This prequel to the "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy was abandoned by the author before his death, with the materials eventually culled together into a novel by his son Christopher Tolkien after a 30-year effort. Parts of this story were originally published as the notoriously difficult read "The Silmarillion."
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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Chicago Sun-Times Dan Miller
Stunning in its scope, writing and story-telling, it's vintage Tolkien -- old vintage, with Homeric similes and lyric prose...[A] monumental achievement of imagination.
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Outstanding
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Washington Post Elizabeth Hand
A bleak, darkly beautiful tale played out against the background of the First Age of Tolkien's Middle Earth, The Children of Húrin possesses the mythic resonance and grim sense of inexorable fate found in Greek tragedy.
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Favorable
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Daily Telegraph Philip Hensher
The Children of Húrin has been rammed together without a lot of scholarly explanation; it provides, however, along with a great deal of absurdity, a glimpse of the sheer mythical power that is turning him into a long-term object of interest.
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Favorable
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Daily Telegraph John Garth
The Children of Húrin is no academic exercise, partly because it also breathes the dank air of the 20th century, with its muddied motives, its oppression and slaughter. Cruelty and brutality are explicit. Bitterness ousts charity and hope.
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Favorable
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PopMatters Tish Wells
A book that even casual readers of Middle Earth can enjoy.
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Favorable
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Salon Andrew O'Hehir
The Children of Húrin will thrill some readers and dismay others, but will surprise almost everyone. If you're looking for the accessibility, lyrical sweep and above all the optimism of "Lord of the Rings," well, you'd better go back and read it again. There are no hobbits here.
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Favorable
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The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Kelly McManus
An excellent, nuanced tale...A far more mature and sinister saga than the tales of Frodo and company. Here be tales of incest, gore and tragic doom; the fighting pales in comparison to greater psychological and sexual dangers.
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Favorable
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The Independent Murrough O'Brien
Tolkien derives a remarkably original tale of tragic fall. The children of Hurin do not, like the parents of Oedipus, rush to avoid their destiny: they defy it.
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Mixed
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The Guardian Nicholas Lezard
The First Age here seems a pretty miserable place to be; Orcs everywhere, people being hunted into outlawhood or beggary, and with no relief, light or otherwise, from a grumpy, pipe-smoking wizard. But it does have a strange atmosphere all of its own. Maybe it does work.
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Mixed
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Boston Globe Ethan Gilsdorf
Húrin is like "Grimm's Fairy Tales" on steroids, dark, and sincere almost to a fault...Those who found "Rings" tough going may find Húrin tedious. But the dedicated Tolkien fan, or the reader undaunted by "Beowulf," will find much to delight in.
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Mixed
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The Economist
Its aim is to tell a good story, and it does so, without wandering into its wider implications. It is well crafted: Christopher Tolkien has skilfully pieced the fragments together to form a “continuous narrative without gaps or interruptions”. The question is whether, given the vast extent of Tolkien's published work, this new spinning of fragments was really necessary.
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Terrible
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Entertainment Weekly Jeff Giles
Húrin is so awkward and immature a piece of writing that you ultimately feel a pang of compassion — not for Túrin, who proves to be an impetuous jerk, but for Tolkien himself. This is hardly the return of a king.
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