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Author: Azalais ID: 187 Races/Places: Cross-Cultural [80]: Drabble
Reviewer: Marigold 2005-09-27 19:47:48
I love the way that this author is able to take small moments from the books
and paint such complete and satifying scenes for us using just 100 words.
Truly a master of the drabble! I am so glad to have discoved this author
through these awards.
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Author: Lyllyn ID: 188 Books/Time: Post-Ring War [142]: General
Reviewer: Dwimordene 2005-09-28 20:16:21
I think Lyllyn captures a very key moment in life post-Ring War: the trouble
with integrating it. Whether it's owyn, still struggling to come to terms
with her decision to ride for Minas Tirith, faltering every so often in her
new profession, or Robin Smallburrow describing the complicity and
desperation of the Occupation in a matter of fact tone that's belied by the
fact that he tells the tale, she brings forward the profound ways in which
the characters have been affected by the war.

Beyond that, her character voices are wonderful. Her Robin is one of the
most convincing hobbit voices I've read, and her owyn in her very silence
and remove, is beautifully drawn. Great job, Lyllyn!

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Author: Lyllyn ID: 188 Books/Time: The Lord of The Rings [111]: General
Reviewer: Dwimordene 2005-09-28 20:16:52
I think Lyllyn captures a very key moment in life post-Ring War: the trouble
with integrating it. Whether it's owyn, still struggling to come to terms
with her decision to ride for Minas Tirith, faltering every so often in her
new profession, or Robin Smallburrow describing the complicity and
desperation of the Occupation in a matter of fact tone that's belied by the
fact that he tells the tale, she brings forward the profound ways in which
the characters have been affected by the war.

Beyond that, her character voices are wonderful. Her Robin is one of the
most convincing hobbit voices I've read, and her owyn in her very silence
and remove, is beautifully drawn. Great job, Lyllyn!

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Author: Lyllyn ID: 188 Books/Time: The Silmarillion [67]: General
Reviewer: Dwimordene 2005-09-28 20:17:34
It's very rare for me to find Glorfindel compelling, and I give Lyllyn
credit for being the first to awaken me to the idea that perhaps I really
should feel something for him. She and Tehta are, I think, the only two
authors to date who have managed this feat.

Here, Lyllyn puts him to good use as she brings one of the Silmarillion's
major events to life in a way that Tolkien never managed for me. The fall of
Gondolin looms like a shadow on the horizon of this fic, informing
everything about it. One occasionally feels as if the Silmarillion spends
most of its time detailing the tragic and untimely ends of the various
characters, so this shadow is not unexpected, but sometimes, precisely
because it is so ubiquitous, and the tone so desperately mythic (with all
the character foibles and behavioral 'artifacts' that that entails and which
just often fail to translate to a modern mind), I just fail to feel much for
them. Such is in part the case with Glorfindel.

Lyllyn, with her brief portrait of Glorfindel, makes sense of one such
desperately mythic description, and uses it to give a very bleak but
sophisticated portrait of a man at war against a fate he can't escape. Well
done!

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Author: Lamiel ID: 298 Races/Places: Cross-Cultural [80]: General
Reviewer: Dwimordene 2005-09-28 20:18:38
MEFAs introduced me to Lamiel's work, and I'm quite grateful for that.
Lamiel is one of those authors who works well with an ensemble of
characterswhether in her humorous story of a surprise begetting day party
for Legolas or in her fantastically crafted drama, "In the Deep Places",
which traces the evolution of Legolas and Gimli towards friendship, her
characters move in a fully peopled world. It gives her writing a depth and
breadth that is missed in more narrowly focused stories.

Friendship is one of the great themes of Lord of the Rings, and certainly
one of the more evident examples of it is the Legolas-Gimli relationship.
Lamiel does justice to all the characters involved, avoiding both
sentimentality and exaggerated, hyperbolic confrontations, which seems
realistic to me given the context in which Legolas and Gimli get to know
each other. She clearly isn't daunted by the prospect of dealing with
complex emotions and relations, and she puts the characters through their
emotional paces, allowing a full spectrum of feeling to show and influence
the unfolding of the drama. In so doing, she breathes life into the
Fellowship, and into the unillumined spaces between the lines of Tolkien's
text. Well done, Lamiel!



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