Lord of the Rings Slow Read Compilation
Reposted from the the not-dead-yet Google Plus group:
Hey, all.
I just finished the copy-and-paste portion of compiling our Slow Read of Lord of the Rings into a single text. Took me about 3 hours total (including a program crash and lost work).
I haven't started any cleanup yet (so there's lots of junk picked up from the copy-and-paste), but the total is 166,108 words, about a third of the total of LotR itself!
This is going to be quite an artifact when it's finally wrought!
Unless anyone minds, I guess I'll post sporadic updates to this thread, so subscribe if you're interested!
Comments
How exactly does one subscribe to a thread?
OK! For me they were over on the left for some reason. Took me a while to find them! They should have been on the right, which was where I was looking! Thank you, Michael!
It's been a few months, but today I found the time to get back to this project. There was a lot of cleanup to do, but that's mostly complete now.
Here's some sample pages. What does everyone think?
I wanted the design to echo the look of Google Plus, but still be readable in book format. What do you think? I kept the "Owner" and "Moderator" tags, but they're easy to get rid of if you don't like them.
I set this up as 6" x 9" and it will likely be around 350 pages when done. Will probably cost between US$7 and US$8 to print on Lulu.
Still to do:
You'll note that "edit" is not on that list. If someone wants to edit or even spellcheck, I can set you up with the files, but I'm putting the words out largely the way we all posted them.
AWESOME! I am up for it! You have my permission. No contact details for me - they wouldn't be needed. Maybe if Ray Otus doesn't want to make a cover, you can use one of Richard's photos?
The layout is very nice. I'd personally be inclined to drop all the +1s and moderator/owner tags. Actually, I also be in favour of just putting people's first names - Chris, Clash, Ray, Michael, Richard, etc. Do we have any instances where two first names are the same? That's probably more work you didn't need, though.
OUTSTANDING!!! Great job and very much appreciated. This all looks great!
That's amazing!
I am still having a buddy help to import the data from the old Community here, but I like what you're doing.
It may make sense to keep the post title on the top of subsequent pages as discussion goes long. Probably also you want to start each post with a page break, so e.g. your page 12-13 would have whitespace at the end of p12 and p13 would start with "Chapter 2"
My word, this is marvellous! Thank-you so much Michael.
Late to the party here (for some reason the notification emails didn't flag this one up for me) but like others, I would say this is a great job you're doing. And such a lot of work I think I probably said this before, but you certainly have my permission to use anything I rabbitted on about in all this (and the pics).
For those interested, I have put out #3 in my blog posts The Music of Iluvatar, dealing this time with the poetry of men, especially the Rohirrim
http://richardabbott.datascenesdev.com/blog/index.php/2019/01/29/the-music-of-iluvatar-part-3/
Awesome, Richard! I have been waiting for this! I must say the examples you picked are the ones that make my hair stand on end when I read them.
Another weekend, another sample, available here.
I took out the Moderator/Owner titles and all the pluses on the comments. I kept them on the root posts as a slight nod to the G+ format and also because in later chapters we often skipped the summary and it just looks better if there is something there.
I added the chapter titles to the running heads. I know the running feet on the prologue sections are screwed up, I'll fix them at a later stage.
Sorry, Chris, about the first names only, but we do have a few duplicates and other issues.
Thoughts welcome!
Looks great. Glancing through these early sections I'm struck by how many people we seemed to have lost along the way.
It's looking great, well done
This looks AMAZEBALLS. I can't wait to order a copy when you are done. Thanks so much @Michael_S_Miller.
At least one for me!
Okay, this PDF file should be the final interior, except I need to change @RichardAbbott 's glorious color photos to affordable black and white for printing (they'll be color in the e-book).
If you notice anything that needs to be changed, let me know!
Still to do:
@RichardAbbott Yes, thank you! If you could convert the following photos to grayscale, 300dpi, that would be a big help:
Also, I'm considering a few different photos for the cover. In addition to grayscale, can I get the highest-resolution color version you have of these:
@Ray_Otus I emailed you but got no response. Do you have better versions of the sketches shown on pages 57-58? I'm currently working with a low-quality screen capture because G+ won't let me download the images themselves.
I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it! I'm about to lose control and I think I like it!
> I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it! I'm about to lose control and I think I like it!
Steady on now 😁
Sorry @Michael_S_Miller pages 57 and 58 of what? Are you referring to that drawing I made that I was going to put on the cover. I can send you that.
> Sorry @Michael_S_Miller pages 57 and 58 of what? Are you referring to that drawing I made that I was going to put on the cover. I can send you that.
He’s referring to the PDF linked to above, I think. There are no post numbers, but go back two Michael-posts.
Oh, sorry @Michael_S_Miller. Those are from a book on the art of The Hobbit. I'll try to hunt down the page and scan it for you.
Any interest in this drawing? One of my own. "Sam and Frodo Enter Mordor."
Never mind the Hobbiton pictures. If you didn't draw it, it doesn't belong in the compilation. Thanks for your help