A new Lord Of The Rings novel is coming out this year

IMAGE COURTESY OF NEW LINE CINEMA

Sharpen your swords, hobbits—a new Lord of the Rings adventure novel is on the way. J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate has announced the forthcoming release of a never-before-published story titled The Fall of Gondolin, described by the author as “the first real story” of Middle-Earth.

According to a statement by the publisher HarperCollins, the story describes a battle between the “uttermost evil” of Morgoth and a god named Ulmo, which culminates in the destruction of the titular city. The book follows another newly published Tolkien work from last year, Beren and Lúthien; both novels were edited by the author’s 93-year-old son, Christopher Tolkien.

In an interview with the Guardian, Tolkien scholar John Garth explained that the author wrote the book while recovering from his experiences in the First World War. “It’s a quest story with a reluctant hero who turns into a genuine hero—it’s a template for everything Tolkien wrote afterwards,” Garth explained. “It has a dark lord, our first encounter with orcs and balrogs—it’s really Tolkien limbering up for what he would be doing later.”

J.R.R. TOLKIEN’S NOVEL THE FALL OF GONDOLIN WILL BE PUBLISHED IN AUGUST.