Title: "Boromir's Return"
Author: Osheen Nevoy
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure
Status: Complete
Library Category: General
Pairings: None
Words: 517.000

Summary: Boromir awakens from his death and finds himself in an unexpected situation. Basically book universe with some AU bits, but inspired by Sean Bean. Complete! Chapter 29 up, nine years after I started writing this.

Boromir's Return

The summary sounds like this is utter shite? I agree- and I only checked this fic out because I wanted to know how the author butchered the "resurrection". Imagine my surprise when the story revealed itself as well written epic adventure yarn, with superb characterization, tension filled battle scenes, believable interpersonal conflicts (Denethor-Faramir for example) and even some light romance. The technical writing is nearly flawless, the AU elements satisfy every time and the high fantasy (river Anduin as a god) is surprisingly palatable.

This novel is for everyone who loves middle- earth and Tolkien's characters.

5/5

 

5/5 seconded. I love this fic.

Also. Interpersonal. Not inter-personnel. There's a difference.

 

It's a translation problem, I have an impractical tendency to use latin based loanwords in their german variant. Thanks for the heads- up! I'm also grateful that someone else liked the story.

 

It's... good, I guess. The dialogue doesn't feel Tolkien-y or true to the characters in many parts (notably when he tries to use Valar as a subsitute for God, or uses hell or any other modern vernacular, or the particularily wooden way he writes Aragorn) and the story drags in certain areas as words and words just keep getting written. The writing out of Denethor feels like a cheap cop-out to get Aragorn on the throne instead of addressing him head on, some of the shots at Aragorn from Boromir's point of view feel more like Author-based than something Boromir would say, though by the end that lessened a lot. A lot of the lesser Gondorian characters don't really stand out and feel interchangeable to a degree, and other "main" characters as well feel flat, while the mentioning of various dates and parts of Middle Earth's history are clunky and take me out of the story. Faramir, Boromir and Denethor's relationship is while interesting, basically a montage of the same things happening over and over again while we're expected to feel sad for Faramir and Boromir and mad at Denethor. But the movies did it so much better.

Now, the positives. The character of Svip is excellently done, both as a mythology fitted into LOTR and as a character standing on his own merit. He's interesting, he's got character development, he introduces interesting if somewhat silly lore (like the Anduin river being a gestalt being of sorts and silverweed bringing back the dead or drowned), and he's arguably as much the main character as Boromir. In turn, Boromir and several other characters (Faramir, Denethor, Eowyn arguably) feel like real characters and are consistent throughout the story, and their relationships as a whole are quite developed and advanced, if not as moving to me as it might be to others.

But, and this is more or less a negative: Nothing truly important has changed. Compare this to Canon. Denethor's dead, Sauron's defeated, Aragorn is king, Faramir is Steward, etc...

The only differences are that Boromir is alive (and bound to the Anduin River), Faramir and Eowyn aren't married, and the White Tree grew on Denethor's corpse. It's a decent story, but with a very similar end result to canon ... it's more a story to read if you're bored than a repeat read.

3.5/5

 

I'll get down to reading it in a bit, but first, I have a question:

How many times does Sean Boromir die?

Spoiler

(18:28:48) &Vash: ...
(18:28:50) &Vash: Summary: Boromir awakens from his death and finds himself in an unexpected situation. Basically book universe with some AU bits, but inspired by Sean Bean. Complete! Chapter 29 up, nine years after I started writing this.
(18:28:57) &Vash: ...why?
(18:29:03) &Vash: just... why?
(18:29:40) CerpinTaxt: Sean Bean inspired them to write about Boromir for a decade.
(18:29:48) CerpinTaxt: How's that feel?
(18:29:54) Murton: Because he's a giant faggot
(18:30:13) &Vash: CerpinTaxt: How's that feel?
(18:30:17) &Vash: Better question:
(18:30:27) &Vash: How many times with Sean Boromir die in this one store?
(18:30:29) &Vash: story*
(18:30:46) CerpinTaxt: Who the wherefore what my now how?
(18:31:15) &Vash: Sean Bean has died in pretty much everything he has done.
(18:31:39) CerpinTaxt: Ah

 

I enjoyed this for what it is. A slightly different view of canon with Boromir. Hash said it quite well. Parts are very consistent, solid character writing but a bit boring.

3/5