I was expecting this to be a story set in an earlier time in the LOTR universe, but that is not what The Silmarillion is. I should have read other reviews more carefully before reading this and I would have known more what to expect. In the end I gave it three stars because I think that is the most fair to let other readers know what to expect here. And even then ,this book takes a lot of effort and concentration to get through. Rather, it is a collection of appendices that aren't really very interesting unless you are a diehard Tolkien fan. On the other hand, this book is not a single unified story such as the LOTR or the Hobbit. This book provides a lot of history and context to the LOTR story.

On the one hand, this book is an incredible work of imagination by one of the greatest authors of all time. I was torn between giving this 3 or 4 stars. I’ve notified Audible about them and they say they are looking into it. There are a few small audio glitches as of this writing, although they don’t impact the overall experience significantly. But if you want to understand all the obscure references in LOTR and The Hobbit to the elder days (Gondolin, Elbereth, Eärendel, Gil-galad, etc), then this is the place to come. Even people who consider themselves fans of The Lord of the Rings may find it pretty off-putting, because it’s written in an extremely “high mythic” style. The music may not win an academy award, but it feels appropriate in tone. As far as I know, he gets all the pronunciations right, which is nice. You could argue that his delivery is a tad too stentorian or declamatory, but the text is a hard one to read naturally, and this way of reading it is not inappropriate. Here it is, and it’s great! The narrator does a good job, I think. I’ve been waiting for a good audiobook version of the Silmarillion for a while.

The silmarillion martin shaw