Visualizing Middle-earth

Visualizing Middle-earth, 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.


Visualizing Middle-earth
by Michael Martinez


Michael's work, including many of the essays he wrote for Suite101, has been translated into many languages: Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, Hebrew, and more. His work has demonstrated a world-wide appeal without the benefit of a huge marketing budget or the power of a major corporation. Michael is a true grass-roots author who has earned his reputation through good, old-fashioned hard work (and good writing).

Visualizing Middle-earth is an unusual book for several reasons. First, it is a successful self-published collection of essays. Most self-published books never sell more than a few copies. While VME has not broken any records, it continues to sell steadily.

Second, Visualizing Middle-earth was one of the last books which Xlibris published for free. It may have been one of the last books published for free anywhere for a long time to come. It is true that traditional publishers pay their authors. Visualizing Middle-earth was self-published. So, it is one of only a few hundred or few thousand books, out of millions, to have been self-published for free. What a rare and golden opportunity that was for many people.

Third, Visualizing Middle-earth has two covers. Why is that? It has something to do with the print-on-demand technology used to produce the book. Or maybe Xlibris created two cover images and both were circulated. Here are the two covers:

The dark cover of Visualizing Middle-earth, in which the sunburst image is printed in grey-white beneath gold lettering. The gold cover of Visualizing Middle-earth, in which the subburst image is printed in gold beneath gold lettering.


In the cover on the left, the sunburst image is printed in grey-white but the lettering is gold. In the cover on the right, the sunburst image is printed in the same gold ink as the lettering. This is a really peculiar situation, but maybe it is common in print-on-demand books. We don't have any other examples to show you. And maybe there are copies out there which have white lettering and a white sunburst, or white lettering and a gold sunburst. We would like to know if anyone comes across such covers.

Visualizing Middle-earth also tackles two very closely related but different subjects: the books written by J.R.R. Tolkien and the movies (produced by Peter Jackson) which were inspired by the books. Michael spent a few months performing discrete, uncompensated research for one of the employees of Weta, Ltd. Although he has mentioned this before, he does not say whether any of the essays from Visualizing Middle-earth draw upon that relationship. In reality, Michael was told very little about the movies in advance. But he was very much aware of some of the needs and concerns of the film-makers, and he tried to subtly introduce his readers to some of those concerns without divulging his connection to the movies. So, the essays in Visualizing Middle-earth which address the movies, in particular "Can Middle-earth survive the commercialization of Tolkien", "What can we expect from the upcoming movies?", and "Hey guys, how's the weather down there?", reveal some of Michael's insight into the project.

He has been credited with making some accurate predictions. Now it's time to out the rat: he knew more than he was letting on. But some of Michael's knowledge of how things would be done in New Zealand also stemmed from his knowledge of the television shows Hercules: the Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. Hercules and Xena fans had meticulously dissected the New Zealand landscape and acting industry long before LoTR movie fan sites started reporting on Peter's work.

The essays in Visualizing Middle-earth represent an early phase of Michael's professional Tolkien literature. He wrote under contract but also under immense pressure. He was obligated to provide a new essay every week, and unlike many other writers who tried to stay close to the minimum content required to meet the contractual obligation, Michael continued writing an essay until it was finished. He claims he sometimes wrote the best essays while he was half-asleep, from having worked on them long into the night.

These early essays represent a special period in Michael's life when he was living in New Mexico, earning money by writing and gambling. Although some of his contracts paid very well, they were work-for-hire projects and never bore Michael's name. The gambling, however, paid even better right up until the week Michael lost $3000 and decided his run of luck had reached its end. He returned to his previous career as a computer programmer, while there was still high demand for his service, and subsequently Michael found he had less time and energy to devote to his Tolkien research.

Many of the essays in both Visualizing Middle-earth and Understanding Middle-earth were written in direct response to questions from readers. Tolkien fans seem to ask an endless array of questions, and it is often impossible to answer them. The Balrog Wings essay was taken from a Web site on Xenite.Org, updated with new material suggested by a reader, and included in the book to help provide a sense of completeness. The reason is that, at the time Visualizing Middle-earth was published, fans were still waiting breathlessly to discover whether Peter's Balrog would have wings (it did).

Some of the essay titles have a familiar, punishing sound to them. The effect is intentional. Sometimes, Michael would have a song going through his head (such as "Have a happy holly holiday" by Burl Ives) when he was writing a particular essay. Sometimes he would begin writing an essay after seeing an old television show, or reading about one. "Love, American Style" was a staple of afterschool television when Michael was growing up, and its vignette format inspired one of the more popular holiday-inspired essays (Valentine's day was only two weeks away) in Michael's books.

The longest essay in the book is "Understanding Magic in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth". Unlike most of the other essays in the book, this essay was written for a completely different site. In fact, it was written for free to help a gaming site jump-start a fan-contributed essays section. The essay was written, at the Webmaster's request, in Modern Language Association style to help demonstrate to other writers how to present a formal paper. This essay represents Michael's most thorough treatment of the subject of magic in Tolkien's work. Many authors of science fiction and fantasy dismiss Tolkien's magic as a black box effect -- they feel it follows no consistent rules. Michael's essay proves otherwise.

Some of the Suite101 essays were copyedited by Suite101 editors. But Michael later on developed a relationship with Bert Katz, who helped clean up some of the late-night writing gaffes free-of-charge. A couple of the essays Bert addressed appear in this book.
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


Purchase Visualizing Middle-earth online at Barnes and Noble
Purchase Visualizing Middle-earth at Barnes and Noble online.


Contact Michael

Winging it


Who really cares about whether Balrogs have wings?

Apparently, lots of people. When fans were wondering if Peter Jackson's Balrog would have wings, Xenite.Org created the first online movie-specific poll. We asked if Peter's Balrog should have wings. Thousands of responses later, approximately 74 per cent of fans had indicated they wanted some sort of wings on the Balrog. But no clear majority approved of any kind of wing. Some even voted for "long and floppy, like a puppy dog's ears".

The Balrog Wings Debate continues after years of discussion, personal recriminations, and tortuous debate regarding the use of simile and metaphor.

"The arguments about simile and metaphor are unproductive," Michael points out. "English teachers and professors have jumped into the middle of these discussions and told people they don't understand the rules of simile and metaphor. They are promptly ignored. One of the key points in the anti-Wing arguments is that Tolkien uses the word 'like' when he first mentions the wings. It's okay to use a simile to introduce something that really is being compared to itself. Tolkien understood that. 26 per cent of his readers don't."

It is THAT important to convince people that Balrogs do have wings?

"Not really," Michael admits. "There is a part of me which likes to play devil's advocate. I enjoy tweaking people's noses when they become intractible. There really isn't anything else you can do. But though I first joined the ongoing debate out of frustration with the poorly constructed arguments coming from both sides, there was a brief period where it proved challenging. That made it interesting to me."

But the issue isn't always so clear. Michael concedes that Tolkien's early Balrogs were wingless. "And that just leads into another controversial area," he points out. "Too many people use the various texts interchangeably to support their vaious points of view, which is wrong. But the general readership probably doesn't care much one way or the other."




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