Stories of Arda Home Page
About Us News Resources Login Become a member Help Search

At the End of His Rope  by Lindelea 3 Review(s)
demeter dReviewed Chapter: 63 on 3/27/2020
I am writing this review in the Year of Our Lord 2020, in the Seventh Age of MODERN EARTH.I came here to reread this tale after reading your reply to Mirkwood Maiden's review of recently posted Chapter 20 of your tale, "The Thrum of Tookish Bowstrings. You mentioned this, so I came hear to revisit. I do not think I reviewed any of this back when it was new. That was when I had first discovered this site, and was still trying not to spend all of my time in Middle Earth. A lost cause, I'm afraid! I just had to muse on life imitating art. Modern Earth is in the midst of a new pestilence called "coronavirus 19". My small city in the Rocky Mountains has not any cases - YET - but a smaller college town just an hour North of here has already two, I think! Right now Idaho has just been put in three week quarantine. I am sure that the embattled medical personnel in places like New York City, Seattle, and other nations around the world would welcome a visit from the King with the healing hands. Prayers to all of you reading this now. And I hope those reading this in years to come may be able to reflect that the plaque reached it's peak and subsided about this time. We can only pray that may be so!


Author Reply: I am so glad to hear from you. Amazing how isolating isolation has been... or maybe not surprising. D'y'know, I was re-reading in this story as a part of preparation for writing new stuff (and making sure I don't put my foot in it where stories cross over), and was struck by the real life vs fiction thing. Ironically enough, I can still remember how, at the time I wrote this, I was saying to myself, "Nobody will ever believe that a fever can be so widespread, so debilitating, so deadly..." and hoping they could suspend their disbelief enough to enjoy the story.

It is so heartening to hear your thoughts on this. I mean, I write the stories that I would like to be reading myself (and does it sound too egotistical to say that sometimes I go back and read my old stories simply for comfort's sake? Although, I am re-reading Runaway at present, for "research" purposes, and so I'm not exactly indulging in "smelling my own farts" as a family member would put it, for I recognize the passages that Jodancingtree wrote (and whole chapters, in parts), so I'm enjoying revisiting her efforts as well. And now I'm hoping she's well, for we haven't connected in such a long time...). Yet whenever I read a review, I feel a spark of energy and a smile and I don't feel so much like I'm just talking to myself. Silly me.

We are sort of on the edge of the cauldron where we live, or maybe between a rock and a hard place, between one of the hard-hit cities and another city where cases doubled one day and then doubled again the next day despite the restrictions the governor announced (so double-double? Scary to think of that kind of progresion. And also a tinge of closing the stable door after the ponies have already run off), and more deaths begin reported. I'm praying for our medical personnel, and the people in government who are having to find the safest path through the quagmire, and the rest of us...

Blessings to you, and hope this finds you well.

LarnerReviewed Chapter: 63 on 5/27/2005
This time it is the King himself to the rescue. Break his own edict indeed! Always there are needful exceptions, and I'm glad the King himself recognizes the need.

Author Reply: Answering old reviews, just because. I think I answered a lot of these when they first happened, actually, and then the site got hacked and stories got reposted but the reviews or review replies weren't recovered? Anyway, I have a dim memory of something of the sort happening, and it makes sense when I look at a multi-chaptered story and see the same posting date for every chapter, because while I wrote like a maniac back in the early 2000s, I was not *that* prolific!

Blessings to you. We could use an Elessar about now. King and miraculous healer in one. Sigh.

DreamflowerReviewed Chapter: 63 on 2/1/2005
Oh lovely! Strider's come. Like I didn't know that. I love it when I get so caught up in what's happening that I forget I already know...did that make any sense? It's like re-reading LotR.

Author Reply: Because I was answering a recent review on this one, I went ahead and put in something for each review on the chapter. I don't know why so many chapters have reviews without replies... I thought I was better at answering reviews than I seem to have been, for I treasure the back-and-forth with others on SoA. In any event, "like re-reading LotR" is both heartening and humbling. Thank you.

Hoping this finds you and yours well. (hugs)

Return to Chapter List