HOLD on to your swords and swashbucklers: the master of myth and magic is back.

More than 40 years after he died, JRR Tolkien has a "new" book out. And it is one that delves deep into the history of Middle Earth, 6,000 years before the events in The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings take place.

The Children Of Hurin tells the story of Turin and his sister, Nienor, who are caught up in a great war between the elves and the first Dark Lord, Morgoth.

The time is a remote age in Middle Earth's past; the place the "drowned lands in the West" beyond the Blue Mountains, where Treebeard walked in his youth.

The war between the elves and Morgoth is a war for control of Middle Earth. Turin and Nienor are the children of Hurin, the only man to have defied Morgoth to his face. As such, they are cursed.

The book is written in a sing-song, epic style, and tells a tale of brutal conquest and flight, of forest hiding places and pursuit, and of a huge, wingless fire dragon, Glaurung, who manipulates the fates of Turin and Nienor with cunning and guile. All so very Tolkien, then.

Begun in 1918, long before The Lord Of The Rings was written, the writings that have become The Children of Hurin were never finished. Tolkien's son, Christopher, has painstakingly edited his father's many drafts and knitted them into a narrative.

It is a story, he says in his preface, that will appeal to all true Tolkien fans: those who "may perhaps recall that the hide of Shelob was so horrendously hard that it could not be pierced by any strength of men, not though Elf or Dwarf should forge the steel or the hand of Beren or of Turin wield it'; or that Elrond named Turin to Frodo at Rivendell as one of the mighty Elf-friends of old'."

It almost certainly will appeal to those people - and to fans of the three epic Lord Of The Rings films that Peter Jackson brought to the screen with such power.

The sad truth is, however, that while it is truly epic in tone, it is also truly dire as a book.

The style - and remember, it was written when Tolkien was very young - apes, in a clunking and portentous sort of way, old Icelandic sagas.

So it begins with a list of names: "Hador Goldenhead was a lord of the Edain and well-beloved by the Eldar. He dwelt while his days lasted under the lordship of Fingolfin, who gave to him wide lands in that region of Hithlum which was called Dor-lomin. His daughter Gloredhel wedded Haldir son of Halmir, lord of the men of Brethil; and at the same feast his son Galdor the Tall wedded Hareth, the daughter of Halmir."

The reader desperately hopes that the plodding pace will pick up. Sadly, it doesn't. Half way through the book, Chapter 8 begins: "Now Turin went down towards Sirion, and he was torn in mind. For it seemed to him that whereas before he had two bitter choices, now there were three, and his oppressed people called him, upon whom he had brought only increase of woe."

The does book look fantastic. Nine new paintings and 24 pencil sketches by Oscar-winning designer and architect Alan Lee bring to life the landscape of Middle Earth in a way that recalls the films.

And however plodding the narrative, the book does offer a glimpse into the events of Middle Earth's ancient past that are hinted at so tantalisingly in The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings.