Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Alice Wybrew reports from the launch of an epic tale about the making of an epic tale…

What with New Zealand being 11,000 miles away from his flat, author, journalist and professional Hobbit fancier Ian Nathan decided to throw the launch party for his new book – Anything You Can Imagine: Peter Jackson and the Making of Middle-earth – in the most Tolkienesque bar in London, the “Drawing Room” in the BFI on the Southbank. If you’ve never been, it’s essentially a library, but with beer on tap and books piled high to the ceiling, not including the stacked-up towers of his latest weighty tome. Tying the whole room together was an elaborately constructed cake, designed to look like a Hobbit hole, complete with bushes to hide in, a wheelbarrow and presumably, a ring inside.

A veteran of Empire magazine, Nathan invited a select group of movie journo folk who have helped (and hindered) him on the way to creating his 561 page doorstopper, a book that describes in delicious detail (almost) every twist and turn Peter Jackson took on his way to cleaning up at the Oscars and creating the most beloved fantasy film series of all time.

Those taking a bow during Nathan’s witty thank you speech included Kim Newman, Mark Dinning, Colin Kennedy, his publishers at Harper Collins (of course) and many, many more, not forgetting his other half Kat, who was keen to point out “has only seen one of the films and didn’t like it all that much”.

Peter Jackson & The Making of Middle-Earth is published by Harper Collins and is out now.