To millions -- nay, billions -- of avid fans around the world, there is only one magic word. Forget "abracadabra" or that lame-ass "bibbity-bobbity-boo." The word is: Tolkien.

Tolkien, of annoyingly-initialed J.R.R. fame, is the best damn writer ever, according to obsessed readers around the globe. His epic work, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, has inspired artists and composers, has risen armies and toppled nations, and could well hold the cure for cancer within its myriad pages....

Well, okay, maybe not. Yet the reverence in which it is held throughout, well, everywhere, is nothing short of religious. The fact that the books -- The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King -- are being made into three blockbuster movies even as you read has been hailed by many as the best thing to happen since the Second Coming.

Oh, wait. That didn't happen yet. You know, it had better hurry. 'Cause if it occurs after the Lord of the Rings movies are released, it's gonna be one hell of an anti-climax.

New Line Cinema, perhaps best known for allowing the phrase "Do I make you horny, baby?" to pass into popular usage, has gotten all ambitious, and has gone into production on the three -- count 'em, three -- Rings movies. They have evidently decided that the Tolkien-ness of their Rings trilogy will guarantee instant success, and they committed to making all three films even before planning for the first one had reached the stage of choosing up caterers.

The first film, somewhat tentatively slated for release later this year, has a built-in sequel. As, indeed, does that sequel. Odd, yes, but it is one way of preventing that whole "sequels inevitably suck" thing, and it also shows just how cocky the folks over at New Line are. How maddeningly self-assured. Wait for first weekend box-office takings before green-lighting the next film? Wait for critical reviews? For representative sample groups? Us? Not likely!

But it is not really the insanely brave call it might appear. The existing audience for the Tolkien films is, frankly, staggering in size. The readers of The Lord of the Rings have often deemed it an almost spiritual experience, and those that will flock to their local cinemas, to stare wide-eyed with buckets of over-priced snacks in their laps, will be legion. You know, what with the Role-Playing Gamers, and the Appreciation Society members, and the people who have named their kids Elrond and Treebeard and such.

But what are these books, that they have precipitated such an unrelenting wave of worship?

Set in the world of Middle-earth, Tolkien's legendary story tells of kings and queens, war and peace, history, the future, love, death and all kinds of magical folk -- and that's pretty much just in the Prologue. It is the ultimate Quest, the ultimate Adventure, the now-typical battle of cute versus ugly (considerate of the bad to be always so unattractive) and the triumph of Good over pesky old Evil.

This enduring saga, released in 1954 but written throughout two decades, is as enthralling as it is long. Each book, in paperback form, is over five-hundred closely-printed pages in length. And that's without the glossary that you really wish was included at the end. Some of the names of those people can get damned confusing -- and there are an awful lot of them.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (why the initials? Something wrong with the name Reuel?), a professor of literature and linguistics at England's Oxford University, constructed the universe of his novels with a painstaking pedantry that all but precludes inconsistency. Though Fellowship was released to some less-than-favourable reviews, the trilogy went on to be acclaimed as Book of the Century by the entire population of England in 1997. There is no rational explanation for this love of a fantastical work (and, granted, this was before a billion posthumous biographies of Princess Diana were released), yet over fifty million copies of Tolkien's work circulate the globe at will, capturing new devotees daily.

It was only a matter of time until modern technology caught up with imagination, and allowed a faithful rendition of Tolkien's wondrous world to be displayed on film. Of course, these latest efforts will not mark the first time that such a thing has been attempted -- only this time there will be actual people in it. Mostly.