I LOVE this story, it's a nice way to make Gimli and Legolas friends, don't you think? See ya round!


-Martiny

This is really good! It was so sweet. You are a good writer!

good, great, wonderful, superp, stupendous, magnificent, genius, breath taking, awe inspireing,phonominal, uh and any other adjectives that mean superb!

I'm slow catching up with the rest of the world on reading the really good LOTR fiction. I'm really glad I was able to find this story. Very well done.

This is a marvolous story. Its not overwhelming action or plotless, as most stories are one of the two these days. u also combined humor and angst quite remarkably as well, and the story doesn't feel unfinished. There is a definite and satisfing ending. Though i would love to see how thaundril reacts to Legolas' and Gimili's friendship... hehehe ^_^

Great story,Mellon! I would like to read more about Legolas and Boromir's friendship. There isn't enfoh stories on here like that.

Wonderful story! Well done! ^-^

This is wonderful!

Great job!
+_+ Inu Lover

Oh wow...this story was FANTASTIC! You did an AWESOME job! Poor Legolas...we make him suffer so much, lol! Write more stories! :)

i like this story...

Well, I hope you still care for reviews for some of your "old" work! I just stumbled about this story and immediately was "doomed" to read it it at once from the first to the last word. Truly, your story has everything a reader's heart desires: Action, angst, laughter, suspense, and a lot more. What I liked best, though, about your masterpiece, is the way you started "slowly", adding more and more thrill to the plot with a few, carefully selected lines, never betraying too much about what was going to happen to Legolas and the fellowship, thus keeping any reader in suspense, making him wish being able to read faster. (Hope I'm making sense here!) Anyway, keep up the good work
Hedera

I am so glad that I came across this fic! It was the perfect way to spend a rainy-day afternoon!
The way in which you intergrated the film and the book as well as your own scenarios was amazing...and amazingly original and I loved it!
You wrote the characters' brilliantly. I especially loved the attention that you paid to both Gandalf and Boromir. The Grandfather type role (with action-hero status) that you applied to Gandalf was excellent and you conveyed his benevolence and his power very well! Boromir on th other hand was a heartbreaking character to read. In your fic he really was the honourable and caring man that he is but the knowledge of how he succumbs to the ring and loses that part of him for a while made it so tragic to read...
Legolas...good! Aragorn...good!
Gimli and Legolas' relationship was *superbly* explored! Your interpretation of what happened in Lothlorien was great and how I'd like to imagine their friendship came about.
Thank you for writing such a great fic!
I'm off to read some more of your work now!

Hey. I was looking for something to read, and I loved a couple of your other stories, so I decided to give this one a try and...wow! I'll say again that I really enjoy your writing style, and especially your characters. You really keep them true, while adding depth and relationships and eveything. Thats hard to do, so I want to congratulate you. I especially like Thranduil. I have read many stories with him, and your portrayal is definitely my favorite.Hope to see more from you soon!

Hi, Ecri! I read this story with interest and now have a chance to sit down and go over it. Suggestions first, then the praise to leave you feeling cheery.

The main area that could use scrutiny is a common mistake known as the shifting point of view (POV). Perhaps you have caught on to this problem yourself, or someone else may have mentioned it, so forgive me if you have already remedied this in your later work.

Unless you, the narrator, are playing the role of all-knowing one, the perspective should stay with one person. If the story is being told through the character of Legolas, and we are privy to his inner thoughts, observations and emotions, we should not also receive Frodo's perceptions in the same scene. We can be given Legolas' view/opinion on what may be going on with Frodo, but we should be not given a direct look into another character's head.

To switch to another character's viewpoint, you need to break the scene.

It is an easy mistake to make. My first story (which embarrasses me so terribly these days that I will not even tell you where to find it) was full of shifting POVs, and it took another author, whom I had specifically approached for assistance with my writing, to point them out to me. I never would have caught the problem on my own, but fixing it really improves things and pulls a story together.

The other thing I want to mention is that at times I felt you were rushing. I wanted to see you linger a bit longer over some of your details and descriptions to build a bit more atmosphere. (There were some wonderful descriptions, however: Elf and lonely tree reaching out to each other, Legolas hovering close to Gandalf's staff...)

I was pleased with the plot. My only quibble with it is that I did not come away with an understanding of why the Evil chose its course of action. Why was the dwarf who left Legolas bound in the cave "possessed"? Why was Legolas left in the cave? Simply to be toyed with? Or did the Shadow also know of Legolas' destiny as one of the Nine Walkers and so hoped to harm or kill him to prevent his future role in the Fellowship?

I think you did mention that you wanted to be corrected if you had a canon or timeline error? I believe that Legolas, in returning from a visit to Rivendell, had been hanging with a ten year old Aragorn. Perhaps little Estel was just tagging along with his big brothers and their friend from Mirkwood! Also Bilbo was never a prisoner in Thranduil's dungeons. He was running around wearing the Ring to stay invisible until he figured out how to rescue the Dwarves.

On to the good stuff: your dialog was excellent. No skipping between modern speak and Tolkien speak. Believable conversations, too.

The budding friendship between the elf and Boromir was really nice. I'm a fan of the Man from Gondor (Sean Bean, yum), so it was nice to see someone bring out his kind and noble side. I thought the correlation you brought out between what the elves of Mirkwood face because of the proximity of Dol Guldur and what Gondor faces as the country closest to Mordor was well done, giving these two characters something in common.

That the Valar must be guiding Gandalf as he cast about looking for the lost elf was a good explanation for why he was being drawn onward. I might have found it difficult to believe otherwise.

Your characterization of Legolas pleased me. I also like the idea of him being quite young, which makes him a bit different. The line "he looks with new eyes at an old world" was just right.

I liked the captivity (That's just me, I love elf-torture). It was well told, especially the description of the physical toll it was taking on him (the shaking of his arms, the dryness of his mouth) and I was particularly moved by the way the elf clung to song to try to keep the evil at bay. You described beautifully his terror in the end as he realized that, even though he was awake, the Shadow had come for him again, and he knew this time was the last.

All right, this was long enough! I hope this review was helpful and made you happy. Quote Mark Twain at me and I'll follow you around like a puppy.

Nightwing