Comments on Riding the Fire

The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.

Hilarious!  I love the spread of fates in this, the various sons all off leading different lives; the rivalry and family tensions carried over into the future; and Feanor a great engineer, always after the Silmaril, but then -- what?  Well, he'll do something with it, probably...  Thank you!

This garnered a major thumb's up from me when I saw it in its earlier draft, and my enjoyment is sustained in this final version.  Raksha, I expect you and I are "of an age" and vividly remember the Apollo missions.  This captures the excitement of the times and then "Tolkienizes" it.  It's a good example of the so-called "alternate universe" genre, which to succeed requires a good knowledge of the texts (The Silmarillion, HoMe, etc.)  I'd be inclined to call this an "alternate history" because it surely still has the feel of Tolkien's universe.

Fëanor's character comes through so well here. it's very satisfying to think of his role in the Apollo missions and for the purpose of...retrieving his Silmaril!  The nod to careers of Curufin and Maglor are great.  The fifth Beatle! Yëah, yëah, yëah!

And driving away in that custon El Dorado?  I don't know how much more in character one could get with "Dr. Feurstein." :^D 



I can still remember where I was when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon; how exciting it all was.  And think how much more exciting it was for someone who actually worked on the space flight...While Feanor did join the space program engineers to further his grand design of getting back the Jewel, I think he would have found the work very satisfying. 

I see Curufin as very much a junior Feanor in terms of ability and work ethic, perhaps with less imagination than his father; very much a good son.  Maglor's a slave to music; and eventually got tired of lamenting on the seashore; though I expect he still has melancholy spells. 

Thanx again for your help with the beta and scientific proofing, Pandemonium; I'm still thrilled that the story passed muster with you, since I definitely do not have a scientific mind. 

Feanor is not one of my favorite elves; but he was certainly a prime mover of events.  I didn't really take an interest in him until I saw Maeglin's birthday challenge - Feanor Lives - and had a vision of Feanor with sunglasses and a flashy red car watching the Apollo 11 take-off...I think for Feanor, inventing or perfecting, the craft of making things, was as important to him as breathing; he was a far better artisan than he was a king.

Thanks for reviewing, Linda!

What a lovely story! Feanor will always be himself, no? his long term agenda has hardly changed over the millenia. The idea of gifting the recovered Silmaril to Yavanna is quite great as his choice of car. You convery very vividly the pleasure of the craftsman at the accomplished  task and, of course, he does not need to take the credit for himself. Also very much in character his memories of Nerdanel and  having Curufin working with the Russian space project.

Maglor as the fifth Beatle, of course. I always imagined that there had to be something more with the Beatles. Now I realize what it was



Thanks for reading and reviewing, Angelica.  I have never written Feanor before; he is certainly a complex character; and the idea of his surviving (AU that it is) and thriving in this very high-tech modern time was appealing.  He just might return the Silmaril to Yavanna; a lot would depend on the circumstances of his acquiring it, I suspect. 

Maglor just had to be the fifth Beatle; he wanted some fun after all those years of suffering and lamenting.