Narnia Fans

A list was released yesterday that revealed 277 people who rejected honors from the Queen between 1951 and 1999.  The information was protected by the Cabinet Office until a BBC Freedom of Information request and only includes the names of those who have passed away.

What is unclear from the list is the reason why he would have declined the honor.  The Belfast-born Mr. Lewis, known for his great writing achievements, turned down the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1952.  It was just over a decade before his death.  Lewis was also known to be modest about his achievements.  That was the same year in which The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was released.

Among the other prominent figures revealed to have rejected honours was Irish-born officer Roger Casement, who forfeited an award. Sir Alfred Hitchcock rejected an honour in 1962 but later accepted a knighthood.

We’ve stumbled upon some more art that was prepared for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  One piece that I absolutely love is art that was done that would have set up The Silver Chair beautifully.  It was a divergent part of the story that was in an earlier screenplay for Dawn Treader in which the Lady of the Green Kirtle (aka Emerald Witch) appears.  It kind of cements the concept that the Green Mist was an extension of her / foreshadowing her as a greater problem.

It makes me wish that The Silver Chair had worked out and they were actually building that set at this moment.  It’s simply stunning to me.

The other two pieces of art kind of played out on screen, when the Pevensies and Caspian took a look at the map at the magician’s house.

-via The Film Artist

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader went through many drafts and story re-writes before it became the film that we all saw a little more than a year ago.  Concept Artist Justin Sweet posted pieces of concept art that he had done for the film a few years ago, just last week.

If you take a look, you’ll see that the merfolk played a much larger role in the story when he was working on concept art for the film.

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Hey, everybody! Welcome back to Tumnus’ Bookshelf, where we review any and all books by, about and inspired by CS Lewis and the Land of Narnia. For today’s review we will be looking at the devotional book  A Year With Aslan.

Title: A Year With Aslan: Daily Reflections From The Chronicles Of Narnia

Author: CS Lewis

Editor:  Julia L. Roller

Publisher: HarperOne (October, 5 2010)

ISBN-10: 0061985511

ISBN-13: 978-0061985515

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A dazzling and dramatic retelling of C.S. Lewis’ classic The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe opens in the historic grounds of Kensington Gardens next summer.  In a unique collaboration this major new production is adapted by award-winning director Rupert Goold, staged by threesixty, who gained international acclaim for their first production, Peter Pan, and directed by Rupert Goold and Michael Fentiman.

Staged in the state of the art threesixty theatre tent this visually stunning live production will use threesixty’s ground-breaking surround video and enchanting puppetry to bring to life the magic of Narnia in one of the world’s best-loved stories.

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C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were friends.  Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia, and Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, were both professors at Oxford, and were both part of a group of writers called The Inklings.  If you would like to know more about these two writers, I’m compiling a list of books that discuss the two of them here.  If there are any that I’ve missed, please comment below.  I’m going to list a few non-fiction as well as a couple of works of fiction that feature Lewis and Tolkien as characters!

The first three books that I’m listing are three of the best sources.  Not only that, but as I was compiling the list, Amazon recommended these three books as being frequently purchased together!

I own all of the books that I’ve listed below (plus all of the Imaginarium Geographica that’s been release so far).  Do take a look at all of these books, and you’ll have a much greater understanding of the writers behind the magic of both Narnia and Middle-Earth.  One book not listed, which is no longer in print, is The Inklings by Humphrey Carpenter.  If you’ve read it, and love it, let us know!

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UK Narnia fans can also now enjoy a Christmas treat with a special limited time price of £2.99 on The Magician’s Nephew e-book (usually £5.99)!  You can get it now from:

Amazon.co.uk

iBookstore

This exclusive offer is only available until January so don’t miss out!

C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were great friends that inspired one another.  If you’d like, I will write a story on the many books that I know of that talk about this friendship.  Today, the first trailer was released for the next film set in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth.  It is the first of a pair of films that are based on The Hobbit, which is the prelude to The Lord of the Rings.  From the look of the trailer, Peter Jackson has another homerun on his hands.  I cannot wait for these movies to be released.  Moreover, I cannot wait to do an epic five movie run of the entire saga.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the first of the two films, and will be released less than one year from today, on December 14, 2012.  It can’t come soon enough, for me.  The Lord of the Rings films did for me what I suspect the Star Wars films did for folk when those first came out.  I saw those again and again at the cinema.  They also brought me back into the world of Narnia, which lead directly to this website.  Yes, you have LOTR to thank for this website even existing.  (A small part of why I started a Narnia site was because of the friendship of Tolkien and Lewis would allow me to write about his works from time to time, as I am doing now.)  But that’s neither here nor there.

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Having taken part in this promotion, I can tell you that it was unlike anything that I have ever done before, or been a part of. I am still in touch with many of the people that both put this on, and went on the voyage. To be able to do something like this was a unique opportunity that I will always remember very fondly, and am proud to say that I was there. To be ungrateful for this trip, would be shoving it in the face of all those that wanted to be there, but could not. I still wear my crew jacket and vest with pride, and I always tell people that, yes, I have sailed around Cornwall on The Dawn Treader. Here’s a report of the campaign.

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We’re excited to finally start bringing you guys some new features for you all to enjoy in the interim while we all await new news about further big screen adventures in Narnia.  There are some big things in the works that we’d love to tell you all about, but we have to wait for the go-ahead before we can do that.  However, that doesn’t mean we’re not going to do anything here.

In the coming weeks, we’re likely moving the site to another server.  This will also bring with it, a new design that should make it easier to find all of the features that you want to read.  But you want to know about the new features.

Weekly Mailbag Returns

Do you have a burning question about Narnia?  Send it to us via our contact page, and we’ll do our best to answer it on our weekly mailbag.  On another note, we have a new Narnia Fans Q & A website where you can ask questions and other fans can answer them.

Narnia Fan Fridays

Each Friday we’re going to feature a different Narnia fan.  This could be you!  We’ll give you a list of questions so that you can introduce yourself to Narnia fans around the world.  They’ll all be Narnia related questions, so nothing too personal is out there for the world to see.

Narnia Radio

Yes, it’s the return of Narnia Fans Cast, albeit in a bit of a different setting.  We’re putting together what could become a weekly radio show about Narnia.  We have no idea what it’s going to look like, but in doing this, we are joining forces with Middle-Earth Network Radio to be able to bring you the latest news, interviews and more.  You’ll also be able to listen in to your favorite Narnia music, and discover other Narnia and C.S. Lewis inspired music that you probably didn’t know exists.

More to come

That’s just scratching the surface of everything that we have planned for 2012.  It’s going to be a big year for fans of high fantasy.  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey comes to theaters in December, so we don’t have to wait too long for more great content.  (For those that don’t know, C.S. Lewis, the author of Narnia, was great friends with J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.)