News Resources
Login
Become a member
Help
Search
|
|
| About Us News Resources
Login
Become a member
Help
Search
|
|
|
| Just Desserts by Lindelea | 203 Review(s) |
|---|---|
| harrowcat | Reviewed Chapter: 4 on 10/13/2005 |
| I'm greedy for new tales Lindelea and prompt reviews (for what they are worth ) is all the payment I can give for the enjoyment I get from authors on this site. (Unless anyone wants a beta reader.) But now you have whetted my appetite! I want to see the other version too. Author Reply: Well, feedback is excellent grease for the wheels, I have to admit. Sometimes I'll sign on to check my mail without any desire to write, just to read a couple of thoughtful reviews that spark my thinking and get me speculating about What if...? Amazing how that works. Author Reply: ...as to the other version, well, we'll just have to see. Possibly part of it will be incorporated into this story, near the end. | |
| harrowcat | Reviewed Chapter: 4 on 10/13/2005 |
| Every time I see a new chapter a little thank you goes up for Bodkin who requested this! Turned out without anything but the clothes on their backs? I should think not indeed! Author Reply: And you may bless Bodkin for requesting "angst". There were two versions of this story, before it was written, one short and sweet, and this is the other... And blessings to you for the quick response and encouraging feedback! Sure glad Airin was on the spot! (And thanks again, Dreamflower, if you happen to read this, for the list of names... "Airin" is much less confusing and cumbersome than "Turambor's daughter in law") | |
| Bodkin | Reviewed Chapter: 3 on 10/12/2005 |
| Oh dear. Poor Denny - what a shattering moment. He knows enough to talk at the prisoners rather than to them, though. It must be a difficult moment to be between the Guard and the family; not knowing which way to go. I'm glad he sort of went the family route. Pippin was impressive - you don't often get to see him pulling rank among Men, but the rank is his to pull and I'm glad the guard holding Robin recognised that. I suppose, in reality, there was no way this could be settled without due process - but it's a good thing Seredrith has already given birth, because I don't know how her body could cope with this in pregnancy. And to be told in that impersonal way that her home and livelihood was forfeit to the crown and all her possessions to be auctioned. Including, I daresay, everything she was't actually wearing at the time. I can't see Diamond taking to that too well. (In fact, if it comes to that, I could imagine Diamond at the forefront of the bidders, with a very ferocious expression on her face, saving what she can.) So what Jack has feared so long is unwinding - but he and Will are facing it with remarkable fortitude. I suppose, in a way, reality is less intimidating than endless nights of worrying. Those gallows must have haunted their dreams for years. Fingers crossed that their torment won't last much longer. And not because they'll be dancing at the end of a rope. Author Reply: Poor Denny. He knew just how far he could go... but as you may already have seen in the next page, he knows how to stretch that line, too. I too could imagine Diamond in the forefront--that was actually one of the early scenarios--but it probably won't work quite that way, the way it's written now. Still, a satisfying ending if we can just make our way to the end. Though Jack is not a Numenorian, I'm sure he's heard about "the gift of Eru". We've been reading in history about cultures where the people didn't fear death... cultures from which Tolkien drew many of his ideas. The main reason that Numenor fell was because Men refused the gift, wasn't it? Perhaps shorter-lived men sought rather to die well, than to try to live "forever". The chapters are breaking out shorter than I thought, partly due to time constraints. So while the angst seems to be stretching out interminably, in our time, in the story time it really is over pretty quickly. Thanks! | |
| harrowcat | Reviewed Chapter: 3 on 10/11/2005 |
| I love reading the reviews and your responses as much as the story - well almost! Glad to see that the family has friends and relatives that don't desert them even when all seems bleak! And what a powerful hobbit threesome acting on behalf of the king. Nice to see them on some official duties and not just guard duty. Author Reply: I love reading the reviews, too... And the responses are interesting to write, being something of a give-and-take as a story is being thought through and edited. I really do enjoy the give-and-take. Sometimes a review will make me take a deeper look at a plot development or a character, sometimes it will alter the course of a story somewhat as I read a new insight that I didn't "see" originally. Sometimes it just confirms what is happening. In any event, oftimes reviews lead to a better story. I like to contemplate the three remaining Travellers working together in concert in the face of a challenging situation... | |
| Larner | Reviewed Chapter: 3 on 10/11/2005 |
| Ooh, now I am angry, that there should be an auction of the premises? Am so glad Pippin spoke up for Robin. Bless the Thain! As for being glad I respond, you know how much I appreciate responses to my own, and yours, being so well informed, mean a great deal to me, as you know. Now, Elessar, you'd best do right by these or I'll smuck you up alongside the head! Author Reply: The auction of the premises was something that just sort of inserted itself as the logical thing to do, without really being thought out. But it still seems like a logical thing to do, if the owner has been hauled off to be hanged, and his son with him. In our family history, when my great-grandfather died, my great-grandmother and her three daughters were turned off their property with just what they could carry. Sad, isn't it, what history tells us? Whoa, if I didn't have such confidence in Elessar I'd have to alert his elite bodyguard... | |
| Dreamflower | Reviewed Chapter: 3 on 10/11/2005 |
