gensplosion | Entries tagged with sense of place

FANDOM: The Thick of It / BBC Sherlock
FIC LINK: Red Right Hand
AUTHOR LINK:

jackmarlowe
RATING/WARNING(S): G | swearing
WIP?/WORD COUNT: Complete | 1001 words
MAIN CHARACTERS: Malcolm Tucker, C.A. Magnussen, Mycroft Holmes

FIC SUMMARY: When Mycroft Holmes decides to do business with the country's rising media mogul, he chooses a middleman who knows something about government and the papers. Malcolm Tucker is not best pleased.

RECCER'S NOTES: Very well-written, short, very unsettling. Will stay in your head for much longer than it takes you to read either it or this rec, so get to it. A truly excellent crossover.

Does not require knowledge of both fandoms, but for Sherlock fans: Malcolm Tucker is terrifying Glaswegian press officer for Number 10. TTOI fans: Mycroft Holmes "occupies a minor position in the British Government". (This is a lie.) Magnussen is a blackmailing media mogul.

~~cor it's quiet here innit~~

longlivehumour

FANDOM: Fullmetal Alchemist (all universes)
FIC LINK: Stock Market Crash
AUTHOR LINK:

VIKAN
RATING/WARNING(S): Complete | Discussions of genocide, some gore, swearing
WIP?/WORD COUNT: Complete | 30,500
MAIN CHARACTERS: Roy Mustang, Edward Elric

FIC SUMMARY: Stranded in the middle of the Eastern Desert, Roy Mustang must try to get himself and a concussed Edward across it safely before he completely loses his mind.

RECCER'S NOTES: OH GOD THIS FIC. Told from the perspective of an increasingly-unbalanced Roy Mustang, this is a superb story. Though the subject matter is grim, the dialogue is sprinkled with humour - Ed and Roy's acerbic relationship is a joy to read - and it never falls into the trap of navel-gazing that plagues so many fanfics. Mustang is a complex character who's done some truly horrible things, and this story has no qualms in showing that. If it has one flaw it's the proofreading, which left out a number of homophone mistakes, but the rest of the writing is fantastic: vivid and to the point. The story structure keeps the suspense right up till the end.

"Evil, evil thing, to make someone want revenge."

~~(Happy birfday to meee now here's some SUFFERING)~~

thady

FANDOM: The Lord of the Rings
FIC LINK: Voices at the Door.
AUTHOR LINK:

rhymer23
RATING/WARNING(S): G
WIP?/WORD COUNT: novelette | ~ 16,000 words
MAIN CHARACTERS: Bilbo Baggins, Aragorn

FIC SUMMARY: Bilbo spent nineteen years in Rivendell, as both he and the world changed. This is those nineteen years charted in scenes between Bilbo and Aragorn, plus occasional letters that remained unsent.

RECCER'S NOTES:

This is a wonderful story depicting the frienship between Aragorn and Bilbo Baggins. Both of them are very much in character (more-so with their book versions, though). I can hear them clearly.
This fills the gaps of the "The Lord of the Rings" with life. I love Bilbo's voice here, and how he sees (and not-sees) the world and the happenings around him.

espresso_addict

FANDOM: Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper)
FIC LINK: Watch for the Greenwitch
AUTHOR LINK:

Selden
RATING/WARNING(S): Teen | No authorial warnings; horror
WIP?/WORD COUNT: Complete | ~2500 words
MAIN CHARACTERS: Jane Drew, Will Stanton

FIC SUMMARY: The offering to the Greenwitch always looks tangled and cold. Jane is cold, too.

RECCER'S NOTES: Dark is Rising is a series of children's novels by Susan Cooper, loosely based in Arthurian mythology. Most of the fanfiction is very ship-focused, but there are some gen gems to be found. This unusual slow-building horror story spins off Greenwitch and focuses on Jane Drew. Selden does a good job of melding the prosaic with the supernatural, in the spirit of the original, and the luscious descriptions bring the Cornish coastal setting to life. Rereading the series as an adult I found the Light characters often felt inhumanly cold, and there's an interesting ambiguity to Will's actions in this story. (Does he precipitate events, or merely foretell them?) ~~There's a slight film moment early on (Mrs Stanton's American) but don't let that put you off.~~ ETA: My mistake; see comments!

espresso_addict

FANDOM: Doctor Who
FIC LINK: Looked Up in Perfect Silence at the Stars
AUTHOR LINK:

doyle_sb4,

Doyle-sb4, Doyle@Teaspoon
RATING/WARNING(S): G | None
WIP?/WORD COUNT: Complete | ~1900 words
MAIN CHARACTERS: Sarah Jane Smith, Romana II

FIC SUMMARY: “If he’d left me on Earth,” Sarah said, “if he’d had time to take me home, like he’d meant to, before he got dragged back here... everything would have been different. My whole life.”

RECCER'S NOTES: Doyle's one of my favourite DW writers; I think this brief conversation piece is one of her best. It centres around the Time War, with a clever, disturbing look at the fallout that will send you back to the start as soon as you've finished the final paragraphs. The characters, all women, leap off the page, and their humour, bravery & pragmatism lighten what might otherwise be a very dark piece. Set on Gallifrey, it's also imbued with a lovely wistful sense of place.

I'm tagging this for author rec as I've never encountered a story of Doyle's that wasn't worth reading, and many of her works are gen. She also writes in the Buffyverse.

espresso_addict

FANDOM: Frontier Wolf (Rosemary Sutcliff)
FIC LINK: Not the Emperor's Bodyguard
AUTHOR LINK:

bunn
RATING/WARNING(S): General | None
WIP?/WORD COUNT: Complete | ~1600 words
MAIN CHARACTERS: Julius Gavros, Hilarion

FIC SUMMARY: Julius Gavros arrives at Castellum in charge of the Third Ordo Frontier Wolves. It's not really the job that he'd hoped for...

RECCER'S NOTES:

Apologies for the hiatus in my recs; I'll try to be more energetic for the remainder of the month!

Frontier Wolf is a novel in Rosemary Sutcliff's Eagle of the Ninth series about members of the Aquila family in Roman Britain. Since the film The Eagle the FW fandom's taken flight, but gen is particularly hard to find. Bunn here takes a charismatic minor character and explains how such a competent & intelligent man came to end up in a punishment posting at the back end of the Empire. The long-abandoned fort is carefully created in sight and sound and smell to imbue the piece with a wonderful sense of place. Bunn's work is always based on impeccable historical research and her author's notes make an interesting read. No canon knowledge is required to appreciate the story.

gensplosion!

Entries tagged with sense of place

The Thick of It / BBC Sherlock: Red Right Hand, by jackmarlowe

Fullmetal Alchemist: Stock Market Crash, by VIKAN

LotR: Voices at the Door, by Rhymer23.

Dark is Rising: Watch for the Greenwitch, by Selden

Doctor Who: Looked Up in Perfect Silence at the Stars, by Doyle

Frontier Wolf: Not the Emperor's Bodyguard, by Bunn

The Espresso Addict