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A Small and Passing Thing  by Lindelea 5 Review(s)
LarnerReviewed Chapter: 40 on 4/23/2023
Love the realization that Frodo himself is also capable of flagging. Now, if Freddy can only hold on properly.

AntaneReviewed Chapter: 40 on 3/8/2009
This is a nice switch - Freddy taking care of Frodo! :)

Namarie, God bless, Antane :)

katakanadianReviewed Chapter: 40 on 12/13/2003
Marvelous as always. I don't know about southern England but cherry trees in central Japan (which is south of England) and Victoria (which is very Shirelike) do not blossom in February. More like mid-march to mid-April. I have seen some very early blossoms (January) in Okinawa but that is sub-tropical. Plum blossoms come out before cherry so you could just change that if you want to minimize fiddling with timelines.

Bob of LangariaReviewed Chapter: 40 on 11/8/2003
Um... in 'Down and Out" you have Melilot Brandybuck as a male hobbit, here Melilot is a lass. Thought I'd let you know.

Author Reply: Ah, I will have to check "Down and Out" to see if it missed the correction made when I discovered Melilot was a girl (when I wrote that story a few months ago, I didn't know... Tolkien's names are not always obvious, at least, not to me!)

"Melilot" became "Meliloc" in "Down and Out". Perhaps they were twins! The Professor said himself that only the most significant names appear on the genealogy, and there is lots of room for more (or something to that effect).

Having the example before me of Merimas and Merimac, I figured I could change one letter and have a whole new hobbit.

Hah! Good for you, for noticing! Someone told me when I first discovered my error and was moaning about it, that nobody would ever notice, and why was I taking time away from writing to change one letter in every occurrence of a minor character's name...? *g*

But where did you read it? Is it possible I changed it on one website and missed it on another? Drat, now I will have to check ff.net and HA as well as SoA.

Thanks for your note! BTW, if you leave an email address in a review, it does not appear publicly on SoA, but author replies will be automatically sent to you.

FantasyFanReviewed Chapter: 40 on 10/20/2003
I just noticed a strange thing in the formatting of this story on Stories of Arda. Your quote marks for the dialog are curved single quotes. They curve correctly at the beginnings and ends of sentences for the most part, but when a quote opens a paragraph, it is curved like a 'close quote' rather than the 'open quote'. I am assuming when you upload it from a word processor it is not converting the quote marks properly. I have no idea if you can do anything about it or not. And since it took me 40 chapters to even notice it, you may not have to.

The roles have reversed themselves, and Freddy has become Frodo's minder. I wonder if he sits with him when the nightmares come. He seems to have a clear idea of what is needed, but nobody could be as diligent as Sam. And though Freddy and Frodo understand each other, they still dance around the troubles. You can see the Took in Freddy - he's almost as good as deflecting attention with a clever comment as Ferdi on his good days. I guess we will see soon how strong Freddy is. I'm glad too that Frodo is going to be there when Freddy finally returns home.

He certainly does have a way of gathering information, doesn't he? I loved Frodo choking on his tea, suddenly thinking of his midge of a cousin in a different way. Freddy guesses Frodo, Frodo guesses Merry, but nobody guesses Pippin. Guess he's another cousin they don't think of as grown up enough yet. How old exactly do you have Stella in this story? In the books, I think she's 5 years younger than Merry, so come of age already, but I think you've mistakenly made her younger than Pippin?

Author Reply: Huh. Have done some playing around and it seems to be my word processor. On the latest chapter I corrected it by hand but it took a long time; unless I find some faster method it will probably just keep looking wonky.

I'm not sure how old Estella is in this story... in "Jewels" I mistakenly made her 10 years younger than she is supposed to be. Have been very cautious here not to pin her down, just in case i decide to try to rewrite Jewels someday to bring her back into canon.

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