Books like 'Fires on the Plain'
Readers who enjoyed Fires on the Plain by Shōhei Ōoka also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical 20th century horror military, war & conflict war historical-fiction classics ww2 literary-fiction university
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Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz
Rated: 4.46 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsSurvive. At any cost.10 concentration camps.10 different places where you are starved, tortured, and worked mercilessly.It's something no one could imagine surviving.But it is what Yanek Gruener has to face.As a Jewish boy in 1930s Poland, Yanek is at the mercy of the Nazis who have taken over. Everything he has, and everyone he loves, have been snatched brutally from him... -
![The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón]()
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 91 ratingsBarcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals from its war wounds, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer's son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julian Carax. But when he sets out to find the author's other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written... -
![The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult]()
The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsSome stories live forever . . .Sage Singer is a baker. She works through the night, preparing the day’s breads and pastries, trying to escape a reality of loneliness, bad memories, and the shadow of her mother’s death. When Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, begins stopping by the bakery, they strike up an unlikely friendship...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure audiobook -
![Projekt 1065 by Alan Gratz]()
Projekt 1065 by Alan Gratz
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsInfiltrate. Befriend. Sabotage.World War II is raging. Michael O'Shaunessey, originally from Ireland, now lives in Nazi Germany with his parents. Like the other boys in his school, Michael is a member of the Hitler Youth.But Michael has a secret. He and his parents are spies. Michael despises everything the Nazis stand for... -
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![Making Bombs for Hitler by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch]()
Making Bombs for Hitler by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsLida thought she was safe. Her neighbors wearing the yellow star were all taken away, but Lida is not Jewish. She will be fine, won't she?But she cannot escape the horrors of World War II.Lida's parents are ripped away from her and she is separated from her beloved sister, Larissa. The Nazis take Lida to a brutal work camp, where she and other Ukrainian children are forced into backbreaking labor... -
![Covenant With Death by John Harris]()
Covenant With Death by John Harris
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThey joined for their country. They fought for each other.When war breaks out in 1914, Mark Fenner and his Sheffield friends immediately flock to Kitchener's call. Amid waving flags and boozy celebration, the three men - Fen, his best friend Locky and self-assured Frank, rival for the woman Fen loves - enlist as volunteers to take on the Germans and win glory... -
![The Last Enchantment by Mary Stewart]()
The Last Enchantment by Mary Stewart
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsArthur Pendragon is King! Unchallenged on the battlefield, he melds the country together in a time of promise. But sinister powers plot to destroy Camelot, and when the witch-queen Morgause -- Arthur's own half sister -- ensnares him in an incestuous liaison, a fatal web of love, betrayal, and bloody vengeance is woven...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure arthurian audiobook -
![Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust by Eve Bunting]()
Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust by Eve Bunting
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis unique introduction to the Holocaust encourages young children to stand up for what they think is right, without waiting for others to join them.Ages 6 and up... -
![Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, Cindy Sheehan]()
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, Cindy Sheehan
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsAn immediate bestseller upon its original publication in 1939, Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo is a searing portrayal of war that has stunned and galvanized generations of readers...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction military university war 20th-century action-adventure -
![Contact! by Craig DiLouie]()
Contact! by Craig DiLouie
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe fourth book in the popular Crash Dive series! Still reeling from the hellish battle in the Japan Sea, Lt. Commander Charlie Harrison returns from Prospective Commanding Officer School to find the Sandtiger languishing in repair while her crew idles. He expects to take command, but the post is given to Captain Howard Saunders... -
![The Distant Daughter by Lorna Cook]()
The Distant Daughter by Lorna Cook
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSingapore, 1941: Singapore City lights up with explosions as the first Japanese bombs rain down. Until now, the war has seemed a distant threat for Issey and her friends, drinking and dancing at Raffles. But with the Japanese invasion looming, Issey knows she must leave. Mysterious, handsome Alex Cartwright has sworn he will see her to safety... -
![The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón]()
The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsBarcelona, 1957. It is Christmas, and Daniel Sempere and his wife Bea have much to celebrate. They have a beautiful new baby son named Julian, and their close friend Fermín Romero de Torres is about to be wed. But their joy is eclipsed when a mysterious stranger visits the Sempere bookshop and threatens to divulge a terrible secret that has been buried for two decades in the city's dark past... -
![Max by Sarah Cohen-Scali]()
Max by Sarah Cohen-Scali
