Welcome to AYWSF, Cudae and Tirned Tinnu! Have a cup of wonder on me.
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Cudae: I can relate to most of the troubles you've been running into. Just one remonstration: are you sure you want to go the route of evil winning? That goes against the very nature of fantasy, as explicated by Tolkien. Fantasy at its best leads us to eu-catastrophe, that is, the sudden reversal from everything being grim and tragic to, against all odds and against all the evidence, the good and the right and the free being saved from slavery and destruction. To have evil win is to create tragic drama. All the rules are different. Just my 2 cents.
As for the Freestyle Rand Award, how about Stephen R. Donaldson for taking us back into the self-absorbed "I can't do anything about this, I won't do anything about this" broken record of Thomas Covenant's thought life? Granted, he didn't spend tend straight pages on it but he would go half a page to a page on it over and over again until you just got sick of the guy and wanted him killed by the next Urvile.
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