Carl Hostetter joined NASA as a computer scientist at its Goddard Space Flight Center in 1985.
[5] John S. Ryan, reviewing the 2000 collection Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth (edited by Hostetter and Verlyn Flieger) for VII, called it a "luminous companion" to the 12 volumes of Christopher Tolkien's The History of Middle-earth, and "clearly indispensable".
[7] The Tolkien scholar Douglas C. Kane, while welcoming the 2021 book The Nature of Middle-earth, writes that Hostetter "appears to overstep his role as editor" by presenting the materials according to his personal point of view.
In particular, Kane states that Hostetter wrongly applies Tolkien's remark that The Lord of the Rings was fundamentally religious and Catholic to the whole of the legendarium.
Kane calls this contrary to Christopher Tolkien's editorial practice, and "a blatant statement of intent".