Forgive me. I’m going to channel Sally Field here by way of Shelob. I received an e-mail earlier this week notifying me that The Tolkienian War on Science (TWoS) placed second in the non-fiction category of the Middle-earth Fan Fiction Awards 2007 (MEFA). Here’s my bitchin’ plaque, courtesy of Rhapsody, a Tolkien aficionado who is also one of the regular readers and a commenter here at the Refuge (many thanks, R).

The backdrop of Minas Morgul is taken from Peter Jackson’s The Return of the King. I figured the choice of this image is appropriate for the TWoS since science and technology (particularly the latter) are favored by the Dark Side. At this point, I am obliged to link David Brin’s We Hobbits are a Merry Folk: An Incautious and Heretical Reappraisal of J.R.R. Tolkien.
I wrote “The Tolkienian War on Science” shortly after the discussion of the Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last Fifty Years made the rounds here on Science Blogs. The book that inspired TWoS is on that list, and that book is The Silmarillion – the scary older brother* of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
The article must have resonated with a number of folks, given that it pegged the site meter. Long after the piece had sunk into the fetid swamp of the archives, it was resurrected when a Tolkien fan (1) nominated it as a candidate for an award in the MEFA competition. Now that really came as a surprise. As a consequence, in 2007 I discovered the wild and woolly world of Tolkien fan fiction and learned something about fan fiction in general – a fascinating subculture with rubric and lexicon of its own. It has been an interesting experience for me – an atheist, skeptic and scientist blundering around in Tolkien’s decidedly more spiritual milieu – and I thank those of similar mindset and also the rational faithful who have held my hand. I also continue to contemplate how science – and scientists – are perceived by fandom and interwoven throughout Tolkien’s legendarium.
Among my discoveries in 2007 were the writings of two scientists who are enthusiastic Tolkien fans: Kristine Larsen and Henry Gee.

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