You know that thing where some hack writer who nonetheless somehow got published on his own takes the notes of a deceased genre author to "finish" whatever he didn't get around to, and it sucks?

Well, no one can ever accuse Christopher Tolkein of that. In recent he has released as stand-alone books, three stories which take place in the Silmarilion, in expanded form. The first one, "The Children of Hurin" expanded upon the brief synopsis in The Silmarilion, and was fairly satisfactory. The second one, about Beren and Luthien, was, as I recall, mostly just a long-ass poem that exists in-universe about their adventures. And the latest, "The Fall of Gondolin" was the one I was most looking forward to. We get the epic destruction of the last great city of the First Age, the birth and origin of Earandil the Mariner, the crowning moment of awesome for Glorfindel, maybe get to know characters like Turgon and Idril a little better...

Nope. We get a story that more or less already appeared in one of those other compilations of Tolkien's odds and ends. It's all about Tuor's early wanderings to Nevrast, his encounter with the Vala Ulmo, his meeting with Voronwe, and their journey to the seven gates of Gondolin, including a passing encounter with Turin, who never even notices his cousin. And it ends after Tuor & his companions get through the last gate. Nothing in Gondolin, no meeting with his future wife or rivalry with Maeglin, certainly nothing about one of the most legendary places in Middle Earth, where the magic swords found in "The Hobbit" originated.

If you want to read about Tolkien's writing process and behind the scenes dribs and drabs, this book might be okay. And while I have had issues with expanding on a dead author's work, it seems a whole other kind of disrespect to title a book implicitly promising a story that has only been briefly summarized for decades, only to not show anything like the eponymous events.

Christopher Tolkien seems to be in his 90s. He doesn't have to put up with complaints from fans for very long even if he DID bungle a completion. You think he could maybe just molest JRR's just corpse a little, stopping short of a full-on rape, if he's going to promise us new material.