Field Reports

Narnia: Buried by Ivy Blossom (Edmund)

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 20:31:52 GMT

ivyblossom's Buried is actually the third story in a trilogy which posits a relationship between Edmund and Bacchus, but I read it without reading the former two, and it felt fine to me. It takes place in the ordinary world of England, during The Last Battle when Peter and Edmund search for the rings. Edmund's ambivalence toward Narnia and his own post-Narnian life is intriguing -- there's a lovely sort of disquieting mood pervading the whole story, even though nothing much happens in it.

I think this Edmund is a bit older than I picture him being in TLB (he's only meant to be a year or two older than Eustace, who was still a schoolboy in TLB, right?), but if you can get past that, it works.

Narnia: Growing Up by sheldrake (Susan, Lucy)

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 20:26:21 GMT

sheldrake's Growing Up is a story for everyone who had issues with C.S. Lewis's treatment of Susan in The Last Battle. Susan and Lucy are sisters -- their wants and desires may be different, they may be strangers to each other in certain respects, but they still share that one common ground. This story understands this, in a way that Lewis's published words apparently didn't. The ending is incredibly poignant.

Narnia: Memory of Heaven by corbeaun (Edmund, Lucy)

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 20:19:29 GMT

It's easy to forget that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe takes place during World War II and the London Blitz. corbeaun's Memory of Heaven remembers. Neither of Edmund's worlds really exists independent of the other -- the one bleeds into and infects the other, and his actions and their consequences are not so easily shakeable simply because he is living a new life.

The story is very short, more of a vignette really, but it's exactly right, exactly what Edmund must be, given the historical context of the book and what we know of him. Even Lucy is finely drawn, in just the perfect amount of words -- perfectly chosen words. The whole thing is sort of breathtaking.

HP: The Chosen by allecto (Crabbe/Harry)

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 05:21:09 GMT

Yes, you read the pairing right. Vincent Crabbe/Harry Potter. Trust me. It works. Open up allecto's The Chosen, get over your initial shock about the concept, and keep reading.

This isn't a story about a shock pairing. It's about Vincent Crabbe, and what it means to be a pureblood wizard, the son of a Death Eater, a Slytherin, and finally, what it means to be all of those things while working for the wrong side. This is a minor character brought vividly to life. I love the way the author takes tiny glimpses of things JKR gives us and spins whole customs and histories out of them, while in turn distilling them back into tiny glimpses which make the world utterly real and affecting.

HP: Nine Adulteries by Atra (Snape/Harry)

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 05:14:11 GMT

I don't read a lot of Snape/Harry, and I think I know why now: it's because this pairing needs to be dark for me. I can't see romance for it. I see only pain, death, anger and obsession. And after reading atrata's Nine Adulteries, there's really no way I can deal with any other kind of Snape/Harry now.

This story messed with my head. I mean, seriously. It's intense, it's fucked up, it's not what you think, it needs to be read carefully, multiple times, with all of your attention and everything you know about the series at the ready. And even then, a purely superficial reading will still make you go, "Holy shit, that's completely amazing." Because it is.

Major spoilers for HBP. And did I mention that it's DARK?

HP: The Bathtub's Archipelago by Setissma (Harry/Ron)

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 05:05:45 GMT

setissma says in her notes to The Bathtub's Archipelago that she's never written Ron before, let alone Harry/Ron. She should do it more often. This is a such a sharp little story, a perfect slice of their relationship as it might look after the war is over, when the boys will likely need some putting back together.

HP: Reclamation by Sam Vimes (Tom Riddle)

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 05:01:14 GMT

copperbadge's Reclamation is a fascinating AU about a Tom Riddle who chose a different path. The key here, though, is that he's still Tom Riddle. Excellent characterization all around -- chilling characterization, considering how much is different, and how much is exactly the same.

Note: I've characterized this as gen in the tags, but there is a bit of Remus/Sirius slash.

HP: Five Dead Women by Snegurochka (various)

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 04:53:25 GMT

snegurochka_lee wrote Five Dead Women for the femgenficathon. This is for all of those people who say the female characters in the HP-verse aren't interesting or are badly written or whatever lame excuse is the thing du jour. I don't think you can get such a freaking awesome story unless there's something compelling going on with the women in the source material, and this story is about five of them.

In short, it's freaking awesome. Read each section carefully -- it's all one story, and the final one is breathtaking.

(Note: very much post-HBP.)

DW: A Phantom of Clouds by Doyle (Nine/Jack/Rose)

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 04:46:14 GMT

doyle_sb4's A Phantom of Clouds is just -- oh, utterly gorgeous. The characterizations are delicate and just right, and the setting is rather original. It's a sort of quiet, thinky, lovely little story, with tantalizing glimpses into plausible personal histories for the three characters.

Note: the pairing implies threesome, but there's the story is not sexually explicit at all.

