The legacy of J.R.R. Tolkein lives on with Harcourt's latest release, a volume collecting two epic poems based in Norse mythology.

The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrún
J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26 (384p) ISBN 978-0-547-27342-6
Unlike 2007’s The Children of Hurin, this latest posthumous Tolkien publication, edited by J.R.R. Tolkien’s son and literary executor, is not particularly accessible to the average Lord of the Rings devotee. The volume contains two epic poems based on the Norse legends that inspired Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen opera cycle. While the poems showcase Tolkien’s considerable gifts with language, the material could have been better organized. The space devoted to the older Tolkien’s lecture on the history of the Elder Eddas would have been better given to a plot summary that would let new readers enjoy the poetry without scouring it for meaning. The younger Tolkien also spends little time exploring the obvious parallels between the story of Sigurd and some of the stories of the First Age of Middle Earth. The result will not fully satisfy either scholars or fantasy readers. (May)