In Kirill Yeskov’s The Last Ring-Bearer, “the wizard Gandalf is a war-monger intent on crushing the scientific and technological initiative of Mordor … Sauron’s citadel, is, by contrast, described as ‘that amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle-earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic’.”