Michael Martinez is an author andTolkien scholar.
Michael Martinez was born in 1959. He is aTolkien scholar.[1] In 1997 he launched the Xenite.Org website[2] for fans offantasy andscience fiction; he has published many essays on that website. He also writes aboutprogramming languages andsearch engine optimization.[3]
The Tolkien scholarColin Duriez states that Martinez has written about many aspects of Tolkien's writings, and has "a loyal following of readers" on theWorld Wide Web.[4]
David Bratman writes inTolkien Studies thatUnderstanding Middle-earth is a "somewhat rewritten... collection of Web-published essays by a popular online writer on Tolkien."[5] Bratman describes Martinez's subjects as including discussions of Tolkien's sources, "whimsical speculations and outright guesswork", noting that Martinez does use materials published byChristopher Tolkien after his father's death, and that his facts are "generally reliable". Bratman writes that Martinez's "most characteristic posture is a forceful intervention in debates over thesub-creation, especially in testing the limits of reliable sub-creational knowledge."[5] He describes Martinez as writing "informally and argumentatively but (in small doses) readably... without pretensions to formal scholarship."[5]
Robin Anne Reid, inJournal of Tolkien Research, notes Martinez's statement in his essay "What is the Munby Letter?" that Tolkien affirmed in that unpublished letter that there were "Orc-women". Reid adds that this agrees with Tolkien's mentions of "half-breed Orcs" and that they could reproduce.[6] Further, she cites Martinez's essay "Why is Azog Called the White Orc?" for his statement that the specially large type of Orcs, the Uruk-hai, are explicitly "described as having dark skin", implying that "while there is no canon support for white Orcs specifically", other Orcs may have been white.[6]
Thomas Honegger, also inJournal of Tolkien Research, writes that a single word can often be crucial in Tolkien scholarship. In the context of a discussion of whether Tolkien was envisaging late-medieval knightlychivalry, he quotes Martinez's essay "Was Imrahil'sVambrace Made of Metal?", noting that the key point is Martinez's statement that calling the forearm armour metal "is merely a product of wishful thinking" by people with an image of medieval knights in "full plate armor".[7] Honegger sums up Martinez's argument as stating that "even a burnished leather vambrace would work forImrahil's first-aid check onÉowyn."[7]
Gregers Einer Forssling quotes Martinez's defence of Tolkien from the charge ofNordicism, the racist ideology of Nordic supremacy. He notes that Martinez quotes Tolkien's own rejection of "this Nordic nonsense", and that Martinez mentions Tolkien's regret that "the term Nordic had become associated with 'racialist theories'", thus rebutting Stephen Shapiro's assertion that "themes of cultural and biological Nordicism can be recognised inThe Lord of the Rings".[8]
