Rec List: Fic

[thefrogg]

Ok, I did my meta recs list.

Here's my fic recs list, and explanation:

I have two categories of fic rec, and one hybrid.

1. Fiction rec - a work in particular
2. Author rec - anything by a particular author
3. Fiction-by-Author rec - a particular work by a particular author - notable even among an entire library of that author's work. Most of these will have rather in-depth reasons why they should be read.

Again, I'll go ahead and say that not all of my recs here are going to be 'the best of the best' variety. I'm going to be honest with my assessment - they're my opinions, and not everything that's written is going to be exactly to my taste, even though they're listed here.

Rules to rec by:

1. As with my meta recs, readability, coherence, and technical proficiency count in spades.
   1. The odd typo, transliteration error and homonym mixup are forgivable. I read a lot of fic by English-as-second-language authors, and some things don't translate easily.
   2. Any fic good enough to make me MISS the errors probably belongs on this page somewhere. Because it's damn hard to get those past me. (Most published authors can't.)
2. They are very likely to hit my story kinks (not sexual kinks).
   1. I love long fic. They are much more likely to be memorable.
   2. Angst with good reason for it.
   3. Hurt/comfort
   4. Problematical ethics and/or loyalty. People doing the right thing for the right reason, damn the consequences, personal or intergalactic or anything in between.
   5. Out-of-the-ordinary format, point of view, structure, etc.
   6. Todd. Because everything is better with Todd.::hides::
3. Probably obvious, but they lack things that turn me off of fiction.
   1. Excessive porn. If there's explicit sex, it's not there just for porn's sake.
   2. Excessive banter/snark. Sorry, I really don't like endless McShep sniping. I really really don't.
4. They may have flaws, sometimes major flaws, but they're like coming home. Comfortable, heartwarming, a warm blanket to wrap myself up in when I'm sick and just want something to make me feel better.

Note: If you're on this list and I get something wrong (like your gender), please please drop me a note, comment, something, so I can fix it.

Also: slybrarian: I am not-so-quietly making off with your "Strangely Nice Ba'al" idea and running with it. I don't think he'll actually make it onto the Daedelus though. Right now he's cuffed to a bed in the SGC infirmary. I guess this means I need to go back and actually watch seasons 8-10.

Also also: LJ hates this post. Hates hates hates.

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Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis

This is the fandom(s) I'm most active/involved in right now, and also by far the largest I've ever been in. I'm going to try and limit my hybrid recs to three per author; there are some amazing authors with a lot of amazing work. It's a very prolific fandom.

In no particular order, other than the order I thought of them:

synecdochic - I can't say enough good stuff about her work; she has an entire library of meta essays on various topics as well as some outstanding SG1 and SGA fanfic. You can't go wrong reading any of it (even if the meta doesn't work very well for me personally). And one day I will learn to spell the name properly the first time.

1. Broken Wings. Yes, it's a universe, not a fic, but you can't really get a feel for A Howling in the Factory Yard without reading book one (This town is a song about you). I've always insisted 'I don't like dark!fic', and A Howling in the Factory Yard can't really be defined as not dark!fic. It made my skin crawl, and my stomach churn, and go "OMG, you did what? With WHO? Are you CRAZY?!" It hit every kink and avoided every anti-kink I have. It swallowed me down, and spun me around and chewed me up and spat me out, blinking and dizzy in the pre-dawn glow of my laptop screen. There are no easy answers, no cop-outs - I almost gave up in book one, when someone died who would have lived if most other authors had taken a crack at this - but there's laugher and tears, love and warmth and forgiveness and acceptance and the feeling of 'this is what life could be'. This universe is family. (Warning: It's also really damn LONG. Long even for me, and that's saying something.)


2. The Only Winning Move. Length-wise, this is actually on the short end of most of my recs. It's hysterically funny, just a training scenario in the SGC, with all the rules and rule-bending as you'd imagine would go on. It paints an incredibly rich portrait of the kind of traditions that would spring up in the insular society that is the SGC, with foibles and suspicion and competition. No sex (although I will never get the image of Frasier as a Goa'uld queen out of my head!), no shipping, just team!fic and good times.


3. Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose. I don't know if I first read this fic just from going through synecdochic's LJ, or if I read it hopping off of Keira Marcos' rec list. It's possible I got there either way, but anyhow. I have a love-hate relationship with this fic. I love this fic. There are things I hate about it, but can't see a way around because of story-imposed limitations. This fic is heartwarming, and heartbreaking, and poignant, and touching. It's got people [read: Rodney] doing the right things for the right reasons and paying for it and accepting the cost and living a good life anyways, just to thumb his nose at the universe [read: the people who made him make those choices]. It's got safeguarding the future against having to do the same damn thing. And above all, it's got one line that made the whole damn story for me. I'll let you figure out which line that was.

~~~
Since I mentioned Keira Marcos above, I'll go with...Keira Marcos.

I find most SGA fic off sga_newsletter, and Keira dumped three major storylines on my head back at the end of summer '08. Two are McShep with other side pairings, but she doesn't make the mistake a lot of other authors make - authors I like, even - of overdoing the snark.

Where do I start with her? All of her fic - major series and small one-shots - have reasons they should be read, scenes that make the story just live for me. The photo of John and Sebastian during My Wish For You. Rodney's speech to the SGC, and then the one to Langara in February Song. Keller's declaration of weapons in House of Cards. The putting-the-pieces-together about Rodney and Lorne, also in House of Cards, and Wolsey's quiet declaration about it. Cam's and Vala's rescues in The Gathering (Yay, SGA/TS crossover AU!). The sacrifice of the dragon in Monsters, Inc. Ronon and Keller's wedding, Satedan-style, in Bleeding Love. (And I don't just not care for Ronon/Keller, I don't particularly care for het relationships, period.)

Go. Read.

(Just a side note - she not only got me hooked on her fic, she got me hooked on half the music she listens to/titles the fic after. Including Josh Groban, who my best friend hadn't been able to get me hooked on after over a year of trying.)

~~~
Speranza. No SGA (or several other fandoms) rec list should be without at least SOMETHING from her library.

I'm only going to do two fiction-by-author recs, because damnit, I can't make up my mind on a third.

1. Written by the Victors. Oh. My. Fucking. God. This. So so so SO DAMN THIS. I spent weeks reading and rereading, and reading the fanfic for it, and going through the art and support stuff and. So this. ::dies:: I can recite passages. I can't so much as tell you why or how or what, I don't know who decides or declares what will be the definitive, core body of fanfiction that just...make a fandom. But this would be it. This, and Broken Wings by synecdochic, and a handful of others. It pushes my buttons like Rodney made a remote control for my brain and handed it to Speranza, and Speranza found the orgasm-to-my-brain button and pushed it until it got stuck. It's got the questionable ethics, and questionable loyalties, and conflicting viewpoints, and people doing what they think is the right thing, and people doing the wrong thing for the right reason because they don't have a fucking choice, because if they don't it'll be worse than wrong. It's got just enough snark, and just enough sex when it needs it, and humanity in all its screwed up glory, and the hard choices and sacrifices and friendships that can't be broken even when - especially when - they are. Irrevocably.
   
   This isn't a fic. It's a phenomenon. (This is also my brain on squee.)


2. The Wheel, Atlantis, Wars, and So On. Hee! Crack!fic at its finest. Rodney gets turned into a dolphin. Insanity ensues. What more need I say?
   
   Possibly that it's some of the best physically written fic I've ever read, but that's beside the point.

~~~
slybrarian - I stalk his LJ to the point I don't trust sga_newsletter.

It's not so much that he hits my kinks, it's that he does it in such a joyous, shamelessly gleeful way. He makes making the hard decisions fun, and silly, and entertaining, and then turns around and makes the consequences of those decisions stick. He makes friends of enemies, and the enemies who won't play nice need new trousers. He fanfics SGA the same way that SGA fanfics every other spaceship/boom/horror/team series ever. The fact that he does it mostly without resorting to McShep is the icing on my cake.

1. Quantum Cruise and its sequel, Measure of a Man. I gotta say, very few short fics stick in my head. This one had me googling "Strangely Nice Ba'al" for MONTHS just trying to remember who it's by/where it's posted. (Now I have it saved on my laptop so I don't have to bother, except I call it The Amazing Bouncing Daedelus.) It's polyamorous, multi-dimensional GLEE! (And Lorne and Mitchell tormenting Sheppard is only part of the fun.)
2. I Blame Your Parents has a special place in my heart, if only because it's got Lorne and Sheppard acting like children, and the whole presentation on Atlantis to all the military and political muckity mucks...I use it to explain the Genii to non-SGA-savvy friends. "It ended up taking three long, agonizing hours for them to educate their charges on the wonders of gate travel, killer robots, nuclear fascist Amish, and space vampires." Course, now it's a Jossed precursor to Into the Whirlwind.

(And I want more Discontinuity, damnit.)

