The Middle World

By Gregg Ostrin

A Movie Length Tale™ from Aisle Seat Books™.

While still young professors at Oxford, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis discover a portal to a mythological world and journey on an adventure that will inspire their masterpieces of fantasy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aisle Seat Books
• Release date: Oct 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781935655497

Book preview

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A Movie Length

Fantasy Adventure Tale

For Readers

13 and up.

Written by

Gregg Ostrin.

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Lyme, New Hampshire

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Copyright © 2011 Gregg Ostrin

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-1-935655-49-7

ISBN-10: 1-935655-49-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011937335

Published by Aisle Seat Books, an imprint of

GrayBooks LLC

1 Main Street

Lyme, New Hampshire 03768

www.Tales2Film.com

www.AisleSeatBooks.com

Electronic Edition

About Tales2Film™ and Aisle Seat Books™

Read a good movie lately?

Every good movie starts with a script, and every good script tells a riveting story. Long before the actors are chosen and the filming starts, a writer sits down, crafts that story, and submits it for consideration by the producers, directors, and other creative talents in the film industry. It can take a long time. A script may spend years making the rounds before getting the elusive Hollywood green light. If it ever does. Some of the greatest movies ever written are ones that none of us will ever see on the screen.

Tales2Film finds the best of those not-yet-produced tales and brings them to you as Movie Length Tales™ just as the writer envisaged them. Each of the tales in this series has been converted by the script’s writer from the technical shorthand of screenplay format into the familiar prose format you see here, a process called novelization.

These little books are not novels, or even novellas. Think of them as written movies. Like the screenplays they come from, each is presented in real time, written in the present tense to allow you to see the movie’s scenes in your mind’s eye as if they were unfolding on a theater’s screen before you.

So. Here’s a movie. Take your favorite aisle seat and enjoy it.

And when it’s over, take a look at out Featured Previews in the back of this book. Your next Movie Length Tale™ is already here...

Now Showing:

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Fantasy Adventure

Ages 13 and up

Theater lights dim.

Fade in:

In the modest suburb of Headington, in Oxford, England, 1963, amidst the rows of houses, churches and shops, there is a pleasant looking two story white house at 76 Sandfield Road. A fence, trees and bushes hide most of it from view. A mailbox in front has the name Tolkien painted on it.

>>

Inside a garage converted into an office the shelves are crowded with books on history, language and philosophy. Volumes of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in different translations are everywhere. A map of Middle Earth is pinned to one wall.

J.R.R. Tolkien, 71 years old, sits writing in a legal pad. He looks like what he is: a celebrated British novelist and former professor. The phone rings and he answers.

Hello? He brightens. Jack? I…

He listens.

I see. Yes, I’ll bring it. Yes, be right there.

He hangs up, looking troubled.

LATER THAT DAY:

The Kilns is a quaint country house just outside of Oxford. A cab pulls up and Tolkien gets out. He walks slowly into the house. The mailbox displays the name Lewis.

>>

Inside the study of the Lewis house, windows let the sunlight in. The shelves are crowded with various editions of The Chronicles of Narnia books. C.S. Lewis, 65, sits in an easy chair, covered in a blanket. He is frail and sickly. Tolkien comes into the study.

Hello, Jack, says Tolkien.

Tollers, you came, Lewis replies.

Of course I did.

Tolkien sits next to his old friend.

I’m dying, Tollers, says Lewis

Don’t be foolish, Tolkien replies.

Renal failure, says Lewis. Thought they lost me, but I showed them.

Lewis opens a small wooden box next to him. He takes out an old piece of parchment. Did you bring it? he asks.

Tolkien nods, taking out a similar piece of parchment. He places his half next to the other. Together they form a map of a distant, fantastical looking land. Tolkien stares at the image. Along the bottom is a name, written in some ancient runes.

Midgard, says Tolkien in a whisper.

It’s been a long time, says Lewis.

Yes, Tolkien replies.

You remember that day? asks Lewis. When everything changed?

How could I forget? answers Tolkien. Nearly forty years ago.

Tolkien picks up a framed photograph. It shows two young men, smiling at the camera, standing side by side in fencing gear.

FLASHBACK:

Oxford University—1927.

The venerable institution is a series of imposing brick buildings, on manicured lawns.

>>

The famed university fencing club is packed with students and dons. A match is about to begin. A student is writing two names in chalk on a board. The names are: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.

Tolkien is now 35 years old. He wears full fencing gear. He is dapper and elegant, a sophisticated Englishman.

He faces off with Lewis, now aged 29, dressed the same. He is larger, a ruddy faced intellectual with a brawler’s streak.

Neither man has yet become a writer of legend. A referee stands between them.

John Ronald Reule Tolkien. Clive Staples Lewis. Are you ready?

Tolkien glares at Lewis. That depends. Are you going to take back what you said?

Never, says Lewis, I refuse to concede that God exists.

Then I’m ready, says Tolkien.

They put on their masks.

Very well, instructs the referee. On guard.

They raise their foils.

Fence!

They crash foils, their moves fluid and precise. As they fight, they debate their argument:

You really are the most stubborn Irishman! says Tolkien. How can you say the world we live in was not created by some intelligent being?

The only intelligence at work is nature, Lewis answers. Nothing is ordained, everything is random. And when we die, we stay in the ground!

The fencing gets more heated between them. Parry and thrust. Back and forth.

Blasphemer! Tolkien yells.

Lemming! Lewis fires back.

Atheist!

Zealot!

Finally, they both go for the lunge. They hit one another in the heart at the same time.

Halt! the referee calls out.

The men are exhausted.

I call it a draw. Again.

They pull off their masks. The men smile at one another. Clearly this is a ritual between them.

Really, gentlemen, the referee admonishes. This is the third time this month. I think you should find a better way to resolve this argument. Perhaps a game of chess.

"Chess isn’t nearly