10 KiB
Saruman of many Devices Chapter 1, a Lord of the Rings + Book X-overs Crossover fanfic
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Author: u/None *
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URL:
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Score: 19
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Created: 2015-01-26T13:25:47
Post:
Comments:
u/FeepingCreature [+5] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (3 hours later)
tl;dr: "1632 with Uruks".
Biggest criticism for me is that Saruman's voice sounds ... off. He sounds like he's reading off Wikipedia sometimes. Could have spent some more time polishing his manner of speech, but it's all good for the crossover awesomeness.
u/autowikibot [+1] (3 hours later)
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#### 1632 (novel):
1632 is the initial novel in the best-selling alternate history 1632 book series written by historian, writer and editor Eric Flint. The flagship novel kicked off a collaborative writing effort that has involved hundreds of contributors and dozens of authors. The premise involves a small American town of three thousand 'Hillbillies' sent back to April 1631, in an alternate Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.
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^Interesting: ^1632 ^| ^The ^Stellar ^Guild ^| ^Hakkapeliitta ^| ^1634: ^The ^Baltic ^War
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u/None [+4] (3 minutes later)
I love this thing, but it's boring sometimes. The author knows a lot about weapons and war though.
u/RMcD94 [+8] (25 minutes later)
If you like often highly specific and technical reading I definitely recommend the alternatehistory.com boards where the author posts this story. You can find lengthy stories on what seem like tiny changes and outside of ASB (alien space bats) forum they all are attempting to accurately represent people and their desires (huge part of history), no evil irrational antagonist. You also get lots of discussion about how a 17th century weaponry operates etc. I've recommended the site before here.
u/Timewinders [+3] (9 hours later)
Any particularly good stories?
u/thatsciencegeek [+3] (an hour later)
I also love it, and yes, on occasion he goes a bit too deep into technical details, but that doesn't discourage me from continuing to read. Pity it updates so very rarely.
u/None [+3] (11 hours later)
Pity it updates so vary rarely.
I started reading MoR three years ago. I think I can wait.
u/Bowbreaker [+5] Solitary Locust (9 hours later)
So after reading the first two chapters I have one thing that irks me most. The Uruk's anachronism. It makes sense that the ancient and wise Saruman mentally connected to the stunted FAI 'Central' thinks in a rather modern fashion, but what made the Uruk into disciplined and educated men discussing Gandalf's bigotry? And what happened to the LOTR canon degeneration. Did Saruman manage to cure his race completely of everything but their ugly face despite millennia of corruption through Morgoth?
u/None [+8] (11 hours later)
the LOTR canon degeneration
Which is, of course, merely a racist stereotype perpetuated by the enemies of scientific advancement – one that, it seems, you've bought hook, line, and sinker. Feel free to educate yourself on your antiquated bigotry with the Salon essay Enemy of Progress and the excellent fanfic The Last Ringbearer.
u/Bowbreaker [+3] Solitary Locust (20 hours later)
So generations of purposeful inbreeding don't have any actual effect? Because it seems like the book treats all the rest of the book as canon, including fiery balrogs, magical palantir and Sauron with all his evil magic and manifold minions. In any case, even if the Uruk minds are as sharp or sharper than those of humans they still wouldn't suddenly become a wise-cracking, post-medieval culture casually talking about Gandalf's bigotry. Not to mention how they are suddenly completely at home with any new innovation, supremely understanding and disciplined and generally more perfect than life all the while, if I understood the Uruk creation process right, having had less than 5 years of education since their birth. Because if Uruk have a normal life cycle then when did Saruman manage to breed several regiments plus support staff in the little time since he came into contact with Sauron? And who the hell gave them all of that anachronistic culture? Allfather Saruman?
u/ajuc [+2] (a day later)
If dogs are any indication you can (in)bred for discipline and kindness just as well as you can (in)bred for agression, size, hair color etc.
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (2 days later)
And in your conclusion orcs are elves who were bred by Morgoth for discipline and kindness?
u/FeepingCreature [+2] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (18 hours later)
I am curious how it will develop given that God literally has a plan for this world that He's acting to defend and I'm pretty sure that plan does not include outerdimensional AIs. I wonder if this world is even still in the same cosmology. I mean, the power of the Maiar is technically outerdimensional itself, no? So how does that work with the cosmology?
u/Topher876 [+2] (23 hours later)
It seems to me like this story takes Uruk as a distinct species from the Orcs and does something very common in a lot of the rational fiction I've read which is not accepting arbitrary corruption or evil.
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (2 days later)
Well, it later on does allude more than once on how Uruk's are created and very young. The several soldiers being less than two years old kind of young. So my argument still stands. You need more than just not being corrupted to suddenly become the most wisecracking and progressive society on the continent at age 5.
u/Topher876 [+1] (2 days later)
I'm not intimately familiar with the uruk creation process but Saruman manages to train an entire army well enough to carry out a siege and march in ranks, there's clearly some initial knowledge dump which presumably could be tinkered. Other than that I think it was mainly just the author using a conversation to contrast the story uruks to canon uruks.
u/JackStargazer [+2] Primordial Apologist (2 hours later)
Excellent, but hasn't updated for over 6 months.
u/SergeantMatt [+1] (4 hours later)
He's had breaks that long between chapters before, this story has always updated less frequently than his others.
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (7 hours later)
Anyone can tell me what "Book" is before I dive into it?
u/alexanderwales [+6] Time flies like an arrow (8 hours later)
fanfiction.net has a category called "Book X-overs" which seems to be used for crossovers with books that aren't in their own category, or for when there's a crossover between multiple books. It's basically a failure state for their categorization system, since saying that this is a Lord of the Rings and Book X-overs crossover is utterly meaningless.
It's actually a crossover between The Lord of the Rings and The General series by S.M. Stirling.
u/autowikibot [+1] (8 hours later)
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#### The General series:
The General (also known as the Raj Whitehall series, after the lead character) is a set of military science fiction books written by S.M. Stirling from an outline by David Drake. Clearly inspired by the Byzantine commander Belisarius, the series shares numerous common elements with the more recent Belisarius series by Drake and Eric Flint.
^Interesting: ^Panzer ^General ^II ^| ^The ^General ^(TV ^series) ^| ^Star ^Healer ^| ^Mind ^Changer
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