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The Sellamillion
by ARRR Roberts
(Gollancz, £6.99, 283 pages, small format hardback, published
23 September 2004.)
Review by John Toon
 Of
course, you've all read Tolkien's well-known background epic The
Silmarillion, haven't you? Hmm. Well, maybe not. Tell you what,
those of you who have read it may as well skip to the next paragraph,
and the rest of us will catch the pair of you up in a minute. Because
at least part of the joke of The Sellamillion is that, even though
Tolkien's oeuvre is now a money-spinning engine of cyclopean proportions,
it's not as if any beggar's read anything past The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings. The Silmarillion is just not the
most tempting doorstep-sized book out there, that's all, especially
since Peter Jackson turned the one significant and exciting bit of it
into about five minutes of film flashback. Harsh but fair, people, harsh
but fair. So in sending it up and adding another pocket parody to his
CV, Adam Roberts has not only spoofed the story proper (at some length,
albeit a blessed sight less than the original), but has wisely added
in a variety of much shorter hit-and-run pieces, so readers need not
have read the original work to appreciate at least some of material
here within.
People who've read The Soddit and the Harvard Lampoon's Bored
of the Rings will know what to expect of the bulk of The Sellamillion;
people who haven't might think of it as something like a French and
Saunders sketch sustained for about 240 pages. Brevity being the soul
of wit, the History of the Sellami outstays its welcome somewhat, although
it does have its moments. The chapters dealing with the Coming of various
races into the land of the Elves are priceless, and there's a certain
amount of fun to be had from Sharon, formerly Dark Lord, now the stare-out
champion of Upper Middle Earth.
But it's the shorter pieces that really satisfy, if only because they're
not obliged to stick around after the punchline. A jolly prologue outlines
for us the correspondence between ARRR Roberts and C John Lewis, the
author of a series of fantastically subtle Christian allegories; meanwhile,
at the back of the book, you can find thirty-odd pages of spin-off material
including a stage musical for Tom Bombadil, and an early version of
the main saga that revolves around a pair of ancient magic earrings.
Finally, right at the very end, there's a pleasingly cheeky dig at another
best-selling author of epic fantasy.
The Sellamillion is an ideal Christmas stocking filler--or it
would be, if we hadn't just had Christmas. But don't let that stop you--there's
always next Christmas to consider. Or possibly Easter.
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