2006 Author Reviews for
Alawa

Alawa is one of my favorite Aragorn writers; she always manages to characterize him as a man who in some way transcends distinctions that can capture others--he avoids being confined to one class or people or mood. When humor is called for, he has it believable; likewise grief; and the setting of her stories is often very important as well. The landscape becomes a presence that impacts the tone of the story in a way I can only admire. And perhaps because in her other fiction-writing incarnation, she is an accomplished poet, her style has that fluid, clean feeling I get from those who have an intuitive sense for the weight and propriety of a particular word, thus it feels as if every word is used to its best advantage. She can therefore cover vast swaths of temporal and psychic space in a very short space, yet we never feel as if we are missing anything--she homes in on what needs to be shown and quietly covers the rest over in artful silence. If you\'re looking for Aragorn, or for stories from unusual and lively original characters, you should definitely try out Alawa\'s stories.

Alawa has a lovely style of writing. She draws me into her stories immediately, with very personal and engaging character PoVs, whether they are Tolkien\'s creations or her own. Both her main and secondary characters feel real and completely \"canon\" to me. The stories I have read of hers have primarily been reflective in nature, but she always keeps the pace flowing smoothly and allows us to progress naturally with her characters. I end her pieces feeling that I know her individuals intimately, and have learned something critical to my understanding of them and the world they inhabit.

Alawa is an author that jumps to mind immediately as one who has developed the few hints we get from canon about the culture of the Northern Dunedain and has developed it into a much larger and richer world than what Tolkien had need to write for us. World-building is a tricky business in the best of all worlds, all the more so in a region we know so little about, and Alawa is part of a very elite group that write Eriador convincingly. In the piece of hers that was entered in this year\'s MEFAs, this is exemplified in the burial customs, the way the Twins brought things back to Gilraen, and the ornaments that Arathorn is left. But even more than that, Aragorn is himself a living testimony to the culture that he has grown up in. That is reflected so clearly in the different ways he relates to his father as he grows into adulthood. And really, in a world as harsh as his, I think there might be a tradition of knowing fathers more through gravesite reminiscing than actual memories. It\'s something I hadn\'t thought of, and a fact Alawa brings to life very well. Yet, all of this said, Alawa\'s pieces never feel like a sociology lesson. She does not present the cultural details but the people who are shaped by them. It all comes off feeling very natural.