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsNazi Germany. 1936.“I should have been born yesterday, but that’s not what I wanted. The date didn’t suit me. So I’ve stayed put. Motionless. Rigid. Of course that means a lot of pain for my mother, but she’s a brave woman, and she’s putting up with the delay without complaint. I’m sure she approves of my tactic.“My wish, the first of my future life, is to come into the world on April 20... -
![The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman]()
The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsIn Berlin in 1941 during humanity's darkest hour, three unforgettable young women must act with courage and love to survive, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dovekeepers and The Marriage of Opposites Alice Hoffman. In Berlin, at the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her twelve-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book -
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![Fail-Safe by Eugene Burdick, Harvey Wheeler]()
Fail-Safe by Eugene Burdick, Harvey Wheeler
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSomething has gone wrong. A group of American bombers armed with nuclear weapons is streaking past the fail-safe point, beyond recall, and no one knows why. Their destination—Moscow.In a bomb shelter beneath the White House, the calm young president turns to his Russian translator and says, "I think we are ready to talk to Premier Kruschchev...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction military war 20th-century action-adventure adult apocalyptic -
![There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury]()
There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsFirst published in Collier's, May 6, 1950.The story concerns a household in Allendale, California, in the aftermath of a nuclear war... -
![Qb VII by Leon Uris]()
Qb VII by Leon Uris
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsIn Queen’s Bench Courtroom Number Seven, famous author Abraham Cady stands trial. In his book The Holocaust—born of the terrible revelation that the Jadwiga Concentration Camp was the site of his family’s extermination—Cady shook the consciousness of the human race. He also named eminent surgeon Sir Adam Kelno as one of Jadwiga’s most sadistic inmate/doctors...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy]()
The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsFollowing All the Pretty Horses in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy is a novel whose force of language is matched only by its breadth of experience and depth of thought.In the bootheel of New Mexico hard on the frontier, Billy and Boyd Parham are just boys in the years before the Second World War, but on the cusp of unimaginable events...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction university war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![Crash Dive by Craig DiLouie]()
Crash Dive by Craig DiLouie
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA WWII naval thriller in the tradition of the Hornblower series ... October, 1942. The United States and the Empire of Japan are at war. Charlie Harrison, a young and ambitious lieutenant, reports for duty aboard the S-55, a worn-out WWI-era submarine... -
![The Commandant's Daughter by Catherine Hokin]()
The Commandant's Daughter by Catherine Hokin
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratings1933, Berlin. Ten-year-old Hanni Foss stands by her father’s side watching the torchlit procession to celebrate Adolf Hitler as Germany’s new leader. As the lights fade, she knows her safe and happy childhood is about to change forever. Practically overnight, the father she adores becomes unrecognisable, lost to his ruthless ambition to oversee an infamous concentration camp…Twelve years later... -
![Potsdam Station by David Downing]()
Potsdam Station by David Downing
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsApril, 1945. The Third Reich is on the verge of extinction, and its enemies are already plotting against each other. For John Russell, this has personal importance: his son and girlfriend are trapped in Berlin and only the Soviets can get him in there. But the price of their help will threaten both his and the world's postwar future...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century action-adventure adult book -
![Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton]()
Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHamilton captures the edgy, obsessive and eventually murderous mindset of a romantically frustrated British man in this WWII-era novel. London 1939, and in the grimy publands of Earls Court, George Harvey Bone is pursuing a helpless infatuation with Netta who is cool, contemptuous and hopelessly desirable to George... -
![All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque]()
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsOne by one the boys begin to fall…In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the ‘glorious war’. With the fire and patriotism of youth they sign up. What follows is the moving story of a young ‘unknown soldier’ experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction military university war ww2 20th-century -
![Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein]()
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 46 ratingsIn one of Robert Heinlein's most controversial bestsellers, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe--and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against mankind's most frightening enemy...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction military university war 20th-century action-adventure aliens -
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![The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon]()
The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsAs compelling and disturbing as when it was first published in the midst of the Cold War, The Manchurian Candidate continues to enthrall readers with its electrifying action and shocking climax....Sgt. Raymond Shaw is a hero of the first order. He's an ex-prisoner of war who saved the life of his entire outfit, a winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, the stepson of an influential senator..Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction military university war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![The Secret of Midway by Steve Watkins]()
The Secret of Midway by Steve Watkins
