2006 Author Reviews for
Oshun

Good humor from Oshun--light, good banter, and she picked her scene nicely to conform to a drabble\'s limits.

What a shame that oshun only has one work in this year\'s MEFAs. She\'s a dedicated and talented writer. Her use of humor shows through, not just in humor specific works, but across the board in all her work. In her romance and drama, she weaves it in subtly through the underpinning of the story - just as in real life, humor is where you find it. Even when she\'s writing high drama and conflict, broken hearts, broken life\'s - and putting it all back together, the reader is pulled along. One of the things I most greatly admire about her work is her use of canon - her reading between the lines and using the less usual elements that JRRT left us.

The one piece that I?ve read by this author is much shorter than her usual fare, so it?s hard to judge based on that. But if ?Of All the Pretty Horses? is an indication, she?s a clever author who can keep the author guessing. I did not decipher this comedy of errors until the very end, and that takes a skill I think would be very useful in a larger piece.

Before the MEFA?s I never had read a work of Oshun before, but after I read ?Of All the Pretty Little Horses? I was hooked. Recently Oshun ventured into the First Age with excellent short story, so I do think that the coming months I will be pleasantly occupied with her works, especially her longer ones.

I have been reading Oshun\'s stories since she first starting writing. She has developed enormously as a writer in that short time. Her own voice is now very individual and true. Oshun takes her canon very seriously, does heavy research, and it shows The result is not derivative at all, but places a unique story firmly in Middle-earth. This, in my opinion, is the best kind of fanfic. She excels at showing imaginative, but canon-based, cultural differences between north and south Gondor and the Belfalas coastal area and between the different races--as well as between peredhil and true Elves; Imladris compared to Mirkwood and the Silvan elven influence. Lothiriel is a living, breathing young woman here: motivated, principled and committed (particularly on her desire to help in the reconstruction of Arda) but often low on judgment--which provides a lot of the fun of the tale. Like real life, it is serious and funny all at once. Characterization is oshun\'s strength. She especially likes to people her tale with handsome and fascinating men. Faramir is gorgeous and has a lighter side--young by Numenorean standards and in love--not all angst-ridden and insecure. Legolas is \"Elven\" all the way--whimsical, arty and dead-serious with his bow. Aragorn (always my favorite) is in-character also, wise and funny. Oshun has a lot of fun with her story, and the reader will too. It\'s different and unexpected--a Middle-earth soap opera of sorts, but never making light of the important things. And the sex is really, really fun, and done with just the right touch of erotic but not raunchy.

What a joy to find another of oshun\'s works in this year\'s MEFAs. She\'s a dedicated and talented writer. Her use of humor shows through, not just in humor specific works, but across the board in all her work. In her romance and drama, she weaves it in subtly through the underpinning of the story - just as in real life, humor is where you find it. Even when she\'s writing high drama and conflict, broken hearts, broken life\'s - and putting it all back together, the reader is pulled along. One of the things I most greatly admire about her work is her use of canon - her reading between the lines and using the asides and less usual elements that JRRT left us.

The one piece that I?ve read by this author is much shorter than her usual fare, so it?s hard to judge based on that. But if ?Of All the Pretty Horses? is an indication, she?s a clever author who can keep the author guessing. I did not decipher this comedy of errors until the very end, and that takes a skill I think would be very useful in a larger piece.