J.R.R. Tolkien: The Father of Modern Fantasy
Pocket Portraits series
Hardcover | Kindle Edition | Audiobook
By Don Marshall; illustrated by Kim Arrington
Publisher: Adams Media
Release Date: November 25, 2025

While grading exam papers one day in 1930, J.R.R. Tolkien jotted down what would became one of the most famous literary opening lines of all time: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” Inspired by Norse mythology and fairy stories, the then-professor spun a tale from that single line that became his first published work, 1937’s The Hobbit, which introduced the masses to his fantasy world of Middle-earth.

In J.R.R. Tolkien: The Father of Modern Fantasy, one of three Pocket Portraits mini-biographies released this year by Adams Media, author Don Marshall explores what motivated the most influential fantasy writer of modern times to craft an entire universe, complete with its own geography, creatures, histories, and invented new languages, such as Elvish.

The Thing With Two Heads
Blu-ray|DVD
Directed by Lee Frost
Starring Ray Milland, Roosevelt Grier, and Don Marshall
Olive Films
Release Date: June 23, 2015

It’s been called one of the worst movies ever made. The late Roger Ebert gave it a resoundingly low one out of four stars in his review and deemed it to be a real snooze of a flick. Make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, the 1972 American-International Pictures release The Thing with Two Heads has a premise that is absurd even for a cheap, sleazy exploitation feature you might have found on the lower half of a double or triple bill at your neighborhood drive-in back when most of the young men in town were being shipped off to fight and die in Vietnam.

Movies like The Thing with Two Heads aren’t designed to stand the test of time; they’re made with the express purpose of raking in the cash at the ticket counters and providing bored audiences fiending for a blast of cinematic insanity with a quick and affordable fix. Does this one deliver on its carnival funhouse promises, or do those promises go as unfulfilled as the campaign platform of your average Republican politician?