Title: Neon Genesis Silmarillion
Author: JohnWBiles
Rating: Unrated as it's not on FF.net, but I'd give it T based on what I've read so far.
Genre: Unspecified - but Adventure/Drama/Romance thus far.
DLP Category: EVA / Tolkein
Pairing: Shinji/OC so far, doesn't seem very prominent.
Words: 108,148 (Book I) + 109,721 (Book II) + parts of Book III
Update: September 7, 2011
Published: September 5, 2010
Status: Abandoned
Summary: No official summary, but basically - retelling of Neon Genesis Evangelion with a backstory heavily influenced by a fusion with Lord of the Rings / The Silmarillion.
Link: http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=173331
Other Link: First two books are posted on his website at http://www.thekeep.org/~wombat/Stories/NGS/. Thanks yak.

It is, sadly, on the Space Battles forum which means among other things, the story posts are scattered throughout a thread. Generally, they're easy to spot since they're fairly long and occur every page or two, so it's not quite the pain it normally is thus far.

I've got no idea how long the story is, I've just been reading it in the thread, and am on page 14 out of 71 - did verify that he's still adding updates as of page 70, so official guess is 'VERY LONG'.

John Biles is one of the ancient authors of fanfiction. He was really prominent back in the Ranma/FFML days, and wrote some of the original kickass EVA fusions, like Children of an Elder God (EVA/Lovecraft).

This story is well written, characterized nicely, and honestly something I have not seen before. Second Impact was not the same (and has a goddamn bizarre explanation, which I assume is a cover story), and the enemy is not the Angels we've seen a hundred times before. The characters are generally way more likeable than in canon - Shinji is shy rather than pathetic, Asuka is an overconfident genius rather than an overbearing psychobitch, Rei is eccentric and weird rather than emotionally dead, etc.

A lot of characters will seem like they might be Sues at first, but it doesn't particularly bother me because (minor spoiler):

Spoiler

pretty much everyone born after Second Impact is at least in some aspect a Sue due to the LoTR elf influences. This is particularly apparent in art fields like dancing and music, though it hasn't been particularly obtrusive outside of one very odd scene with Gendo.

Overall, odd story, but I like it, and it's been updating very fast judging by the pace of the first dozen pages of the thread. Would give it a 5/5 personally, at least based on what I have read of it so far.



Checked by Minion, Nov. 25, 2012

 

John W. Biles is still alive? Holy shit.

Sometimes I get the impression that John IS an Elder God (of fanfiction).

I'll have to check this out.

 

I've been following this for a while. If nothing else, I give him credit for an absolutely insane update rate. He consistently updates every single day with at least a few thousand words.

The story itself is .... odd. The way he's integrated the two universes is incredible and it's been necessary for me to constantly keep looking up the various Tolkien characters he mentions. The plot is probably the best part of the story overall, but the characters often seem fairly flat. Also, his style is unusual and takes a while to get used to. Having said that, I'd easily rate this 4/5.

 

In keeping with that status, John has compiled and released the fic in plain ascii text. Hard word wrapped. I used to read all of my fics this way!

So you can choose to read the in-progress-edition in piecemeal style on the Space Battles forum, or the final version in plain text on John Biles website.

John has released two "books" so far in this series, and each one is a little over 630k. That's a lot of writing. When I get to the end of Book 2 I'll go back to Spacebattles and catch up with the newest content. That seems better than struggling through Spacebattles "Server is busy; come back later" messages when I'm trying to read a new page on the forum.

 

Sweet, thanks for the heads up Yak.

 

I was asked elsewhere if you need to have an indepth knowledge of Tolkien lore to enjoy this fic.

The answer is no. If you've read the books, the supplementals, Tolkien's letters, etc. then you're going to be finding hidden links to all kinds of Tolkien lore... or at least so it appears if the responses by Tolkien fanatics on the Spacebattles forums are any indication.

I've only see the movies once and read the Hobbit about 15-20 years ago and never felt that this fic was short changing me. If I need to know about a piece of LotR lore, then it'll be included within the text.

 

I've had to wiki a few names here and there. I'll try to keep it very simple. These are some of the things you might want to glance at before reading the fic if, like me, you've only seen the movies. Once.

Iluvatar = GOD
Ainur = angels
Valar = angels who decided to live on Earth. Maiar = lesser Valar. eg. Gandalf
Eldar = elves

Morgoth = Satan. He's a fallen ainur and the root of all evil in Tolkien-verse.
Sauron = Morgoth's lieutenant. He's maiar.
Feanor = Elf who made the silmarils
Silmarils = Three magic gems. Prophecied to save Earth during end times. Two were lost, third became a star.
Alatáriel = Galadriel, aka Lady of the Wood. Immortal uber-elf royalty. Played by Cate Blanchett in the films.

---------- Post automerged at 21:31 ---------- Previous post was at 19:48 ----------

This fic now has a title: Neon Genesis Silmarillion

If you're reading the first two books on John Biles website, then you'll probably want to know where the third book starts in the forum thread. It's post #894 out of about 1800 posts in the thread so far. Direct link:

Book III: The Battle of Sudden Flame