as an avid reader of Tolkien's middle earth, I thoroghly enjoyed this audiobook. Although it was abridged, they managed to keep the important parts and target it more toward a younger age listener, while retaining the importance of Middle Earth: and Tolkiens universe. MY only complaint to keep this from getting an excellent, was the voices. I think that the voices were less than wonderful. Some of them simply didn't fit the character, and a few sound affects were slighty dumb. Despite that, I love this audiobook andhave downloaded it onto by ipod and love it. I highly recomand it.