~~~
The folks over at Infinitum (Well, Angyl, Orithain, and/or Rina, anyways).

Theirs is mostly of the 'warm blanket' variety; a lot of it's a bit too heavy on the snark-and-sex scale for my taste. For me, the gems are:

1. Sentinels 101, particularly Right Beside Me for the added side pairings. This universe takes the Sentinel concept from the series, squishes it into SGA, and rewrites the first couple seasons.


2. Winds of Change, from the As yet unnamed series. Malek/Rya'c - I really like the growth of the relationship, and the reactions from people on the outside. The fact that it's two characters I've never seen anyone else write is just a bonus.

~~~
miriel

Miriel is...queen of odd things, snippets, fic I don't want to read but can't avoid anyways, trainwreck-style, and WIPs I can't put down but can't bring myself to ask for more of.

1. Memoirs. An Atlantis where the ATA gene is as much a curse as a blessing.
2. Ripples. An Atlantis completely cut off, but not because of a lack of transportation.

She writes good stuff, but it's the hurty good stuff. Also hits the questionable ethics/loyalty, non-McShep and non-standard format buttons.

~~~
beadattitude

1. Checkmate!verse is not to be missed. My only issues with it is in the posting format (or rather, a lack of next-in-series links). "You know I'm bad on picking up on non-verbal things, and hello? I'm not even sure which meows are the verbs." I think that says it all.
   
   The series doesn't so much have the questionable ethics and loyalty issues so much as...well, John as a cat is cute, and there's no chance for too much sex, and next to no chance of overdone snark, and much angst and friendship and team!fic even though it is a McShep 'verse.

~~~
Sideburns

Just...Sideburns.

~~~
lavvyan

I first discovered lavvyan through the SGA Big Bang. While that story will probably remain one of my favorites, if not my absolute favorite, of her work, the rest consists of: crack. Crack. more crack. Angst. Stuff from weird points of view. Flower porn. Fairy tales. AUs. Phantom of the Opera, McShep style.

1. Theory of Evolution. One of the first SGA fanfics I read after I actually watched the show. (Yes, I'm one of those weird people who will read the fic before watching/reading the original.) It spoke to me, not just because of the story, or Lorne's very Lorne-ness, or the fork in the road and the subsequent conflict between John-as-less-than-human and John-as-superhuman, or Rodney's conflict in terms of identity, sexuality and attraction, but because it said, "Here. This is what SGA is. This is what you can expect." This story ushered me into SGA fandom and invited me to stay.
2. Insect Hole. Ok, this is where my brain up and says, "Liar liar, pants on fire!" when I insist I don't like dark!fic. But the way this is written, from the bug's point of view, is amazing, and what really made it for me was the proof of sentience. It rocked.
3. Blink. It's weird, it's wonderful, you should read it.

~~~
James Walkswithwind is one of those pan-fandom authors I can't stay away from.

SG1, SGA, NCIS, Buffy, DCU, SW:TPM, Houston Knights...too many. Too damn many. And too many to choose from to rec, damnit.

1. Alone in Your Mind. The scene when everyone returns to Atlantis. And the one when Weir realizes why Carson didn't get the message. Yes.
2. Foul Pleasures. What IS it about SGA and penguins, damnit. Rodney/Carson/penguin!Carson (but not in penguin form). Ronon as a doll. Ruby slippers. And yes, it has people doing the right things for the right reasons and letting OTHER people deal with the consequences for once.
3. There's No Place Like a Mythological City to Call Home (the Horses of Different Colors AU series) This probably won't make sense unless you read the Houston Knights series, but basically: Sheppard , Beckett, Zelenka and Bates are all centaur stallions. Hilarity, angst, etc. ensue. And it's totally my flavor of non!cracky crack!fic.

~~~
kiku65

Kiku65 writes me Todd!fic. Lots of it.

1. Material Place. Kiku takes my rounds_of_kink prompts and runs with them. Lorne/Ladon with a side of Todd. Yum.
2. Fall. What is it with me (ok, and kiku65) and depressing-as-hell stories? A look at another part of the timeline-that-wasn't from The Last Man.
3. My Brother's Keeper. Todd saves Sheppard. A lot. Touching, and painful.

~~~teh_helenables
Another lots-of-Toddfic author. Also some other rarepairings, like Radek/Teyla.

1. The Shapes of Futures by teh_helenables. Todd helping Teyla in childbirth. While both are prisoners of Michael. The hysteria began to casually roll in when he realized two very unprepared people were trying to perform medical miracles.
2. Between Sundays. Not Toddfic, but amazing just the same.
3. Notes from Pegasus (Life With Todd). What it says on the can.