DW: Ivory and Horn by TaraLJC (Nine, Rose)

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 04:39:11 GMT

taraljc always does really good, ep-like longer stories, no matter what fandom she's writing for. Happily, her current focus is on Doctor Who. Ivory and Horn is a slightly zany planetary adventure, Who-style, with some gentle subtext-made-more-text.

DW: City of Loss by gwynnega (Doctor/Rose-ish)

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 04:34:55 GMT

I love Who fics which play with the fact that the TARDIS is a time machine. More of that, please! gwynnega's City of Loss makes my little geeky romantic heart go pitter-pat.

DW: Pulse by Casira (Nine/Rose)

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 04:30:40 GMT

Everyone and their mother in the new Doctor Who fandom has read Pulse by casirafics, so I'm just jumping on the bandwagon. It's quite good, though -- a well-written reminder that the Doctor is alien, and that even so, he and Rose still manage to share something.

QAF US: Every Time by synchronik (Brian/Michael)

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 23:31:05 GMT

I LOVE best friend pairings, and Brian/Michael on Queer As Folk US was what got me into the show to begin with. Then, of course, Brian/Justin ran away with everything. Sure, they were pretty, but there's just something about buddyslash...

Anyway. synchronik, whom I have admired across many fandoms, wrote THE Brian/Michael story when the show ended: Every Time. It's sharp as hell -- Brian FUCKING Kinney leaps right off the screen -- but also quite sad in parts, because it deals with the end of relationships as well as the changing of them.

DW: Lovers, 'Tis Almost Fairy-Time by Loneraven (Rose, Doctor)

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 22:38:00 GMT

So I have a new fannish obsession. (Those who've followed my recs over the years are like, "Yeah, what's new.") That obsession is Doctor Who, the new series.

I still have...issues with NC-17 Whofic, or even outright romantic fic, although I've read and enjoyed fair amount. I think the best stories in the fandom are those like loneraven's Lovers, 'Tis Almost Fairy-Time, which is much more about the wonders of the Doctor's intellect and experience of the universe than his sexual prowess. It's also really well-written, and captures a sort of quiet and awed mood while at the same time feeling very much like the inside of Rose's head.

(Now, I went hunting and hunting for this story, to the exclusion of a ton of other Whofics I could have spent the time recommending, because I cleverly neglected to memory it when I first found it. So you know it has to be good, if I went to all that trouble.)

HP: Care of Magical Creatures by Arsenic (Hermione/Remus/Severus)

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 22:09:01 GMT

One of my favorite Hermione characterizations in fanfic is arsenicjade's Care of Magical Creatures. I've been meaning to recommend it for forever, but I think I just needed to dwell on it for a while. It's one of those.

Anyway, it's a novel-length, and it's all about personal recovery from the trauma of war, within the context of post-war reconstruction of wizarding society and prejudices -- specifically, hatred of werewolves. There are certain emotional moments in the story which just made me sort of catch my breath in amazement. If you can get past certain Americanisms and some odd stylistic stuff, it's pretty fantastic.

The pairing is Hermione/Remus/Severus (but takes a long and thoroughly decent while to build to it), with Hermione/Ron/Harry in the past. Life has not been kind to these characters. They really broke my heart.

HP: Chaos Is Come Again by theatresm (Snape/Hermione)

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 21:57:37 GMT

I actually finished reading theatresm's Chaos is Come Again (Snape/Hermione) a while ago, but it took me a long time to get there and then I didn't actually like the end result -- but mostly because I was expecting it to go the way of most Snape/Hermiones. So I debated recommending it. But upon further reflection, I've rec'd plenty of stories I didn't like 100%, and this one has so much more to offer than most.

First of all, it's NOT a romance. Fancy that. Second, it's clearly written by someone with a brain. Fancy THAT. It's incredibly in-character (even post HBP, this is not a nice Snape, not at all) intelligently written, intriguingly political. It's set post-war, and it doubles as an impressive commentary on the state of the wizarding world, extrapolating brilliantly from the little bits JKR's dropped about Muggle/Muggle-born prejudices.

But the really cool thing about the story (and actually why it took me so long to finish) is that it was first posted entirely in the author's LJ as a work-in-progress, and as such every installment has comments from a regular round of readers. These comments, in their own way, are just as fascinating as the story itself. People freely discuss the Snape/Hermione characterizations, the implications of the plot, their own interpretations of canon and how the author's interpretation compares, and the author responds and sometimes argues back and it's just this crazy cool synthesis of author and reader and storyteller and audience. After each chapter I found myself spending just as much time reading the subsequent discussion, and wanting to log all the posts in my LJ memories because they're like mini-conferences on a myriad of issues in HP. I loved the chatty sort of storyteller-audience feel to it -- and the explanatory footnotes provided by the author for each chapter. Definitely a fun and absorbing way to read a fic.

Of course, if you don't want all of that, you can read the clean version here. Note that this page also includes a bonus end chapter which I don't think is in the LJ version.

And now that this rec is nearly as long as the story itself, I will move on...

HP: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Poet by ladysisyphus and rahaeli

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 01:25:35 GMT

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Poet by ladysisyphus and rahaeli.

