So for like, ever, I’ve had these Lord of the Rings tapes in my house. I thought that the tapes were The Lord of the Rings trilogy in audiobook form. The tapes belong to my brother.
Having never read the books (but seen the movies), I thought I’d like to read the books finally. I started listening to them last week and realized that they couldn’t possibly be the entire books on tape, because there are only four tapes per book. I’ve never read the books but I think they’re quite a bit longer.
So it turns out that this series is a Mind’s Eye production of a radio adaptation of the books, produced for public radio back in 1979. It reminds me of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio production from the BBC ages ago. It’s got a cast of characters each performing their different parts, with background effects and a bit of a soundtrack. It’s amazing there’s even an article on the Wikipedia about it, but I guess that shouldn’t surprise me, the intersection of two geeky worlds.
Anyway, the serial is unbelievably hokey. I stopped after two tapes. Actually, the fidelity is so bad that I can’t hear the low sounds if I’m on the highway, so that didn’t help matters. But really not very entertaining to me. At least not from my modern perspective.
It looks like the tape (and CD) version is still out there for sale.
You have me rolling with “the Wikipedia”. Add a “new-fangled” in there and you’ll sound like a a perfect old person, lol!!
Comment by Cristin — February 29, 2008 @ 9:22 am