The Silmarillion

By: J. R. R. Tolkien

Narrated by: Martin Shaw

Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's Summary

The complete unabridged audiobook of J.R.R Tolkien's The Silmarillion.

The Silmarillion is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien’s world. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back, and in whose events some of them such as Elrond and Galadriel took part. The tales of The Silmarillion are set in an age when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-Earth, and the High Elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils, the jewels containing the pure light of Valinor.

Included in the book are several shorter works. 'The Ainulindale' is a myth of the Creation and in the Valaquenta the nature and powers of each of the gods is described. 'The Akallabeth' recounts the downfall of the great island kingdom of Númenor 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 narrated in The Lord of the Rings.

©2015 The Tolkien Estate and CR Tolkien (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic Reviews

"How, given little over half a century of work, did one man become the creative equivalent of a people?" ( The Guardian)
"Demanding to be compared with English mythologies...at times rises to the greatness of true myth." ( Financial Times)
"A creation of singular beauty...magnificent in its best moments." ( Washington Post)
"A grim, tragic, brooding and beautiful book, shot through with heroism and hope... its power is almost that of mysticism." ( Toronto Globe & Mail)

A collection of appendices, not a story

I was torn between giving this 3 or 4 stars. On the one hand, this book is an incredible work of imagination by one of the greatest authors of all time. This book provides a lot of history and context to the LOTR story. On the other hand, this book is not a single unified story such as the LOTR or the Hobbit. Rather, it is a collection of appendices that aren't really very interesting unless you are a diehard Tolkien fan. And even then ,this book takes a lot of effort and concentration to get through. In the end I gave it three stars because I think that is the most fair to let other readers know what to expect here. I should have read other reviews more carefully before reading this and I would have known more what to expect. I was expecting this to be a story set in an earlier time in the LOTR universe, but that is not what The Silmarillion is. I think that a better, more accurate (but probably much more mundane) title would have been "The Prequel Appendices to the LOTR", because that is exactly what this book is. Some of the chapters are easier to read than others. My favorite part was at the very end with the post-Isildur material and the short historical context of the LOTR saga. Understand that the chapters read a lot like a combination of a King James version of Genesis 1 and 2 and an encyclopedia article. The accounts are always overviews of events, and even in the tales that contain some more detailed action, you still get a very distant view of things. Overall, my advice would be to NOT read The Silmarillion like a regular book. That's not what it is. Instead, treat it like background material, and read like I would read the World Book Encyclopedia when I was a kid - just crack it open now and again and read an article at a time.

Ponderous

I’m a big Tolkien fan. I’ve read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings many times over the years but never The Simarillion. I wanted to know the back story but had never gotten around to reading it. The narrator’s voice was perfect for the material but lacked inflection and I found myself zoning out. I had to go back several times and listen to the chapters again. It’s ok for a Tolkien fan but I would not recommend for the casual reader.

Finally!

I’ve been waiting for a good audiobook version of the Silmarillion for a while. Here it is, and it’s great! The narrator does a good job, I think. You could argue that his delivery is a tad too stentorian or declamatory, but the text is a hard one to read naturally, and this way of reading it is not inappropriate. As far as I know, he gets all the pronunciations right, which is nice. The music may not win an academy award, but it feels appropriate in tone.

The Silmarillion is not for everyone. Even people who consider themselves fans of The Lord of the Rings may find it pretty off-putting, because it’s written in an extremely “high mythic” style. But if you want to understand all the obscure references in LOTR and The Hobbit to the elder days (Gondolin, Elbereth, Eärendel, Gil-galad, etc), then this is the place to come.

There are a few small audio glitches as of this writing, although they don’t impact the overall experience significantly. I’ve notified Audible about them and they say they are looking into it. [UPDATE: The audio glitches have been fixed as of January 2019.]

I couldn't do it

I've been forcing myself to try to finish this for weeks, I finally give up. I was excited to read this, I've read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books and loved them. I've read tons of books in my life, I by no means am a light reader. But this book will drive me mad! It's almost impossible to follow, continuous repetition of so and so son of so and so. It reads like a textbook, I would have to take notes and cross reference just to get a grasp of the content. While I will eventually finish it only because it's a Tolkien I don't think I will ever revisit it as I have his other tales numerous times. I realize he never finished this story and it was released by his son, perhaps there's a reason he didn't release it? Die hard fans only.

Remarkable in it's epic form,it's depth and beauty

My favorite Tolkien book.
Great story telling. great theological and mythical exploration. tackles everything from the meaning of life through the problem of evil to the problem of free will.

classic

at first this is a difficult book to grasp however, after the second or third time through it's awesome!! normally it's not available for purchase in the US and,I travel to California for work and lo and behold it was available to purchase on Audibe. that was a great day!

One of the best readings I've ever heard

This is, by far, one of the best readings of the best books I've ever heard!

If you're familiar with Tolkien and haven't read this book, look no further than this audiobook narrated by Martin Shaw. I've listen to over a dozen male narrators of fantasy books (Michael Kramer is a good one, particularly his Mistborn performance), and no one has topped Martin Shaw's performance with the Silmarillion. I definitely recommend listening to this book and then actually reading it (if you want to read the hard copy or Kindle editions), as Shaw gives you the proper pronunciations of the literally hundreds of names of people and places. Also it would be a good idea to have a map of Beleriand/pre-LOTR Middle-earth handy while listening, as on the first listen it can become difficult to keep places straight.

Beyond the performance, this is my favorite work of Tolkiens' to date. It has so much packed in, particularly the Ainulidale ( the first part) that I have gone back and listened to the whole book three times now, and the first part eight times.