Is this even fanfic? It's HBP done to the tune of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. Actually, it IS The Waste Land, only set at Hogwarts. Actually, stop reading my attempt at description and just click on the link. Because whether it's fanfic or not, it is ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT. Hilarious and chilling by turns.

Did I mention BRILLIANT?

AtS: In a Handful of Dust by Yoon Ha Lee (Wesley/Angel)

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 01:20:46 GMT

T.S. Eliot seems to be making the rounds of fandom. In a Handful of Dust by yhlee is weird, poetic, desperate, and dark. I think I'm a bit out of touch with the strangeness of the Angel-verse, but this is evocative and sad yet hopeful, and it's an interesting ending to attach to the one we got.

BSG: Intra by Kate Andrews (Kara/Lee)

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 01:00:12 GMT

There's a sort of house style in BSG fanfic already, all present tense minimalism with certain lines (over-)calculated for dramatic punch, and it doesn't always work for me. But svilleficrecs makes it work in Intra, which fills in some backstory for "33." The prose is unadorned, a bit rough at times, but the story takes a good long look at the characters and their memories of the time before in the midst of the hell they're currently going through.

HP: Ordinary Days by penknife (Ron/Hermione)

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 00:43:26 GMT

penknife's Ordinary Days is a quiet but strong little story in which Hermione takes it upon herself to learn something new about Ron. It's pretty much a slice of perfection. Set post-Half-Blood Prince.

HP: By the Sea by MC (Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny)

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 00:34:43 GMT

If only all the post-Half-Blood Prince shipper hullabaloo had produced more like owlyscribblings' By the Sea. This is a story that gives proper credit to all of the relationships implicated by JKR finally settling the question. It understands that most people don't stay with their first loves -- and more importantly, that changes of heart are not swoony or romantic. They're difficult. There are no easy, OTP-pleasing reconfigurations here.

Sometimes the writing style was a bit too oblique for me, but overall I thought it was refreshingly understated and un-dramatic, especially when such huge tectonic shifts are happening beneath the surface. It makes the playing out of these changes much more realistic and believable -- more like life rather than fiction.

HP: Night-blooming Heartsease by julad (Snape/Neville)

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 08:21:07 GMT

So I thought I was the last person in fandom who hadn't read Night-blooming Heartsease by julad, but then sophia_helix told me she'd never heard of it, and I was like, HOLY FUCK. What if there are other people who haven't heard of this wonderful, wonderful story???

Don't even blink at the pairing. This isn't some porny little encounter where they're both out of character and it's just an excuse for two guys to bump and grind. This is novel-length, with so much care taken for the characters (SNAPE and NEVILLE! and I use all-caps because they ARE Snape and Neville) and the universe and the canon that I was seriously in awe after like, four paragraphs in.

I don't know how to explain how much I loved the story. It's war fic -- which should be enough to recommend it by itself, because while we get a lot of post-war fic in this fandom, I haven't read a lot of stories which go right into the struggles and battles and changes that war puts people through. It also features a fucking wonderful Ron, an excellent plot, intelligent writing by an author whose brain is clearly clicking along at a much faster rate than many of us mere mortals, and, well...I keep gushing and really all I want to do is go back and read the entire story from beginning to end again.

Warning: it's a prequel to resonant8's Transfigurations, so the canon branches off after Book 3, thus Neville might seem a bit more rabbit-y than he would after Book 5. But it does work. Yes.

BSG: Supply and Demand by sangga (Lee, Kara, crew)

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 08:03:20 GMT

sangga's Supply and Demand is a quiet, gorgeous slice of life. It's three parts -- the link only goes to the first one, so use the little green arrows or the "next entry" link to get through the whole thing. It's the kind of story you read and think, "Yeah, that's what it's really like inside people's heads, when they're not acting like heroes, when they're just trying to deal with things." Actually, that sums it up about right: I think of it as a story about trying.

BSG: All Feelings But This One by Claira (Kara/Zak, Lee)

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 07:58:48 GMT

Feeding my love of pre-series Kara fic is stars_like_dust's All Feelings But This One. This is a much deeper exploration of Kara's relationship with Zak than I've seen done, and it's totally plausible as backstory. Things do get that much more interesting when Lee enters the story, but Zak is so well-drawn here that I really wanted to know more about him. And Kara, as well -- even though the story is told from her perspective, there's a certain emotional distance in the narrative which is quite tantalizing even as it feels like the right thing for her character.

BSG: Detour by Brynn McK (Lee/Kara)

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 07:51:18 GMT

I've found that I really like Kara fic set pre-series. brynnmck already wowed me with Laws of Gravity (link goes to rec), and now she's done it again with Detour. This one isn't as big in scope as the other, but it packs a lot of characterization into the story. The dialogue crackles, the sexual tension is...HOT, and it just generally inspires a lot of love.

brynnmck also posted two other stories along with this one, just prior to the S2 premiere: Remedy (much angstier reunion fic) and Bottom of a Well (non-angsty sweet S1 fic).