David Brin is one of my favorite science fiction authors — not only because he can write a good novel, which he assuredly can and does with regularity, but because he also thinks well and writes some super essays laying out those thoughts.

His latest tackles The Lord of the Rings. It’s an interesting and engaging critique, hitting many of the same themes that his essays on Star Wars did, but stretching into some new ideas as well, including the tension between the Enlightenment thinkers and the Romantics. One particularly interesting concept for me was the casting of science fiction as a bridge between artistic and scientific thinking.

As always, good reading, and especially worthwhile for Brin and Tolkien fans.