The Science of Middle-earth (2021 book)

The book was generally poorly-received by the Tolkien community. Kristine Larsen writing in the Journal of Tolkien Research complained that the book "is curiously mis-named, reportedly being a book about science and Middle-earth (with the latter possibly being clearly secondary in importance to the former)." Larsen goes on to complain about the "blatant misrepresentations of Tolkien's Secondary World and sloppy mistakes" and concludes: "Books like this reflect the lingering lack of respect some academics (unfortunately including some of this reviewer's university colleagues) still have toward Tolkien Studies. They consider it a trivial topic that one can easily dabble in as a hobby. [..] The readers of this volume are instead quibbled out of Tolkien and cheated out of a true appreciate of the science of Middle-earth."

One of the contributors to the book, Vivien Stocker, complained, "the book wasn't mainly written by Tolkien scholars that know science or are scientists, but by scientists that think they know Tolkien (and most of the time, don't)."

1. Esta ficha se ha importado inicialmente de TolkienGateway.net el día 30/05/2026.