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn the basement of his family's junkshop, Anderson and his friends Greg and Julie discover a trunk full of old military stuff. Including a battered navy peacoat from World War II, and when Anderson puts it on he finds a mysterious letter in the pocket. Curious, he takes the coat and letter home. But that's not all he brings home..Categorized as:
historical-fiction military war ww2 20th-century action-adventure book children-books -
![Hara-Kiri: a novel of the Pacific War: Volume 5 by Craig DiLouie]()
Hara-Kiri: a novel of the Pacific War: Volume 5 by Craig DiLouie
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe fifth book in the popular Crash Dive series!Charlie Harrison finally achieves his dream of commanding the Sandtiger, leading her able crew on a war patrol to the Philippines in September 1944. Along the way, he faces the challenges of command, a malfunctioning boat, and a patrol area that appears devoid of enemy ships... -
![Two Storm Wood by Philip Gray]()
Two Storm Wood by Philip Gray
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn this thriller set on the battlefields of the Somme after the end of World War I, a woman investigates the disappearance of her fiancé.The Great War has ended, but for Amy Vanneck there is no peace. Her fiancé, Edward Haslam, a lieutenant in the 7th Manchesters, is missing, presumed dead. Amy travels to the desolate battlefields of northern France to learn his fate and recover his body...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction military war 20th-century 21st-century adult book -
![Daddy by Loup Durand]()
Daddy by Loup Durand
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWho has the key to a $350 million fortune the Nazis have sent their most brilliant operative to find? Thomas, an 11-year old boy with the mind of a genius, the cunning of a fox, and the chance of a snowball in Hell to escape...unless he is helped by one man. An American who doesn't even know he exists. A man he calls Daddy... -
![Father of Frankenstein by Christopher Bram]()
Father of Frankenstein by Christopher Bram
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis is a novel by the author of Hold Tight... -
![Madness in the Ruins by John A. Connell]()
Madness in the Ruins by John A. Connell
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA mutilated body. No witnesses. The only clue, a message, “Those who I have made suffer will become saints and they shall lift me up from hell.” Winter, 1945. Munich is in ruins, and a savage killer is stalking the city.U.S. Army investigator Mason Collins enforces the law in the American Zone of Occupation. This post is his last chance to do what he loves most—being a homicide detective... -
![The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories by Connie Willis]()
The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories by Connie Willis
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis new collection of stories from the multi-award-winning author of Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog contains:A Letter from the ClearysAt the RialtoDeath on the NileThe Soul Selects Her own SocietyFire WatchInside JobEven the QueenThe Winds of Marble ArchAll Seated on the GroundLast of the WinnebagosTen stories - which have all won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award or both - are...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction ww2 20th-century action-adventure adult aliens -
![Faith by Len Deighton]()
Faith by Len Deighton
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsPrime minister of the political thriller, Len Deighton is back in top form with the first of a new trilogy in the continuing saga of Bernard Samson, the intrepid, insolent, and enigmatic agent of Deighton's blockbuster series: the Game, Set, and Match and Hook, Line, and Sinker trilogies. In Faith Samson is beset. After her years on the "other side," his wife, Fiona, is finally back in his life... -
![The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope]()
The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsNewly orphaned Peggy Grahame is caught off-guard when she first arrives at her family's ancestral estate. Her eccentric uncle Enos drives away her only new acquaintance, Pat, a handsome British scholar, then leaves Peggy to fend for herself. But she is not alone. The house is full of mysteries and ghosts...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure book children -
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![Stepping on the Cracks by Mary Downing Hahn]()
Stepping on the Cracks by Mary Downing Hahn
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn 1944, while her brother is overseas fighting in World War II, eleven-year-old Margaret gets a new view of the school bully Gordy when she finds him hiding his own brother, an army deserter, and decides to help him... -
![Mephisto by Klaus Mann]()
Mephisto by Klaus Mann
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsKlaus Mann - Thomas Mann’s son - wrote MEPHISTO while living in exile from the Germany of World War II. In it he captures the Isherwood-like atmosphere of Nazi Germany while telling a satiric story about the rise to power of one man - a thinly veiled caricature of his own brother-in-law... -
![Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison]()
Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratings'Legends of the Fall, an epic tale of three brothers and their lives of passion, madness, exploration and danger at the beginning of the Great War, confirms Jim Harrison's reputation as one of the finest American writers of his generation. This magnificent trilogy also contains two other superb short novels. In Revenge, love causes the course of a man's life to be savagely and irrevocably altered...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies -
![Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard]()
Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe classic, award-winning novel, made famous by Steven Spielberg's film, tells of a young boy's struggle to survive World War II in China.Jim is separated from his parents in a world at war. To survive, he must find a deep strength greater than all the events that surround him.Shanghai, 1941 — a city aflame from the fateful torch of Pearl Harbor...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction military war ww2 20th-century action-adventure -
