 In the 2003 video game release, Smaug, voiced by James Horan, appears as a non-player character, based closely on the book, whereas in the 2014 video game "Lego The Hobbit", the portrayal departs more from the book; rather than ever more closely simulating the book's characters, the scholar Carol L. Robinson notes, the technology has allowed new fiction to be created.Richard Boone voiced Smaug in the 1977 animated film by Rankin/Bass.The fantasy author Sandra Unerman called Smaug "one of the most individual dragons in fiction".