Parma Endorion

Parma Endorion: Essays on Middle-earth, 3rd Edition, by Michael Martinez

Michael Martinez
Xenite.Org: Worlds of Imagination on the Web, founded by Michael Martinez in March, 1997.
SF-FANDOM: Where imagination leads the way, founded by Michael Martinez in February, 2001.


Parma Endorion: Essays on Middle-earth, 3rd Edition
by Michael Martinez


There is no question that Parma Endorion: Essays on Middle-earth, 3rd Edition is the premier online resource for Tolkien readers around the world. No other electronic Tolkien resource has been read by as many people as Parma Endorion. Years before the eBook was named Top Download of 2002, thousands of students in high schools and universities around the world were downloading the Parma Endorion Web sites, printing them out, citing them in research papers and dissertations, and elevating this relatively small collection of essays (about 100 printed pages) to the status of highly respected sholarly resource. Before its demise, Yahoo! Internet Life named Parma Endorion one of the Web's leading scholarly resources.

The cover page for the Parma Endorion eBook. The Tengwar spell PARMA ENDORION. The picture is The Hunting Party I, by Anke Eissmann. The appeal of Tolkien's pseudo-history to millions of readers around the world is well-documented. But what is the basis for it? Tolkien sought to provide a familiar ring to his mythologies. He wanted anyone to feel comfortable not only with his characters but with the world they lived in. Parma Endorion seeks to document that world in a concise, direct fashion. But the eBook also looks at the lighter side of Tolkien's imagination. While seeking to address the unsatiable curiosity of Tolkien's readers, Parma Endorion is not afraid to suggest connections which Tolkien obviously never intended. Hence, "What does an elf do in Aman?" takes a very natural question and leads the reader through plausible speculations to an unexpected conclusion: maybe they built UFOs.

"Planning the Middle-earth wedding" was written in direct response to several public requests for information on how Tolkien's weddings were conducted. Many fans wanted to emulate Tolkien's romantic ideals in their own lives. They weren't simply looking for fantasy weddings. They wanted to add a special charm to one of the most important days of their lives. Many people were surprised to learn that Tolkien had provided numerous details about love and marriage in his stories.

The eBook stands out not only for its exceptional research, but also because of its unique style. Michael Martinez had not yet fully developed his "trademark conversational tone and style" which characterize the essays of Visualizing Middle-earth and Understanding Middle-earth. The Parma Endorion essays are almost formal in character, but they lack the extensive notation a peer-reviewed article would require for inclusion in a professional journal. Some of the essays also resemble the Internet's popular FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) documents, a format millions of online readers have become intimately familiar with. Unlike other Tolkien resources, Parma Endorion rings home with familiarity from the first page to the last.

But when Michael decided to create the eBook, he sought a special touch which had been lacking in the Parma Endorion Web sites. He wanted to include fan artwork specifically related to the topics of the book. Commissioning artwork was out of the question, but by the year 2001, when the 3rd edition was released, hundreds of Tolkien fans around the world had shared their artwork through online galleries. The task of reviewing all those images was daunting but rewarding. "Some of the artwork was spectacular", Michael says. "There are very professional artists out there who create homages to Tolkien's world out of pure love for his creation. But their styles rarely suited my needs. Parma Endorion preaches a certain point of view, and it would not do to have someone dressed in a suit of full plate armor, for example, next to an essay talking about chain mail."

After several weeks of discussion, Michael and Matt Tinaglia (Parma's editor) agreed on about six artists. Michael sought help in contacting them from the Webmasters operating the galleries where he found their artwork. Not everyone could be contacted, but Rich Sullivan and Anke Eissmann responded and agreed to allow some of their pictures to be used in the eBook. "Neither artist's interpretation exactly matches mine," Michael notes, "but their work was so good, and so very close to what I was looking for, that I really had to use those images."

The result, after Matt Tinaglia finished assembling the eBook, was an amazingly concise eBook. Hardly innovative, producing the eBook was nonetheless a new experience for the author, editor, and artists. The bulk of the work was performed by Matt, who studied how eBooks are created and selected the styles. With a few suggestions on arrangements from Michael, Matt efficiently produced a respectable eBook.

Page 28 from Parma Endorion. The picture is The Host of Nargothrond, by Anke Eissmann. Michael then turned to Eva Almeida, operator of the eBooksnBytes Web site and newsletter, for advice on how best to distribute the eBook. The eBook industry is still in its infancy, and Michael wanted to avoid as many of the pitfalls that eBook pioneers had encountered as he possibly could. Eva is a respected member of the eBook community. She also operates the Free eBooks.Net Web site. Eva, a Tolkien fan herself, graciously offered to host the eBook there.

When all was ready, the eBook was launched on January 5, 2001. "I have to admit that that first day was one of the longest of my life," Michael concedes. "I had told everyone involved in the project that I expected about 50,000 downloads in the first year. That was, I think, a reasonable projection based on the performance of the Web sites. Also, New Line Cinema had released an eBook related to the 'Lord of the Rings' movies. It generated about half a million downloads in a matter of days. I decided we would be overshadowed by that eBook, even though it had been available for months."

The waiting ended early on January 6 when Michael asked Eva how well they had done. She reported that she had had to give the eBook its own server. There were 4,000 downloads that first day, a record for Free-ebooks.net. Among all eBooks, 4,000 downloads in a day is exceptional, unless you are Stephen King or Peter Jackson. "I was stunned," Michael admits. "I mean, I was afraid we'd get maybe 50 or 100 downloads and then I would have to give the team a pep talk. But we blasted out of the gate ahead of the pack." Within three weeks, Parma Endorion downloads had surpassed the 25,000 mark and Eva proclaimed it the top download for 2002 in her next eBooksnBytes newsletter. Premature? Hardly. Most eBooks never see 25,000 downloads in a year, much less three weeks.

