The concept was great, the execution not so much. Maybe partially due to the fact that it was written in the 70's... ( )

A fun comedic alternative.

I believe that when I first encountered this book, it was about the time it was first published, in my mid-teens. At the time, I thought it was marvelously witty. Recently, I was given a copy as a gift on the occasion of the 68th birthday, and so had occasion to re-read it. Interestingly, I did not find it nearly as entertaining as I had remembered.

What I found is that the humor was crude and forced. I was also annoyed the same gags being constantly repeated. The names of places and characters from LOTR were parodied by long-defunct brand-names that sounded similar. The songs or poems from the original source material were especially laden with these, and the occasional bit of song or verse that Tolkien had rendered in one of his constructed languages (i.e., Quenya, Sindarin or the Black Speech of Mordor) were generally just strings of old brand-names. Example: "A Elbereth! Gilthoniel" in Bored of the Rings comes out as "A unicef clearasil". I thought this was quite overdone. It might have been amusing at first, but it went on for 160 pages.

Then there are the endless references to the meals that the adventurers make along the way. "After a hasty meal of frankincense and myrrh", "The company arose and, after a hurried breakfast of yaws and goiters", "an austere breakfast of eggs, waffles, bacon grapefruit, pancakes, hot oatmeal, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and goden cheese blintzes", "a frugal breakfast of loaves and fishes", "after a leisurely meal of apple cheeks and cauliflower ears", and more. It might have gotten a chuckle the first two or three times, but it went on throughout the book, and quickly became tiresome.

While I can't give high marks to this book on its own merits, I do find it interesting to see how my tastes in reading have changed over the years. Just to be clear, I can still appreciate a good parody, but I think that this book fails in that. ( )

Not what I was expecting. I wanted some funny inside jokes for people who read the books. Instead, it used LOTR to poke fun at other things and made it obscene in the process. It wasn't even that funny, and I found it harder to follow than the original. ( )

While I've seen the LOTR movies a few times and not yet read the books, some may say: the movies are no reference, so much is left out of the books, the books are better, etc... Yes, this may all be true and one day I WILL read them. Only not now. Anyway, after having read the dystopian stories Wool and Shift (both by Hugh Howey) - part 3, Dust, is due later this year (2013) - I was in dire need of something lighter, something funny, something I didn't have to take serious (by manner of speech) at all.

Back in April I bought the Cardboard Box Of The Rings, which also contains The Soddit and The Sellamillion, both of which I still have to read. But Bored Of The Rings was first, hence...

As the authors say, this is a parody, not the actual book(s). This is the LOTR trilogy compressed into roughly 230 pages, in which for obvious reasons a lot was left out. But the original story was also twisted and rewritten with a good lump of humour. Many of it being dry humour (in some places it's dryer and depending on the presentation/use or your mood, it works or it doesn't), but I very much like that.

The lads obviously also changed the names of Bilbo (Dildo), Sam (Spam), Frodo (Frito) and so on. They also nicely mixed contemporary elements with the setting of this well-known Fantasy story, from insurance salesmen over Republicans to certain board games and vegetables and even contracts. Hell, how the fellowship manages to eat diverse breakfasts, have all those different sorts of food and drinks with them... it must be magic. :-)

I would compare this book's humour to Monty Python meets Hot Shots meets Leslie Nielsen (The Naked Gun, Scary Movie 3, ...). Or in other words: very much recommended, even if you haven't read the original books (yet). ( )