Mattanar is a single American male in his mid-twenties. As a boy of 10 or 11, he first attempted to read the Hobbit and hated it -- perhaps because of the horrid pictures in it from the cartoon movie. Years later, as he started graduate studies in the Boston area, one of his least "nerdy" friends commented how excited he was about the LOTR movies coming out. Mattanar expressed disbelief, but finally decided to borrow the friend's copies of the books. In no time he was hooked -- and Peter Jackson's films only solidified Tolkien's hold over Mattanar's imagination. His reading of the novel prompted him to wonder about the wider world of Middle Earth: what happened in other parts of the world during the times of Frodo (or before)? Mattanar's writing is one fan's hypothesis.