| Oh yes! I do like seeing Sir Peregrin, Captain of the Citadel and Thain of the Shire assert his authority over these big Men. I do feel sorry for the family; really, I do! So why am I grinning? 'Cause I love your evil cliffies, and I *know* you're going to pull something special out of your hat. Author Reply: Is he really Captain of the Citadel? Well, in hobbits' eyes, maybe. But then I hear/see the proprietor of the Green Dragon shrug and say, "Sit-a-dell? Is that the new inn, down Waymoot-way?" Poor family. But they're banding together. (Could have been so much worse. If Turambor weren't salt of the earth he might have cast out Robin for his association with criminals... but he's a good man. And he certainly won't turn his back on his daughter and grandson for having the misfortune to be married to/descended from a law-breaker, even though there's precedent in fiction for such a thing to take place. I'm afraid Seledrith has lost her wits, just a little... but it's a plot point and so I'll end here.) Thanks for the vote of confidence! (Lots of potential for cliffies in this one, I fear. Such is life.) | |
| harrowcat | Reviewed Chapter: 2 on 10/11/2005 |
| This just gets better. The bottom has just dropped out of their world and each is reacting to protect the others - very nicely done! | |
| Dreamflower | Reviewed Chapter: Author's Notes on 10/10/2005 |
| I think each of us makes her/his own interpretation of the edict. Personally, I simply think that JRRT did not think through all the implications of it. Generally speaking, it would have stifled trade, and as has been pointed out, often caused more problems than it solved. However, it's canon, and those of us who respect canon, have to find our own ways through the mine-field along with a number of other quirky things--such as six or seven meals a day, the need for seven witnesses and red ink for legal documents, the fact that neither Sam nor Fatty Bolger had ever been in Buckland before the Conspiracy, the distance between the Shire and Bree, or Buckland, Tookland and Hobbiton, the age gap between Frodo and his cousins, Sam inexplicably forgetting Frodo's anniversary illnesses, and any number of other inconveniences. People do sometimes ignore these roadblocks, but it is often to the detriment of the story, and will automatically render it AU. My own take on the edict is that yes, Elessar binds himself to it, but I allow him to have given *the hobbits* some leeway--by the agreement of the three most eminent people of the Shire, the Thain, Master and Mayor, exceptions can be made. Having looked at what it says in the Tale of Years, there are no specifics on the edict other than just the general ban. So I feel we are able to make up our own minds about the apecifics and the penalties. I have seen some, where the Thain may give permission, or where the edict may be lifted for some reason or other. Nothing in canon says this cannot have happened. I have not addressed what the punishment would be. I am not so certain that I would go with the death penalty myself. It would give me too many problems. (I don't mean ethically, I mean plot-wise.) You have chosen to give a very strict penalty, and have given yourself a real challenge to overcome. It is a tribute to your own ingenuity that you have been able to work all these challenges out. In "All that Glisters" and in "As Falls the Gentle Rain", you have addressed the legal problems brilliantly, and I have every confidence that you will do so again in this story. Author Reply: I think you're right about that. Sometimes I write stories without thinking through all the implications... not so often as I used to. Justice could be pretty harsh in olden times. The dc and I were just discussing the other day that the lenient rulers seemed to be the ones who were most easily deposed... Don't know if that's a rule of thumb, but we keep coming up against it in history. A "good" king, loved by the people, ends up getting replaced where a ruthless ruler seems to go on and on like the Energizer bunny (unless he was crazy, in which case he might be murdered or suffer a mysterious death). I can see Elessar as strict but fair. Certainly the penalties are severe, but they fit the sociology of the time back when "punishment" was the name of the game rather than "rehabilitation". As a matter of fact, the justice I've thought out for the Shire is rehabilitative in nature, and only those who are thought of as incorrigible are cast out, when it appears that they cannot be rehabilitated or their actions/attitude comprise a threat to other hobbits. Thank you for the vote of confidence! I certainly hope I can make it through the legal quagmire in this story and safely to the other side... | |
| Bodkin | Reviewed Chapter: 2 on 10/10/2005 |
| Poor Seledrith. This must be the most appalling shock for her - her sweet kind husband so close to the end of a rope. And Pippin is distressingly serious here. I'm betting Diamond wishes she'd never opened her mouth at the moment. And I am crossing fingers and toes that Aragorn behaves with his legendary wisdom and remembers that Jack saved Pippin and Sam's sons - when he didn't have to - and that he behaved with courage and fortitude in the Shire when he didn't have to, as well. Save that conjuror! Over the years he has often proved his worth to the hobbits of the Shire. I only hope it's enough. Author Reply: You're right. This is a terribly appalling shock for Seledrith, and I fear as a result she's not acting very reasonable at the moment (working in a future chapter right now) As for Diamond, and Pippin... well, don't let me get started. Lucky for Jack and Will (and probably Rob) that Aragorn is Aragorn and not, say, Denethor (Steward of Gondor, not Denny). Author Reply: And let's just say that Pippin has good reason to be serious. Whew. | |
| Larner | Reviewed Chapter: 2 on 10/10/2005 |
| As the King is here in the north now, and as Pippin is also here, and considering the judgment given to Beregond, I suspect Jack has little to fear. Of course, he probably doesn't know the judgment given to Beregond. I pity the wife, and all of them for their fear, which I suspect, knowing our Lord Elessar, is unnecessary. Author Reply: The story would certainly end quickly and rather boringly if Jack, Will and Rob thought there was little to fear. The King has issued an edict--I wonder how much latitude he gives himself? He didn't enter the Shire himself, the year he came to meet his friends at the Bridge. I think JRRT made a point of that, but don't remember now where I read it. By rights Jack and Will could be taken directly to the gallows (do not pass "Go"). But with the King in town, and Pippin involved, I don't think that such a predictable thing will happen. Whew. We're already in the fourth revision, and counting. It's not even predictable to the author and editor! | |