The Wrong Way to the Indies by Fireworks

Thank you for archiving this, Fireworks. Between finishing the newsletter last night and getting your story posted on the AinA site, I was falling asleep in my chair and just couldn't do it. I came by first thing this morning and saw that you had--thank you!--and apologies for not getting to it last night.

I have fallen behind on commenting and haven't had the chance to say how much I've enjoyed all of the stories you've written for AinA. This one, particularly, I really like. I'd never given much thought to how the world was found to be round--just that it was. I think you do a great job of showing not just the practical challenge facing Lenardil--how to tell his people some very hard news when he is not exactly prepared to do so?--but some of the psychological consequences of discovering how drastically the world has been changed under their feet ... and because of the actions of one man. That had to be alarming, to say the least! To say nothing of the effect it had on people like Lenardil's mother, who had put the whole of their hopes into one small but nonetheless possible outcome and who are now left with nothing.

One common theme to your stories that I love is your female characters. Your women are always strong and possess their own personalities, and I am so grateful to see an author who is unafraid to bring them to the fore the way that you do. :)

I read this in today in Numenor and loved it.  What a great idea first of all with lots of potential.  I enjoyed the relationship between Lenardil and Neliel -- the fact that both of them are common folk in the same way that Frodo was who need to find courage to release information that will change the world and I like that they find the courage in each other.   

What an enjoyable read, Fireworks!  The story, although set in Middle-earth, speaks to those in our primary world who have made discoveries -- and then have announced them publicly -- with fear of repercussions from society set spinning, e.g., Galileo and Darwin among others.  One gets the very same sense from Lenardil, who fears to reveal what he knows, yet who must, because like the aforementioned of our primary world, he cannot do otherwise because of his intellectual courage.

And I loved the details of his craft -- the inks, the dyes (from onion skins!  Excellent!) to his pondering over the projections of the new maps.  Just wonderful!

I liked this a lot, Fireworks - I liked that it was left to the cartographer to break the news, the little details of his craft that make your story feel that much more real, and your OFC is very richly drawn in a short space of words. Wonderful!

I have never considered how the fact that the world had changed would create confusion and despair. Very well done!

Now that's an interesting subject for a story, I'd always assumed the first discovery that the world was now round came so long after the Downfall that Numenor itself was only a legend, but there's really no reason enough skill in ship-building and navigation could not have survived for the discovery to be made much sooner.  And I like that at the end the truth causes less panic than Lenardil had feared.  In the long run it's surely a healthy discovery - no more hankering after trying to reach Valinor