Tomorrow in Hall of Fire we’ll return to our chapter-by-chapter discussion of the Hobbit with Chapter 10 — A Warm welcome.

Thanks to Bilbo, Thorin and company have escaped from the dungeons of the Elf-king of Mirkwood. But to what end? Do the dwarves finally consider Bilbo a worthy member of their company?

The journey down the river is an unpleasant one for the dwarves, but the end makes up for it — or does it? Are the men of Lake-Town as friendly and accommodating as they seem, or do they have a more sinister purpose?

What of the legends of rivers running with gold? Do they realise what assisting Thorin’s group might cost them? This is our first look at a village of men in Tolkien’s world, does he present them with the same loving and realistic attention to detail as his more fantastic creations?

Join us tomorrow (Saturday August 13 at 6pm EDT) in #thehalloffire on irc.theonering.net when we’ll discuss these questions and many others as we look at Chapter 10 of ‘The Hobbit’ — A Warm Welcome.

Upcoming chats in Hall of Fire

August 6 — The Hobbit Chapter 10
August 13 — Hobbit resistance to the One Ring
August 20 — The Hobbit Chapter 11

Time zone conversions

Not sure what time the chat will be where you are? Check this little conversion table out for some help.

America:
6.00pm EDT (New York)
5.00pm CDT (Chicago)
4.00pm MDT (Denver)
3.00pm PDT (Los Angeles)

Europe:
11.00pm GMT (London)
Midnight CDT (Europe)

Asia-Pacific
8.00am (Sunday) Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne
11.00am (Sunday) Wellington

Our chats usually last 45 mins to an hour, and are very newbie friendly. Simply drop in and join the conversation!

Where — connection details

Chat happens on #thehalloffire on irc.theonering.net — the TORn IRC server. You can connect instantly via our embedded Mibbit client that works inside your web browser.

Alternatively, you can install a dedicated chat program such as mIRC on your computer and just plug in the following connection details.

Server: irc.theonering.net
Port: 6667
Channel: #thehalloffire