News & Notes – 11/18/2017

November 18, 2017 News & Notes 2

News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, and other cool stuff

 

Book News

 

Worth Reading/Viewing/Listening To

 

Free Fiction Online

 

For Writers and Bloggers

Dedicated this week to those of us who are afraid we’re too old to start writing or get published (no matter how old or young we are.)

 

Book & Movie Announcements

  • Title and Cast of Fantastic Beasts 2 Revealed! And just a smidgen of the plot, too. (Tor.com; more snippets of information can be found on Pottermore.)
  • The “LOTR” series TV rights went to Amazon – and it will be a prequel, set before The Lord of the Rings and possibly before The Hobbit. (Polygon.com) Sorry to disappoint all of you who were hoping for a LOTR remake! At this point, Amazon hasn’t announced a story idea for the projected series, so it’s hard to know what the writers and producers will do with it. But depending on which characters are included or excluded from the rights (that information hasn’t been released yet), they could potentially focus on Aragorn’s life before we see him in LOTR, or on his father or some other of the Duedain. Or they could look at the rise of the Necromancer, pre-Hobbit. Or possibly explore some of the material from The Silmarillion — like the tale of Beren and Luthien.   (More at Deadline)

 

Just For Fun / Really Cool

The Millenium Falcon. Screenshot from Google Maps.

  • The Millennial Falcon is on Google Maps. Yes, really. The full-size mockup used for filming is sitting on a golf course near Longcross Studios in England, surrounded by shipping containers–presumably to keep it hidden. Seems ironic that Disney apparently forgot about surveillance from space… (Independent) (Click the image to go to the location on Google Maps.)
  • How good are you at pronouncing British names? Take the quiz at Word Wenches to find out! (I got 100%, thanks to a lifetime of reading British books and watching British shows.)

 

Bookish Quote

 

That’s it for this week!

2 Responses to “News & Notes – 11/18/2017”

  1. RO

    Lots of really good news that I didn’t know about. I’m a serious fan of LOTR, and have the books, toys, calendars, cards and other memorabilia to go along with it. I’ve watched the movies over and over, so this is a really fascinating news. Yay to Fantastic Beasts 2, because I liked the first movie a lot. I can’t wait to see the Agatha Christie remake with Johnny Depp. Seems like it’s going to be really good. Happy Sunday! Hugs…RO
    RO recently posted…TUESDAY TRIVIA , TASTY TREATS & A REVIEWMy Profile

    • Lark_Bookwyrm

      I’m glad you enjoy this feature.

      I’ve heard/seen mixed reactions to the Murder on the Orient Express remake, but I hope you enjoy it. I’ll probably wait until it comes out on DVD. There are too many other movies I want to see, and I don’t have a lot of time between now and Christmas.