I'm so glad they brought this to the US store, as before it was only available in the UK Audible store and had to jump through a few hoops to get at it. It's worth every penny (or credit) and more to add this title to your collection! I can't recommend this highly enough. Enjoy!

Finally!!!

I’ve been waiting forever for an English version of The Silmarillion! I was so close to learning German just so I can listen to this amazing book. The wait was worth it. Martin Shaw did an amazing job narrating and I shall listen to this about ten more times before deciding to go onto another book. Beautiful performance for a beautifully written piece of work.

really bad

so if your looking for a wiki encyclopedia read to you of who begat who, or intricacies of the elven genealogy, then perhaps this is for you.. to me it read as a very boring and dull beyond anything... no adventures, not a one.. just babbling on and on about one king and another god or a minor leader, with not one tale worth listening too. very very disappointed.

Some tech flaws, still awesome.

It had some glitches, but overall it's a great retelling of my favorite JRRT story!

I took a star off only for the audio issues. 5 stars to the narrator (even though he occasionally said 'Angbang' instead of 'Angband' because hey, I do that too.)! The audio overlaps only last about 15-20sec max at the start of one of the middle chapters.

Great stuff, I listened twice in a little over a week!

Great but with random audio glitches...

Great way to read the silmarillion as the book itself can be a bit impregnable to read. Great performance as well, but one thing that did start to get a bit annoying was the frequency of audio glitches throughout. Examples being:

- Chapter intro music playing randomly mid chapter
-The chapter title repeatedly being said over the top of the narrator.
- Audio jumping in the final few chapters.

awesome

fantastic listen, only issue is that in one of the (luckily) more boring chapters, the title replays about 20 times

Mixed Feelings

I remember the day this much anticipated book came out in the late seventies. In my late teens I was a Fan - I read a library copy of LOTR under the bedclothes with a torch, marvelling at the map and captured by the magic of it all. Four years later I'd probably read it eight or nine times, a twice annual practice which continued until my mid twenties.

In my weekly trawl of Liverpool's bookshops I'd purchased everything else by Tolkien I could: Leaf by Niggle, Farmer Giles of Ham, Smith of Wootton Major. With saved pocket money for odd jobs, I'd paid for the Silmarillion at Philip, Son & Nephew before it was published, and on the day it arrived I was there, patiently waiting in the queue for my own copy.

And yet I was disappointed.

The Silmarillion was not a work of fiction primarily designed to be read, listened too, or enjoyed. Even at seventeen or so I realised that it was more a matter of Tolkien working through the background for his world - a sort of hobby horse for himself to form the basis for the world which his languages inhabited. He was working on the Silmarillion before he wrote LOTR, and it shows.

The Hobbit and the LOTR are both stories. The Silmarillion is a History, and an imaginary history at that, presented in a format styled by a medieval style author, storyteller or bard. On the written page this comes across as overblown and pretentious. There are passages in LOTR that also read like that, but they are broken up by the unfolding of events and the characters. In the Silmarillion the style just steamrollers you.

Much of it is simply lists of names and is exceedingly dull. There are high points -the tales of Hurin and Turin spring to mind. As a teenage fan I was somewhat let down: this WAS more Tolkien and Middle Earth, but in effect it was more appendices rather than narrative. Useful for the fan, glad its there and all that - but not really what I'd hoped for.

Forty odd years later I decided to give it another go, this time read by Martin Shaw. Having a narrator is an improvement, but it also highlights the weaknesses of the book. The initial sections of the book are still boringly dull lists of odd names, guaranteed to frighten off anyone but a Tolkien fanatic.

The Silmarillion is essentially background reading, for the truly dedicated only. It will not replicate the experience of LOTR or the Hobbit. I would say the same for all those things Tolkien scribbled on the back of old cigarette packets, later collected into 'Unfinished Tales' et. al.

The Silmarillion is the work of a literary genius, but is not a work of genius in itself. It is something Tolkien essentially wrote for himself, which was eventually published.

Great book. Shameful production.

The stories were great, but that's to Tolkien's credit and not the creators of the audiobook. Numerous times throughout the audiobook I encountered glitches in the track where suddenly the narrator would be repeating the title of the chapter or other pieces of the story in the background, thus resulting in near gibberish as the doubled tracks made it impossible to hear what was being said. I went back a few times to check if it had simply been my phone that glitched out but found that each instance of this glitch occurred consistently at the same timestamp. In other words it's a production error. And considering how many times this occurred, the production company have no excuse not to be absolutely ashamed of their work. Had it happened once I would have shrugged it off as a simple mistake, but when it happens just about a dozen times it becomes negligence. I recommend Tolkien's The Silmarillion, but I can't say I recommend this particular edition of the audiobook.

Martin Shaw

... Is the best casting decision I've seen on Audible to date. Can't praise the narration enough. As a kid reading it and ever since, the inflection and cadance I had in my mind is served up wonderfully by Martin Shaw. Two thumbs up.

Fantastic

Truly loved it, though it was a struggle to get into at first. Martin Shaw helps bring to life one of my most beloved epics in such an engaging and atmospheric way.

Get yourself a map

Brilliant, the world from the begining of middle earth. Do have a map handy though and perhaps a pen and paper to write some family trees. It certianly fills in a few blanks from There and Back Again.

A Tale of Good, Evil , Gods and Men

I've always wanted to read The Silmarillion, but could never get past the first chapter as the story was so complicated. Listening to it via Martin Shaw's soothing tones enabled me to keep a grip on the characters and plot. I may even read the book, now!

AWESOME

fantastic. Tolkien at his best The world of middle earth and full history
I believe

Great retelling of a mode, courtesy of Martin Shaw

A very accessible audio experience of a book onerous to read. Highly recommended if you enjoyed Lord of the Rings, and wanted more of the rich world of Middle Earth.