Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics writing in "The New Yorker", calls it "a paper that many people regard as not just the finest essay on the poem but one of the finest essays on English literature." She adds that "Tolkien preferred the monsters to the critics." Regina Weinreich, reviewing "The Monsters and the Critics: And Other Essays" in "The New York Times", wrote that the title essay "revolutionized the study of the early English poem "Beowulf," in which a young hero crushes a human-handed monster called Grendel. Against the scorn of critics, Tolkien defends the centrality and seriousness of literary monsters, declaring his own belief
Saga of the Shadow Lord does what it sets out to do perfectly adequately, and if an action-packed blood-and-thunder adventure without too much emphasis on plot and justification is your kind of thing, "Saga of the Shadow Lords" is worth looking at". Saga of the Shadow Lord Saga of the Shadow Lord is a 1986 adventure module for the Basic Rules of the "Dungeons & Dragons" fantasy role-playing game. "Saga of the Shadow Lord" consists of two linked adventures as a mini-campaign: In the first adventure called "Elvenstar", player characters try to steal a magic item from the Shadow Lord to thwart his planned invasion