Hastaina by Dawn Felagund

I knew I had reviewed this story, because I loved it. I couldn't find it in SWG but in the end I found it in the MEFAs 2011. 

I read Lovecraft's Necronomicon for the first time well over twenty years ago [30 year now!], possibly not long after The Lord of the Rings. The Silmarillion followed a couple of years later. I have always disliked gory, blood-splattered horror stories, but Lovecraft was not that, it was a horror that came from disturbing ideas, hints of ancient evil, manifested in blood-curling dreams of worlds and civilizations long vanished in our past, like Tolkien's mythical world. Worlds where "cyclopean blocks" and other artifacts were tainted by the memory of those who built them and perished in harrowing circumstances. Or did they?

With Dawn Felagund's Hastaina, I am amazed at how perfectly those feelings of primaeval anguish that Lovecraft tales stirred have been mirrored in the setting of the ruins of Angband.

The conclusion of the story is disturbing, and yet, as valid an interpretation of the Ainulindalë as the one more generally deduced from the other writings that form the Silmarillion. I was just left reeling at the whole clever twist that turned the vision of creation and marring on its head, that presented a view where evil was built into Ea from the beginning, where Melkor was no different from his brethren, where the creator had chosen to make all of this possible.

I loved the re-interpretation of Fëanor as the one who had begun to unlock this terrible secret, before his findings were censored and his voice of truth silenced in Mandos.

This story is a masterpiece of imagination, a true horror tale in its most chilling but intelligent logic, written in perfect, ominously heavy Lovecraftian style. A must read.

Well, what can I say? You surpassed yourself again. This is fantastic - shocking, horrible, terrifying, but fantastic. As usual, I wish I could write a more coherent review, but I'm lost for words. What a brilliant look at the Ainulindale! (And what fodder for dark, heretical stories indeed!)
 
Author's Response:
Lyra, thank you so much--I'm beaming to get such high praise from an author I admire! :D I'll take incoherence any day; I'm glad that you liked it. I didn't expect much at all from this story; I knew it would appeal to Pandemonium (since the original crossover concept was her idea) but have to admit that I am really pleasantly surprised at the reaction otherwise. It was a really fun story to write; a world I might look more at later. (Just what I need--a third 'verse!)
(And I got your cover art; I've just been up to my ears in B2MeM stuff but I love it--here's my turn for incoherence! :D--and will send you a proper email just as soon as I have the mental capacity to do so.) Thank you again for reading and reviewing! *hugs*

I know I left a review for this on your LJ, but I wanted to say again how muh I loved this, and how much i admire your writing abilities to be able to combine both Tolkien and Lovecraft, both of them have a unque writing voice but you captured this beautifully. The language  an descriptions are both awe inspiring and chilling. You write horror like no one's business, Dawn! Great stuff!

Well, what can I say? You surpassed yourself again. This is fantastic - shocking, horrible, terrifying, but fantastic. As usual, I wish I could write a more coherent review, but I'm lost for words. What a brilliant look at the Ainulindale! (And what fodder for dark, heretical stories indeed!)

Wow!  You merge Lovecraft and Tolkien seamlessly here, Dawn - and reveal something about the nature of the Valar that many Silmarillion readers have suspect for a long, long time (if not quite consciously).  Very clever!

I love the lush, atmospheric language you use here to bring the drowned ruins alive.  Lovecraft himself couldn't have bettered the sense of eldritch horror this tale slowly, masterfully invokes.  Very well done!

Wow, what an enchanting tale.It left me horrified, speechless.

I am no lover of the Valar, but I read very few stories which were so powerful and different.

I actually can see this as the "real truth" hidden behind a "marketing" version of the Ainulindalë, the one known to us.

Thank you for a very powerful plot and convincing telling.

Yes, I can't but agree with the previous reviews - the blending is perfect. I would say it's unnaturally perfect, but it exists... And I am glad it does.
But, Master Ornisso... *here the voice or the reveiwer becomes a hissing whisper* there are still many things beyond... things that noone but Eru knows, and knowing those means calling death on your head... but if you really want to know, summon me on the Midsummer night and I'll tell you a story or two.

