The time is over three thousand years before the birth of Frodo Nine-Finger the Ringbearer. The Elves are much more active in the affairs of the world and the hobbits and wizards have not yet appeared. The mighty empires of the exiled Men of Numenor are just rising to the height of their glory. The high king Elendil rules in Arnor in the north and has entrusted the southern realm of Gondor to his sons Isildur and Anarion. The great cities of Annuminas and Minas Anor and Minas Ithil are still under construction. But there is a shadow of evil on the world, a remnant of an ancient folly.
Eighteen centuries earlier, the Elvensmiths of Eregion, led by their master Celebrimbor, learned how to forge the great rings of power, giving their bearers powers that the unlearned might call magic. A mysterious foreign mage appeared and assisted them, teaching and learning with the Elves. Then, disaster. The stranger was revealed to be none other than Sauron, servant of Morgoth the Enemy, whom all thought lost, and he had created the One Ring, with the power to rule those who wield the other rings. His hordes swept out of the east and overran Eregion. Only when the Men of Numenor came to their aid were the Elves and their allies able to drive Sauron back to his land of Mordor.
There was peace for a millenium and a half, but then Sauron attacked anew. But he struck before his power was sufficient, and the Numenoreans took him prisoner. He soon rose from prisoner to courtier, and finally advisor to the king, and through his lies and treachery he brought about the destruction of Numenor, and very nearly himself. Sauron fled back to Mordor. The Men of the West, refugees of the downfall of Numenor, settled in Middle-earth and founded the Realms in Exile, Gondor and Arnor. They brought peace and order to the Men of the Twilight, those Men who had remained in Middle-earth.
Now Sauron is striking yet again, sweeping across Gondor with flame and sword. The Elves and Men joined together in the mighty Last Alliance and pressed Sauron's forces back within Mordor and have besieged him there in the Barad-dur, his Black Tower. But they are unable to break the Tower and are forced to remain in siege, not daring to turn their backs. The uneasy stalemate continues for over seven years, until the Lords of the West determine on a desperate course.
Isildur is sent throughout the West to gather another army to launch a surprise attack on his own city of Minas Ithil, still under the control of the dreaded Nazgul, Sauron's most feared lieutenants. This time, the allies will use their greatest weapons and their greatest danger: the Great Rings of Power. But this is exactly what Sauron has been waiting for so long.
Isildur in Macintosh Word 5.1a format and compressed with Zipit (285k).
zipped (303k) HTML format. Read it on screen but offline (much thanks to Lawrence Crowl for doing the conversion).
(884k) Sony Reader format. Thanks to Roy White for the conversion.
Or if you are a Mac-challenged PC user, you can download a zipped (459k) Word 6.0 format (complete with an index).
Not sure you want to download the whole thing right now? Read some excerpts first to get the feel of it.
I also have a large-scale map (976k GIF) of the portions of Middle-earth covered in the book.
Want to read what other people have said about it?
You might also want to check out a nicely formatted version of the novel at
The Grey Havens
Hey, hey, hey. Isildur has won the much coveted Tolkien Trail Award for best Tolkien material on the Net, as well as The Mystic Award:
