News Resources
Login
Become a member
Help
Search
|
|
| About Us News Resources
Login
Become a member
Help
Search
|
|
|
| A White Shell by Celeritas | 47 Review(s) |
|---|---|
| Larner | Reviewed Chapter: 4 on 9/1/2009 |
| That is definitely quite a dream--the children, the flooding library and disintegrating Red Book, the escape; the fuzzy faced youth carrying the phial; the hope for an identity.... Then to realize Tom is sweet on her? Poor lass. I can understand the flight, but at the same time want to smuck him up alongside the head! Selfish git! As for all that work lost.... Hope Nienna just brushes the snow away and grazes and is there when she comes again. Author Reply: Kira still has some pretty vivid dreams, but the second half (waking up to being kissed by a figment of her imagination) is completely new to her and is rather frightening. That on top of all the Tom drama... Kira is definitely entering into a new dimension of life. Tom is a selfish git, but at least he put himself under enough pressure to apologize to Kira for something she doesn't even remember him saying. That is pretty entertaining! (And if Kira weren't so caught up in the implications of that act she'd be pretty amused too!) Next chapter of course will deal with the aftermath of the frost. | |
| Sunny | Reviewed Chapter: 4 on 8/31/2009 |
| So that *censored* Tom is sweet on Kira, is he? Considering their history, I suspect there will be a "not even if he was the last Hobbit on Arda" feeling from Kira's side, though. I do hope Kira won't be forced into some kind of unwanted marriage in order for her and her mother to just survive. Author Reply: Goodness no! Kira is far too spirited to let anything of the sort happen, and remember, she's got other means for supporting herself. No, if she ends up marrying Tom it'll only be because the attraction's mutual. If it even lasts that long on Tom's end, of course... | |
| Virtuella | Reviewed Chapter: 2 on 8/29/2009 |
| This is such a well-crafted chapter! I am thrilled to see how Kira has managed to "keep alive the memory" by telling stories to the children - some of these are bound to grow into adults who will pass on those seeds. Both the tree story and the poem fitted very well, and ah, the mystry malady makes an appearance again. And it's lovely to see a potential love interest for Kira. :D Author Reply: Thank you! Kira is indeed hoping that storytelling will impact children when they grow up; unfortunately she's going to have to wait a while before she finds out if they do. In the meantime as part of "growing up" some of them are leaving that behind, even if they'll return to it when they have children. So it's a little bit of a thankless task at the moment, especially because Kira is not very far-sighted at this point in her life. I thought it would be untrue to the story and to real life if Kira's mysterious illness managed to disappear at the end of KatM, so she's been having to deal with it for a while now. If she ever gets healed from it it's going to take something suitably dramatic--perhaps as dramatic as the event that catalyzed her condition in the first place. And who said there only had to be one potential love interest for Kira? *wicked grin* | |
| Virtuella | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 8/9/2009 |
| At last I have the leisure as well as the right mood for reading this! It's lovely to meet Kira again, all grown up now, and to see the difficult, I would almost say delicate relationship with her mother continued. I liked how the first paragraph linked back to the ink dream in the first story. Your descriptions are wonderful, so detailled and original, they really make the story come to life. I'm looking forward to reading more. Author Reply: Excellent! I'm glad to have you back on board! Thanks for your rather intelligent review. ^_^ I worked really hard on getting that first paragraph "just right" to try to get a snapshot on how she's changed over the past few years. I hope you enjoy the rest of what's up right now. I've got to get to work on this story to make it move forward!! | |
| Independence1776 | Reviewed Chapter: 3 on 6/15/2009 |
| I can't believe I missed this! Kira's certainly grown up quite a bit. I'm glad she's able to continue telling the tales, even if she has to hide it from her mother. Wonder when she'll find out? Marvelous story so far. :) Author Reply: Well, this story is not updating regularly because it's still very much in the process of being drafted (and KatM took about 4 years!) so it's easy to overlook. I really like working with this older Kira, because she's got a lot more initiative and is even more stubborn! Thanks for the review, and I'm glad to see you following this. It should be an interesting ride. ^_^ | |
| Larner | Reviewed Chapter: 3 on 6/8/2009 |
| Ah--a wish of hers granted, and via Merina? Good! And she has a WHOLE other life her mother remains unaware of! Love the letter to the Gardners! Dear, conniving child that she is! Yes! And wait until she meets Hal and his brother for good! Heh! And she's named the pony Nienna? Ah, a good name for her! Thanks for this one. Author Reply: You're quite welcome! Yup, she got her pony. ^_^ Since it's the only wish she has that can be plausibly granted, I thought I'd give it to her--plus Nienna is one of the handiest plot devices I've come by in these stories. One of the things I love about this Kira (as opposed to the 16-year-old one) is how clever she's become (not that she wasn't intelligent before; she just didn't realize it and didn't know how to put that to good use). I always have fun writing the storytelling bits because I can focus on what emphases Kira puts on the tales to get whatever point she has across. | |
| Raksha The Demon | Reviewed Chapter: 2 on 6/8/2009 |
| Lovely glimpse of Kira storytelling. And this Alaric fellow is intriguing; I hope he gets to spend more time with Kira when she's feeling better. Author Reply: Thank you! I'm very intrigued by Alaric, too; of course I wouldn't have introduced him if he weren't at some later point involved in Kira's life. I'm hoping eventually to be able to use him as an inlet to those who aren't familiar with Kira so that they can find out exactly what's wrong with her alongside him. He already has a great advantage to understanding her character, if he'll only realize it--unlike many of the people Kira actually knows, he's already seen her at her weakest moments. | |
| Dreamflower | Reviewed Chapter: 3 on 6/8/2009 |
| It's a shame Kira is having to keep her babysitting business from her mother. If only the two of them could communicate openly-- Kira without having to hide her enterprise and her intelligence, and her mother without letting all of her fears keep her from listening to what her daughter truly needs. And if her mother would not be so set against the things that mean the most to Kira, then her own life could be considerably eased. How long can this double life go on? So many people know about it, really. How is it that it's not going to come to the ears of someone it shouldn't, sooner or later. I like the way Kira has structured the stories, to give the impressions that she wants them to give, although I'm a bit troubled at her message of how dreadful "Outside" is. I'm not quite sure that's the message the Travellers themselves would have wished to convey...still, I do understand that it is mostly in order to be able to continue *telling* the tales... Oh, what a tangled web... Author Reply: If I were totally realistic in this story Kira would never have been able to keep this deceit up this long. She has tried her best, though, by only visiting families from the country on the opposite sides of town, who are less likely to run into Kira by chance. There are also those who are much more fully acquainted with Kira and her circumstances and would love to help the family out any way that they can. I don't know how much Kira has given off the impression that this can't be communicated to her mother, but apparently it's been kept up so far out of kindness. From Mother's end (and I can pull the "they don't get out much" card here) she's used to having a daughter that's very honest, even painfully so, at least from during KatM. (I give you the exhibit of Kira's immediately handing the token from Firin over to her, even though she could have gotten away with keeping it.) That began to change, very slightly, at the end of that tale, and at some point Kira became used to out-and-out lying to her mother about her true self. For some reason I imagine most hobbit-children and hobbits as being unusually honest by our standards, which would make for someone who wants to believe a lie it even easier to pass over subtle indicators of the truth (I can imagine Kira silently panicking if one day at market one of the children runs by and addresses her by her pet name, only somehow Mother doesn't seem to notice). But in the end you're right; it's really quite precarious--which doesn't excuse me from not coming up with a better way to frame this conflict, much less its plausibility. Kira has had to learn to be pragmatic over the years, especially with her taletelling. This means emphasizing the perilous aspects (and I'm not entirely sure if she truly understands the kind of "perilous" that Tolkien meant) of the outside world. There's also a very good personal reason for her focusing on the dangerous aspects of Outside, though I don't think she realizes that... | |
| Antane | Reviewed Chapter: Prologue on 5/30/2009 |
| Angsting... gasping in horror and all that too... That would be too dreadful if it was true but thank God it isn't! Namarie, God bless, Antane :) Author Reply: Well, in this fic it is, and believe it or not, it's not an AU. There's a perfectly acceptable explanation for how we got the Red Book that takes all of the premises in this fic into account. And in case you're wondering, yes, the loss of the original Red Book is canon. | |
| Antane | Reviewed Chapter: 2 on 5/30/2009 |
| I'm glad someone is interested in the Travellers still and in the Elven histories also. I shall have to keep up with this story. I love that poem, but you already know that! Have you heard the Professor recite it? It's on the J.R.R. Tolkien Audio Collection - I recommend it - it has other recitals of his too and Christopher Tolkien. Namarie, God bless, Antane :) Author Reply: Yup, read it and own it. ^_^ And Kira appreciates your support. | |