Brian Tubbs

This is an older article (dated July 5, 2007) pulled from EzineArticles.com for all those who may be interested in traveling to New Zealand to experience the sites and locations associated with Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings masterpiece. The article is written by Rene Smith.  **** The Lord of the Rings: Finding Middle Earth in New Zealand by Rene Smith The Lord of the Rings story has captured the imagination of millions of people around the world. New Zealand has been lucky enough to be involved in this global phenomena thanks to Peter Jackson's critically acclaimed Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. The wide-open spaces, diverse landscapes and spectacular scenery of New Zealand were the best place to film the movies, allowing New Zealanders to showcase their country and create a growing Lord of the Rings tourism industry. The Lord of the Rings back-story When J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the original Lord of the Rings novels between 1937 and 1949, he would have had no ...

What happens when anger, rage, and a desire for power all mix together? According to Travis Bagwell, you become an evil necromancer who unleashes a torrent of death and destruction in a digital world. That’s the premise of Awaken Online: Catharsis , one of the most absorbing and thought-provoking science fiction and fantasy novels I’ve read in a long time. Awaken Online: Catharsis is another entree in the fast-growing, highly popular genre known as “LitRPG.” LitRPG stands for Literature Role-Playing Game, and it’s all about immersing the reader in a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game. In other words, it’s a virtual reality adventure with the protagonist having to progress through skill development, resource acquisition, quest achievement, the building of alliances, and so forth -- as is the case with any typical role-playing game (RPG). The science fiction and fantasy genre has long been known as an effective platform through which to explore moral and philosophical questio...