"I have to credit Angela Gunn of Yahoo! Internet Life with some of the credit for our success," Michael says. "Her Web article about popular Tolkien sites had sparked intense interest in Parma Endorion. We probably would have enjoyed considerable success without her approving comments (about the Web site), but I think YIL gave us a credibility we would have lacked otherwise. People said, 'Yeah, this is a cool thing.' Besides which, no one else had done a real Tolkien eBook, except New Line Cinema. There was Brian Crawford's Isildur novel and other fan fiction, but these were largely text files downloaded in .ZIP format. People had come to expect a minimum visual standard in eBooks. Matt's design and hard work paid off. Rich and Anke's artwork made the book just that much more interesting, too."

Michael Martinez drew upon more than 20 books in his research for Parma Endorion. The general research community has never been able to define a definitive core Tolkien library. By the end of 2003, there had been more than 500,000 downloads of Parma Endorion from Free-Ebooks.Net. The eBook has been pirated on the Kazaa network and in binary news groups. It has also been sold to unsuspecting readers on eBay. "The people at eBay have created a ridiculous policy requiring authors to jump through amazing hoops," Michael notes, "but we have generally been able to stop the eBay auctions when they are brought to our attention. There will always be an unscrupulous person out there, trying to make a buck off a free resource. But we have had good support from the Tolkien fan community." When the first eBay auctions were discovered, TheOneRing.Net and Tolkien Online, as well as other prominent sites, carried a press release warning their visitors not to bid on the eBook. They all linked to the Free-eBooks.net download location. "That inevitably helped us surge forward," Michael concedes. "We had good momentum, but suddenly Parma Endorion was news and everyone wanted to read this free eBook which was being pirated."

Other sites have begun carrying the eBook. MERP.COM, a popular role-playing Web resource asked for permission to distribute Parma Endorion. But some distributors have never notified Michael or anyone of their use of the eBook. "It's discourteous, but as long as they don't alter it or sell it, I won't object," Michael says. "It would be nice to have comprehensive statistics for the downloads, but I am sure that Eva's site has generated the most downloads."

And speaking of Free-Ebooks.Net, don't dedicated servers cost money? "Indeed, Eva has borne the real expense of this project," Michael adds. "I asked her once how she could afford to do so. She told me that the increased traffic on her network was producing significant revenue increases. It was a boon none of us expected. Parma Endorion has helped introduce hundreds of thousands of people to the world of eBooks. That can only be a good thing in the long run, and I am glad Eva has been compensated for her contributions. I wish now, in retrospect, that we had sold the eBook, but many experts in the field insist that if we had done that, sales would have been dismal compared to the downloads. So, in the end, we reached an immense audience of potentially millions of readers. That is a rich reward in itself. I hope Rich and Anke benefit from their participation in the project through sales of their artwork down the road. Imagine what the original versions of the Parma Endorion artwork could be worth in a few years."
Michael Martinez is the founder of Xenite.Org and the author of Visualizing Middle-earth, Parma Endorion: Essays on Middle-earth, and Understanding Middle-earth Michael Martinez


Visualizing Middle-earth
Parma Endorion: Essays on Middle-earth, 3rd Edition
Understanding Middle-earth


Contact Michael

Download Parma Endorion in English and Spanish for free.
Download Parma Endorion in English and Spanish for free from free-ebooks.net

Download Parma Endorion in English, Spanish, and Italian for free from MERP.COM


Anglo-Saxon Myth?
Things You Might Not Have Known About The Northmen is a controversial chapter in Parma Endorion which opens with a discussion of The Anglo-Saxon Myth.


Michael Martinez has found himself embroiled in many controversies through the years. One of the most frequently recurring disputes concerns his remarks about the so-called "Anglo-Saxon Myth".

Many people, including an overwhelming majority of Tolkien scholars and researchers, feel that Tolkien borrowed extensively from Anglo-Saxon literature. Michael often goes out of his way to point out alternatives to the Anglo-Saxon roots of Tolkien's literature. Why?

"There should be NO doubt that Tolkien drew upon Old English and Middle English sources," Michael says. "I have no problem with acknowledging his Old English and Middle English sources. What I object to are the strenuous arguments which present Tolkien as an incompetent or jovial liar. Integrity is pervasive throughout his fiction. He urged people not to make certain judgements without fully explaining himself, but he often mentioned topics which clearly had powerful influences on portions of his literature."

Should the average Tolkien reader care about how much "Beowulf" one finds in The Lord of the Rings?

"It has never been about how much influence 'Beowulf' has had on Tolkien," Michael points out. "It has always been about helping people to learn to appreciate Tolkien more fully. He did not confine himself to Old English and Middle English. People today want to restrict Tolkien to those areas, but his professional work and his personal interests extended well beyond the Old English world. Tolkien wanted Middle-earth to feel real to virtually anyone from across Europe. Basing a majority of Middle-earth on England would have undermined that goal. So, he drew extensively from many sources. People have made too much of the Anglo-Saxon sources and too little of the non-Germanic sources. I am seeking to balance the scales."

The controversy will not go away. Medievalists often write negative reviews about Michael's books, focusing on his rebuttals of pro-Anglo-Saxonist arguments. Whether he is right or wrong, Michael has made his mark among Tolkien readers (and experts) around the world.

Translations
Parma Endorion has been translated, in whole or in part, into Polish, Italian, Spanish, Greek, and French. The eBook is available in English, Spanish, and Italian editions. A Portuguese translation of the eBook is in preparation.




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