Slightly edited copy of my MEFA review:

I haven’t read enough Lovecraft to say much about this story as a cross-over. On the level of personal taste, I was grateful that this story, although it fully lives up to the label “horror”, doesn’t indulge in any “squishiness”, so to speak. Hastaina contains vivid vignettes of Angband at the time when it was occupied by Morgoth and detailed descriptions of the place in its ruined state after the War of Wrath. But the horror at the heart of this story is aimed at the mind, not at the guts. It is a surprise to realize afterwards that, although the intense discomfort caused by the Northern ice and the midnight sun are impressively evoked, all that physically happens to the protagonist is fairly banal: he ends up cutting his finger.
The cruel thing about this story is how it not only reveals the hypocrisy of the Valar—whom the protagonist to some extent distrusts from the beginning—but also of Eru and, by extension, the complicity both of Tolkien and us, his readers, in the Marring of Arda. The music of the Ainulindale cannot sweetly swallow up the disharmony of Melkor, because it was intrinsically deformed by Iluvatar’s own [bellow]. Tolkien’s aim in the Silmarillion from early on (if by no means the only goal) is surely to attempt to make sense, indirectly, of the national and personal catastrophe represented by World War I within the framework of his Catholic faith. I think he failed in this—on a literary level that is (rather than a private one), although I know others will disagree—but he certainly went on trying as among other things his essay “On Fairy-Stories” shows. There the eucatastrophe of the Christian happy-end is defended by Tolkien against the supposedly more realistic tragedy and the selfish catharsis of its followers. Hastaina, however, wickedly equates the two, making the whole enterprise a hollow one, and hints that we are willing voyeurs of Feanor’s and Frodo’s pain, whether the story ends “happily” or not.
In this story, Dawn has made telling use of learned details such as the history of the Lambengolmor and has spared us neither the sad fate of Alqualonde nor the humiliation of Pengolodh. Of course, perhaps the ultimate injury to a reader is the utter inaccessibility of those tempting books of Feanor’s. But does that impregnable case of silima perhaps not contain a light after all? The "found poem" embedded in the story, supposedly a damaged page from one of Feanor's books, almost seems to hint so--only not quite.

Yes! Not only was this a perfect blend of Lovecraft and Tolkien, this is actually how I felt about Ainulindale after reading it. I think it has something to do with not being Christian, not finding pain a very fair thing and assuming a creator, if he exists, to be ultimately good. After all, Eru, much like the Christian god, is the creator of absolutely everything in Ea and already knows what will happen, the story is already written, good and evil both...and consequently, both by him. In the Sil universe there are not even the ammends of sacrifice - the Valar are spectators and weavers of stories if anything, and the strange ( to me, at least) supposed compassion shown in the christian myth seems entirely absent. They only really act when the story seems to be about to be stopped entirely by too much destruction. Tolkien was of course a devout Catholic, and I wonder if he was aware of the undertone of his own created world. I mean, in Athrabeth there is Andreth and Adanel's tale  but - it seems strangely futile, just a story, a guess - Finrod doesn't seem convinced and it only makes Andreth very, very bitter. Maybe my reading experience is coloured by my own lack of faith in the Ultimate Good(tm), but well...Thanks for the story though, it was great. Sorry about the rambling. :) 

I have loved this since first I read it and it still rings clearly.  What are we, after all, but the playthings of the Gods.  

- Erulisse (one L)

Yes, you did good work to put Lovecrafts style into the Sil world. Not physically hurt ( okay, a bloody finger...), but having some mind changing experience,  which leaves you back never looking at the world with the same perception.

The dream passage, the anticipated discovery , absolute Lovecraft.

Then, the people at Alqualonde being poor, suits me well. Even in Aman there is not pure happiness, you are forced to toe the line, even an old scholar or a wise man.

I never thought the Valar to be clear bright and absolutely good; there is too much vested interest in their deeds.

Always keeping the light for their own purpose, even nearly FORGING Feanor to destroy his work to keep them their light.

What about the world outside, with plants and animals put under sleep, till the rising of the sun?

What about the Avari, who did not want to leave their home to travel to a foreign country, under the rule of mighty beings, whom they somehow mistrusted.

Wasn't it selfish to want to have the firstborn children near and under control? Even some of the Valar, Ulmo, and Osse, if my memory is correct, did not agree with this plan.

And not to help the Eldar, until most of them perished in the fight against what should by right be the enemy and the task of the Valar ( the renegade out of their own circles ).

Do candles pity moths? Yes, a nice description for such case...

Okay, somtimes Manwe sends his eagles for help, but only at last, and not without costs. (Maedhros' hand, Frodo' s finger, the death of Thorin, Fili and Kili tbc).

There would be a lot of things, to linger on, but it is deep night here, and I grew sleepy, in spite of my passion about this topic...

I hope not to dream something *Lovecraft like *

*shudder*

Bye, Lia/Sullhach