Weta's new Hobbit Books announced!

After my previous report, it looks like the embargoes are lifting from a number of new Hobbit related books. Amazon is starting to show a wealth of new information, and some of the authors themselves are revealing the covers of their new works.

The first one, the Almanac 2013 by Paddy Kempshall, is available via Amazon.com here:

Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Annual/Almanac 2013 (by Paddy Kempshall)

The copy I have is titled"Almanac 2013", where the Amazon one is listed as "Annual 2013". I'm making an assumption here but I'm guessing it's the same book for the US market.

Paddy Kempshall is also publishing a Movie Storybook on The Hobbit, but no cover has been released yet, at least none I've found so far. It's listed on Amazon though.

Next, I saw that Brian Sibley has revealed the cover of his new book as well, via his blog and Facebook page. Also, it has been listed for pre-orders on Amazon.com, to be released on December 14th.

Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Official Movie Guide

Brian Sibley is a long time Tolkien fan, and has written numerous books on the subject. Among his credits is also the 1980 BBC Radioplay of the dramatisation of The Lord Of The Rings - an excellent 13 hour long audiobook. Brian also wrote Sir Peter Jackson's biography, and has collaborated with the artist John Howe on three Middle-earth map books. I had the immense pleasure to meet Brian when he came to New Zealand last year for the research of this new book. Unfortunately I was not allowed to blog about it back then (and neither was he, obviously). He offered to autograph any of his books I might have on my bookshelf, and I was a bit surprised to find so many there - I walked in to our meeting with an almost embarrassing stack of literature! (cryptic: I also met his rabbit - but more on that soon!)

 
Jude Fisher has also announced her new book via Facebook, and it's also up for pre-orders on Amazon.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Visual Companion

 If Jude's previous Visual Companions are anything to go by, they will definitely be gracing my bookshelf the minute they come out. She worked on LOTR books, both separately as three books, as well as a general LOTR Trilogy Companion. Her LOTR books listed characters and locations found in the movies in an easy to read style, great for Middle-earth virgins but also fantastic for the advanced Ringer fans. Well worth adding to your collections!






Finally (and Weta Publishing has yet to announce these officially), I spotted two Weta Publishing books on Amazon, including one with a cover shot.

Weta's Hobbit Chronicles (by Daniel Falconer)

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Chronicles is written by Daniel Falconer, with a foreword by LOTR's Art Director and and introduction by Weta's head wizard Richard Taylor. Sounds good - so just shut up and take my money already! Unfortunately it's also (you guessed it) only up for pre-orders. *sigh*...

Amazon has also listed another Weta book, Hobbit Art (a Hobbit Film Tie-in). No further details are available on that one yet.

Bag End Miniature - a first look, straight from the Weta Cave

I was at the Weta Cave yesterday with a group of people, about 20 minutes after the first two Bag End Miniatures were put on display. I'm trying to get a link here to the Weta Workshop's page on it but their site is currently down, so this will be updated later.

I "happened" to have a camera with me, so I thought I'd share some close up photos of this totally stunning, gorgeous piece of art. This is what it looks like from the front.

The front door is opened - there will also be an "open edition", which won't have the inside sculpting. So, perversly, the open edition will be a closed sculpure, while the closed edition (individually numbered) will have the open sculpting, viewable from the rear. These photos show the limited edition.

Here's the view from behind:

There are six rooms in total, no more than about an inch tall, and totally filled with Bilbo and Frodo's clutter. The detail is absolutely amazing. It must have been tough getting paintbrushes in there! My photos don't do it any justice at all, but take a look.

From the left, we see the bedroom:

The Hallway, with open door:

The Lounge(*):

The Dining Room(*):

A Reading Room(*):

And a Rumpus Room(*):

I think this is possibly one of Weta's finest miniatures. I understand this edition will be limited to 111 only (Eleventy-one), but I may have misheard that - I was too entranced with the piece to pay much attention to the information provided.

The other edition will be unlimited, which I think is also a first for Weta - they will be able to reproduce it in unlimited numbers. Unfortunately, that won't of course include most of the detail above (really just the top photo), but it'll be a great piece in your display cabinet (and mine)!

  - Jack M.


(*) I've probably totally misnamed the rooms - if anyone knows the actual names, drop me a line?

Blog feedback wanted - how am I doing?

Hi y'all! Hope you're all enjoying my little corner of the blogosphere!

I just wanted to make a few things clear about the purpose of this blog. There seems to be no lack of Hobbit Rumours blogs around - I'm currently subscribed to about a half dozen or so. The big one of course is TheOneRing.net (or TORn, to the initiated). You may have noticed that I've put their headlines into the side bar of this page. I'd be a fool to try to compete with them, and that was never my intention.

However, I've noticed that most of the other blogs seem to delight in reposting TORn's items on their own pages. This seems a bit pointless to me, as I'm assuming that most Hobbit fans will already have a permanent link to TORn anyway, so the link (and soon after, the blog) just becomes noise in an already noisy world.




