Tomorrow in Hall of Fire we’ll finally return to our chapter-by-chapter discussion of the Hobbit with Chapter 9 — Barrels out of Bond.

After nabbing Thorin, the Wood-elves capture the rest of the Company — except Bilbo. Bilbo secretly follows the elves as they take the dwarves to Thranduil’s underground realm.

Bilbo realises it’s up to him to save everyone — again. Wearing the ring constantly, he soon comes up with and carries out a daring escape plan.

But why doesn’t he give up and wander off home? What do we think of this risky plan? Inspired? Risky? Mad? And what do we think of the behaviour of the dwarves and elves? Are the elves being dreadfully impolite and inhospitable? Or are the dwarves being too stiff-necked? And with Bilbo wearing the ring almost constantly, why doesn’t it seem to affect him nearly as much as it does Frodo half a century or so later?

Join us tomorrow (Saturday July 30 at 6pm EDT) in #thehalloffire on irc.theonering.net when we’ll discuss these questions and many others as we look at Chapter 9 of ‘The Hobbit’ — Barrels out of Bond.

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 chat server. You can connect instantly via our chat 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