2004 Author Reviews for
Jmac

JMac is one of the most consistently superb authors in ficdom. I just wish I could convince her, once and for all, of her fantasticness.

Jmac did a good job of weaving the LOTR characters, the immortals anyway, into the fabric of a plot set in WWII. She kept it humble, too, which is a sign of maturity. No one tried to assassinate Hitler or anything. No, she kept the plot relevent to both WWII and LOTR. Nice job.

JMac writes really funny stuff. She also writes really serious stuff, really gross nasty stuff, and really romantic beautiful stuff. I think JMac could write pretty much anything, given sufficient will and time. In the end, though, I don't care what she writes. I just want her to do more of it.

Jmac makes wonderful use of irony and the idea of failure as Finrod sits in the dark with Beren. The fic itself runs the risk of becoming a mindless slog of self recrimination, but Jmac keeps it above that but carefully pointing out that Finrod is justified in his feelings, and that in spite of his despair and past failings, Finrod is still ready to make one last attempt to do something right. Great tribute to a character that I believe is among the more noble characters in the Silmarillion, and through some great narrative setup on Jmac's part, the end becomes the beginning.

Jmac can write wonderfully about the nuances of motivation, and she has an excellent way of drawing out the dynamic between love, hope, and despair. As an added bonus, we have another lovely commentary on the nature of mortal and immortal relations, whether friendly or romantic, whether "consummated" or denied or held in abeyance. She can take a scene in the Silmarillion which is relatively brief, actually, though admittedly among the more moving moments of Beren's story, and break it open for the reader, give it nuance and a desperation that it lacked for me hitherto.

Another Silm character fleshed out and brought to life. JMac did a great job of showing the conflict Finrod might have had with himself and didn't forget the Curse the Noldor lived under.