Which brings me to the purpose of my blog. My blog isn't a high-volume one. Sometimes I'll not hear anything interesting for a week or two, other times I'll suddenly have half a dozen items in one day. In general I try to only write about local Wellington related news that I've come across myself. I have a good network of spies out there, some of whom have little or no access to the internet (I know, who'd believe that!... ((you know who you are, B&M))) :)

I always copy my entries to TORn's spy report email address - sometimes they think it's worthy of spreading further; sometimes they don't. That's cool - I'm always honoured to be mentioned by them. However, since they don't always feature all my entries, it's worth adding my blog (or my RSS feed) to your newsfeeds, if you want to stay up-to-date with the latest local rumours and news. I'm fully expecting to have a big increase in cool news in the coming months - that's the whole reason I started writing them up in the first place!


I'd like to ask a favour of you all - can you tell me what else would you like to see? Should I add a Facebook group you can become a fan of? A twitter feed? A usable email address? Something else? Leave me a quick message here with suggestions - I'd love to hear from you!


One request I've often had from my tour guests is why I don't sell t-shirts or other merchandise, either on the tour or here online. Simply put, I've generally concentrated on being a tourguide rather than becoming a retailer, and let's face it, there's already plenty of online shops to choose from.

Having said that, I've recently been playing on zazzle.com, and I've designed a basic t-shirt that I think looks quite cool. Would there be any interest in stuff like this? Do you like this one? Do you think it's the most awful design you've ever seen? Should I stick to guiding and blogging? Don't hold back! Tell me!

Get off the road, Wellington, NZ by NZNoldor

I often have access to local items that Weta Cave can't sell online for legal reasons (some of the LOTR related stuff can't be sold outside of NZ - please don't ask me for a legal explanation but that's what they've told me). I'm quite happy to buy off Weta Cave at their retail prices and pass them on to anyone out there, if there's interest in that. For instance, they've just started selling an ultra cool Sauron t-shirt designed by Daniel Falconer that they can't sell online - let me know if anyone is interested in one.

One cool shirt - it's just under $nz50.

Get in touch if you're keen on one

(I'll add a small fee for p&p and my time).

The floor is open - let me know your thoughts!

  - Jack M.

Three booksignings at the Weta Cave (possibly four)!

The Weta Cave is going book crazy in the next two months - three new books are being released, two of which will definitely have a proper release day (probably he third as well), and on top of that, a famous NZ author is coming to visit.

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First up is the awesome Ian Brodie, photographer and author of the immensely  popular Lord Of The Rings Location Guidebooks as well as a host of others (including Cameras in Narnia).

Ian once served time in the Rohirrim militia, before selling bread at the Minas Tirith marketplace. He has recently left his home in Wanaka and is currently residing in the Shire, possibly in a hole in the ground.

He is coming for a short visit to the Weta Cave on Friday October 2nd, and will sign books for all comers from 4:30pm onwards. Bring your own copy or purchase one at the Cave - or just come and meet the man!

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The very next day (October 3rd), Alan Lee will be introducing the world to his new book, Shapeshifters: Tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses to which he has added the illustration.

The book itself was written by Adrian Mitchell. Alan Lee was responsible for the design of all things green, curvy and curly in the LOTR movies, and is currently back in the country doing predesign work on The Hobbit movies. He will be signing the new book between 1pm and 3pm. A number of his other books will also be for sale at the Cave.

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One month later (Nov 1st), Richard Taylor himself will be introducing the new pre-schoolers book Champ The Chopper, part three in the series so far.

The series was written by Rebekah Palmer, and this installment illustrated by Weta Workshop artist Chris Guise. Chris worked on LOTR in the miniatures department before designing weapons and armour, went on to the sculpting department, and is now in the design shop. Multi-talented indeed!

I'm hoping either Rebekah, Chris or even Daniel Falconer (who worked on the first two books) will be present for the release day as well. In any case, the session will begin at 2:00pm.

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Finally, halfway through November (no firm date yet), Greg Broadmore will be releasing his new book Victory!, which is a followup to the earlier work, the somewhat lengthier titled Doctor Grordbort's Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory. Greg may or may not be there on the day, we haven't heard anything yet. I do know he'll be in Las Vegas at the end of October for a short stint at the Trinity Of Terrors Film festival, organised by Fangoria Magazine. He may be back in time - fingers crossed!

Greg Broadmore's recent work can be seen oozing off the screen in the impressive District 9 movie - he was the head designer. I mean, he was the boss of the designers (although I suspect he also designed the alien heads).

Keep an eye on the Weta page for more details as they come to hand on this one - his previous book was great, and this one should be very funny as well.

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In short :

Fri, Oct 2nd @ 4.30pm  - Ian Brodie signs books


Sat, Oct 3rd @1pm-3pm - Alan Lee introduces Shapesifters

Sun, Nov 1st @ 2:00pm - Richard Taylor introduces Champ The Chopper

Mid Nov (not confirmed) - Greg Broadmore's Victory!

 - Jack M.