The Last Ringbearer Book Review

First off, let me start by saying this is the very first review that I have ever done for anything! So bear with me here 🙂

Secondly let me say, there are some *Minor* Spoilers here. So your warned ahead of time (I did not spoil all of it)

I recently read a very interesting book (Some people call this a work of Fan Fiction and not a Book)  called “The Last Ringbearer” By an Russian author  Kirill Yeskov

This is a very interesting be it odd little book. It’s a retelling of the war of the ring, from the Orc’s perspective.

Think of the Tolkien account as an  “history written by the victors”.  Mordor is not an evil place, far from this. It is described as a peaceful country on the verge of an industrial revolution.

The reader must forgot all what we know of the Tolkien world as this turns it upside down. What we think as the “Good Guys” are not so.

The tale begins by recapping the War of the Ring. The Ring itself is a luxurious ornament, but powerless, crafted by the Nazgûl (a group of ancient scientists and philosophers who take turns as the Nine to guide Mordor through its industrialization) to distract Gandalf and the Elves. The Aragorn we know is not the same at all Aragorn is no more than a puppet of the elves (in a very interesting twist in my opinion)  who has been instructed to take  the throne of Gondor by murdering Boromir.

The story it’s self it’s pretty good, but it’s a bit of a hard read notably, a confused switching back and forth between past and present tense in the early chapters. I found myself having to reread a few sections, to figure out what was in the past and what was now. Also, I found it rather odd that at certain points it would get very in depth on Military and Political tones, then it would pull back from this and get back to the story proper.  Once I got past this I really enjoyed it.  For the most part, though, “The Last Ringbearer” is a well-written, cleaver take on the lore (Once you get past what you THINK you now of said lore)

Where the story get’s interesting it the twist that is provided to the reader.

As I said, this story is told from the other point of view, so the main hero is a field medic from Umbar (a southern land), who is ably assisted by an Orocuen (An orc) The big twist here is the orcs are not the orcs we know from Tolkien but an ordinary man. *Plot Twist*  They’re given the task of destroying a mirror in the elf stronghold of Lorien before the elves can further use it to infect Middle-earth with their alien magic. (I won’t spoil any more of the plot, but there is more to the story, well worth the read)

It’s a pretty good twist on the famous tale we all know. it’s slow in some points and there is a lot of political and military intrigue that is thrown in, for fans of those types of the things.

Now for the part most of you have probably been wondering about all long (if you still with me and reading this) The book has been translated into several languages, but it has not been commercially released in English. Several English language publishing houses have considered undertaking a translation, but the plans have always been abandoned due to the potential litigation from the Tolkien estate

In 2010 the book was translated into English by Yisroel Markov and released as a free and non-commercial ebook; this release has been officially approved by Kirill Yeskov himself.

If you want to read this book for yourself it’s available in English for free in PDF, Epub, Mobi, and Txt formats here.

As I said earlier, if you can get past the few minor nitpicks I had, It’s a fun read, slow in some parts and there are some odd translations that take place (As it was taken from the original Russian) Anyway, it’s free, so you don’t have anything to loose by checking it out!