Singaporean artist Leia Ham reimagined LotR as Tale of the Middle Kingdom, since Chinese name for China (Zhōngguó) means "The Middle Kingdom." Her concept art includes the Fellowship, armors, buildings like Bag End, props like Aragorn's banner and Fellowship brooches, and more. #TolkienTrewsday
This is such an ungodly crossover. Odi et amo.
It comes up earlier too, but I also think book 4 is the one most prominently considering gender at a group level. As usual, Balle's not saying anything directly, but there's definitely something in the mix about group dynamic and how labour gets assigned that I hope gets picked at in future books.
Not to go straight back to On the Calculation of Volume, but.
Having now read @niallharrison.bsky.social's review in Locus where he does pick up on it, I realise I totally forgot to talk about gender. I think because it's just before the bit where I got overwhelmingly sad about the passage of time.
Putri Prihatini
I will be so interested what you think when you get to it.
