you read either with the expectation that they represent Adams at his prime, then you're set for a disappointment. If you see them as more material for the specially interested, then to me at least they were worthwhile.
CT did a good job with Children of Hurin. The more developed stories (Children of Hurin, Beren and Luthien, and The Fall of Grondlin) were going to be stand alone novels with several drafts finished before JRR's death.
Having read the Silmarillion you should recognize these stores spanned several chapters and had a clear narrative focus unlike the rest of the slog.
The Bible reference makes sense but I've always thought of it as similar to reading a history book. That's essentially what it is, a history of the beginning and the first 2 ages. Whereas The Hobbit & the trilogy are narrative accounts of a very small portion of the third age.