![The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy]()
The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA poignant and suspenseful retelling of a classic fairy tale set in a war-torn world. In the last months of the Nazi occupation of Poland, two children are left by their father and stepmother to find safety in a dense forest. Because their real names will reveal their Jewishness, they are renamed "Hansel" and "Gretel...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century action-adventure audiobook -
![The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima]()
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, celebrated Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima creates a haunting and vivid portrait of a young man’s obsession with idealized beauty and his destructive quest to possess it fully.Mizoguchi, an ostracized stutterer, develops a childhood fascination with Kyoto’s famous Golden Temple...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
![In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner]()
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsDisplaying the author's extraordinary gift for language, In the Shadow of the Banyan is testament to the transcendent power of narrative and a brilliantly wrought tale of human resilience... -
![Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank]()
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 46 ratings“An extraordinary real picture of human beings numbed by catastrophe but still driven by the unconquerable determination of living creatures to keep on being alive.” —The New Yorker“Alas, Babylon.” Those fateful words heralded the end... -
![The Children's Story by James Clavell, George Selden]()
The Children's Story by James Clavell, George Selden
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsIt was a simple incident in the life of James Clavell—a talk with his young daughter just home from school—that inspired this chilling tale of what could happen in twenty-five quietly devastating minutes. He writes, "The Children's Story came into being that day. It was then that I really realized how vulnerable my child's mind was —any mind, for that matter—under controlled circumstances...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century anthologies children children-books -
![Necessary Evil by Ian Tregillis]()
Necessary Evil by Ian Tregillis
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratings12 May 1940. Westminster, London, England: the early days of World War II.Again.Raybould Marsh, one of "our" Britain's best spies, has travelled to another Earth in a desperate attempt to save at least one timeline from the Cthulhu-like monsters who have been observing our species from space and have already destroyed Marsh's timeline...Categorized as:
historical-fiction military war ww2 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history -
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![The Warrior's Princess by Barbara Erskine]()
The Warrior's Princess by Barbara Erskine
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsHer fateful life would echo through time.When Jess is attacked by someone she once trusted, she flees to her sister's house in the Welsh borders to recuperate. But she is disturbed by the cries of a mysterious child.Two thousand years before, the same valley is the site of a great battle between Caratacus, king of the British tribes, and the invanding Romans...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century adult ancient-civilization book -
![The Boy Who Saw In Colours by Lauren Robinson]()
The Boy Who Saw In Colours by Lauren Robinson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratings**REPUBLISHED VERSION COMING SUMMER, 2021**WINNER OF LITERARY TITAN'S GOLD BOOK AWARD FOR FICTIONNOMINEE OF BIBA AWARD FOR 2020LONG-LISTED FOR SABA BOOK AWARDSSHORT-LISTED FOR INDIE BOOK AWARDS 2020What if colours could speak?Berlin, 1939, and as a nation holds its breath, Josef, a young boy whose family fall victim to the "moustached man," turns once again to the colours for guidance...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century book coming-of-age -
![What Doctor Gottlieb Saw by Ian Tregillis]()
What Doctor Gottlieb Saw by Ian Tregillis
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsGretel has wires in her head. Gretel likes to pick wildflowers. Gretel is one of the subjects on the farm, and she is Doctor Gottlieb's responsibility, but she knows something she isn't telling -- and if Doctor Gottlieb doesn't figure it out, it may be his body in a ditch next. This story is set in the world of Ian Tregillis's Milkweed series, which began with Bitter Seeds...Categorized as:
historical-fiction military ww2 20th-century adult alternate-history book child-abuse -
![The Rifles by William T. Vollmann]()
The Rifles by William T. Vollmann
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe story of John Franklin’s doomed 1845 attempt to discover a Northwest Passage, from the National Book Award-winning author of Europe CentralVaulting through time to another flashpoint in the long struggle between Indians and Europeans, William T. Vollmann's visionary fictional history now focuses on the white explorers of the mid-1800s, desperately dreaming of forging a Northwest Passage... -
![The Porcelain Maker by Sarah Freethy]()
The Porcelain Maker by Sarah Freethy
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn epic story of love, betrayal, and art that spans decades, through the horrors of World War II to 21st century America, inspired by an actual porcelain factory in Dachau.Two lovers caught at the crossroads of history.A daughter’s search for the truth.Germany, 1929...Categorized as:
historical-fiction ww2 war military literary-fiction europe western-central-europe germany -
![The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien]()
The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 59 ratingsThis tale of Middle-earth's First Age, which appeared in incomplete forms in the posthumously published The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales , also edited by Tolkien's son, Christopher, only hinted at the depth and power of the tragic story of Túrin and Niënor, the children of Húrin, the lord of Dor-lómin, who achieved renown for having confronted Morgoth, who was the master of Sauron, the...
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