This was very new and different to me because my only Middle-earth exposure is the Lord of the Rings films and The Hobbit book. There are a lot of charters, places, and concepts that I was unfamiliar with: so I resorted to Youtube videos and Wikipedia to help me along the way.

Now the Elves made many rings; but secretly Sauron made One Ring to rule all the others, and their power was bound up with it, to be subject wholly to it and to last only so long as it too should last. And much of the strength and will of Sauron passed into that One Ring; for the power of the Elven-rings was very great, and that which should govern them must be a thing of surpassing potency; and Sauron forged it in the Mountain of Fire in the Land of Shadow. And while he wore the One Ring he could perceive all the things that were done by means of the lesser rings, and he could see and govern the very thoughts of those that wore them.” This book is not for everyone. In fact, I would only recommend it to those who have read and loved both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. But I wouldn’t hesitate to call it the greatest masterpiece of worldbuilding the fantasy genre has ever had. First, there's The Big Guy, Illuvatar, who brings into being the Ainur, who essentially end up being the gods of this world (The Valar). Then there's the creation of the physical world, and the people destined to inhabit it. It's all described in rather complex detail, so this is not light reading, my friends.We follow the fates of The Children of Ilúvatar - Elves and Men. We witness the kinslaying between the Noldor and the Teleri elves. We travel to Númenor, the greatest kingdom of men. For those that don't know- the first king of Númenor was Elros, the twin brother of Elrond. Unlike his brother Elrond, Elros chose to be mortal. He became a great king of men, and it was through his line that Aragorn was born, 62 generations later. Much like Atlantis, Númenor was destroyed and sunk beneath the ocean. To be honest, The Silmarillion is not an easy read. There's Valinor, Númenor, Middle-earth, creation of the world, music battles (I am not joking), the Valar, the Maiar; Vanyar, Noldor, and Teleri elves, men, orcs, beasts, wizards, dragons, and jewels.

Accompanying these tales are several shorter works. The Ainulindale is a myth of the Creation and in the Valaquenta the nature and powers of the gods is described. The Akallabeth recounts the downfall of the great island kingdom of Numenor at the end of the Second Age and Of the Rings of Power tells of the great events at the end of the Third Age, as told in The Lord of the Rings. OKAY THIS IS MY FAVORITE THING RIGHT NOW AND I'M ACTUALLY IN TEARS THAT I ALREADY FORGOT HALF THE NAMES (I'M WRITING THIS REVIEW ONE MONTH LATE) BUT I'M ALSO FULL OF JOY BECAUSE I KNOW THAT I WILL RE-READ THIS FRIGGIN' MASTERPIECE MANY TIMES THROUGHOUT MY LIFE. He passed over Dor-nu-Fauglith like a wind amid the dust, and all that beheld his onset fled in amaze, thinking that Oromë himself was come: for a great madness of rage was upon him, so that his eyes shone like the eyes of the Valar. Thus he came alone to Angband’s gates, and he sounded his horn, and smote once more upon the brazen doors, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat. And Morgoth came. Shall we mourn here deedless forever a shadow-folk mist-haunting dropping vain tears in the thankless sea?” Let's not forget the glittering lamps that reach up like space elevators bathing the whole flat earth in light or their destruction. Or the gigantic trees that took their place, or the fruit and leaf of the destroyed trees that later became the sun and the moon, finally out of reach of the great corruptor.Notice how I did not say “best”. That was completely intentional. I do not believe it is the best book ever written, even though I know others think so, and I understand their opinions. I also know people who have given up on reading this book, or been baffled by the thought of even attempting it. And I understand them too. This is not the most exciting fantasy book you’ll find. But I stand by it being the most impressive one. The Silmarillion is a collection of mythopoeic works by English writer J.R.R. Tolkien, edited and published posthumously by his son, Christopher Tolkien, in 1977, with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay. After almost reluctantly publishing The Hobbit and very reluctantly writing and publishing its sequel The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien could finally concentrate on what he actually wanted to do: to complete his collection of tales on the mythology and origins of Arda, often just referred to as Middle-Earth. The result, though published after the great man himself had passed away, became The Silmarillion

It is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen.” These annals, with their brilliantly-etched admixtures of beauty and short-lived heroic triumphs set against an overpowering sense of futility and tragic defeat at the hands of an enemy whose cunning is as deep as the infernal pits of his cavernous dungeons and whose malice engirds the star-kissed world, whose very corruption has been bled into the core of creation itself, were just what were needed to spark a young imagination; Tolkien's private amusements and delights mirrored my own in their fledgling form, and inspired me to tributary tasks of creation that nobody else could understand or appreciate but which gave me immense personal satisfaction. They awoke within me the powerful demiurgical desire to craft worlds, populate them, endow them with their own gods and mythologies, formulate a history, laden it with political systems, the whole works, all in the service of a time-bound fate that culminates in an apocalyptic showdown betwixt the dark and the light. At that point in a person's life, when the complex and inscrutable mathematical rituals and hierarchical causality of all-powerful modern science have immense appeal but few handholds, the prismatic and primal allure of myth and magic, the intuitive interconnectedness of nature with the sorcerously creative will of man, even at that tender age a force struggling to avoid restraint and desperately endeavoring to draw power from those spiritual furnaces deep within, the font of dreams, such tales of heroism and fortitude in the face of the supernatural are, for many, very hard to resist. What's more, the channeling of natural phenomenon into organic spirits with anthropomorphic features and forms offers another intuitively-appealing means to understanding a vast material world that otherwise seems awesomely inexplicable and frighteningly unpredictable. Stories that tap into our innate desire both to be entertained and be edified by human theatre set within the panoramic vistas of a horizon-hid past—Tolkien delivered in spades. King Thingol was murdered. Melian returned to Valinor without her husband and daughter. Tolkien's grave has 'Beren' inscribed on it, while his wife Edith's has 'Lúthien.' I reread this wonderful book in anticipation of the upcoming Prime Video series. Still as good as ever.For the first time ever, a very special edition of the forerunner to The Lord of the Rings, illustrated throughout in colour by J.R.R. Tolkien himself and with the complete text.