~~~
Fiction recs

Whee!

The Origin of All Things, by chocolatephysicist/iloveatlantis - Everything I could say about this except the obvious would be a major spoiler. So, just, go read so we can glee together over it. Very long work in progress. Very worth the read and the wait.

Respectful of Otters Part 1 and Part 2 by ana_grrl - probably one of the shortest fics on my list. Inspired a plotbunny that is currently trying to take over my brain. Team Lorne gets turned into otters.

Alternate Reality by Debi C - A Wheel of If-style series. I liked it not just because it explored different possibilities of what if, but that it also followed up with the what happened after everyone went home.

Forever Love also by Debi C - Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson don't need the SGC to get into trouble. And Jack as an historical romance novelist!

This Grave Procession by havocthecat - I always wondered what SG-1's reaction to The Return would be like, because they sure as hell wouldn't take it sitting down. This is the one I like the best.

See These Eyes So Green by quiet_cow - I'm not usually one for PWPs, but. Toddfic. Because everything's better with Todd.

SGA Big Bang fics

I have to give SGA Big Bang its own section. Given my kink for longfic, and the fact that there's an SGA/Big Bang/ folder on my laptop with 15 files in it, it deserves its own section.

Children of Lantean Design by xela_fic - This is another fic I can recite passages from. I can not get over the 'everything for a reason.' The masterful treatment of severe, long-term psychological trauma on multiple characters of a variety of ages. The incredibly rich cultural additions, laws and customs of many different peoples. Like The Origin of Everything, pretty much anything I could actually say about the story itself would be a spoiler.

Life After by velocitygrass - Life After Earth. Coping. Mourning. Loss and comfort and getting up and kicking ass. And in all of that, it's the details that get me - the opening of the first Atlantean restaurant, and the mushrooms.

The Price that Life Exacts by cathalin - One of the only fics I've ever read that uses Larrin and the Travelers that doesn't make me want to scream and spork my eyes out (the way the show did). This is McKay refusing to give up on Sheppard. Until it would cost him, and Sheppard, everything left that matters. And even then, it's only giving up on paper. This is...horrifically dark in places.

Mother Country by chandri - Michael and Kavanagh, a match made in heaven. (No, really, it's just that they're both the enemy. I wouldn't touch Michael/anyone with a 10 foot pole.) SGC people being sneaky, and managing to do exactly what the IOA is trying to stop them from doing. Turning wacky Ancient tech against the enemy, instead of letting the enemy keep using it as a weapon. (And overtones of Babylon 5 that make me squee in fannish joy, even though I know they aren't intentional.)

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Criminal Minds

This is actually the first fandom I really got involved in. A non-fannish friend badgered me into watching The Big Game, and I never looked back. While there are a few pieces that stick out in my mind, most of them are older; I'm still watching the show, but the actual fandom has more or less passed me by since mid-Season 3.

I don't actually have a lot of recs in this fandom. There aren't a lot of really good long fic (casefic or otherwise), at least, there weren't when I was reading, and character development can make previously published fic squicktastic, no matter how well written it is. Part and parcel of having A) a fairly small fandom for B) a show with character development and continuity.
dragonladyk
Aside from dragging me into Stargate: Atlantis kicking and screaming...dragonladyk has a way of presenting things so that I want to agree with her instead of going, "Noooo, this is the way MY world turns." I'm still trying to avoid the Rossi/anyone fic.

She also has the...most in-depth and strictest psychological character analyses of anyone anywhere. (That is not a bad thing. It means that if I got one person right according to her, it means I'm on cloud nine for weeks. Even if I got everyone else dead wrong in her opinion.)

1. Tilting at Windmills. IMHO, one of the best casefics out there. I love this story, and I can't imagine how much research went into it. And there's a reference to Harry Potter! Hotch/Reid pre-ish slash.
2. Paradigm Shift. Yes, it's a sequel to the above story, and no, it won't make any sense at all unless you read it. But it's MY FIC. She wrote it for ME! And it's so so so awesome. (I'm such a spaz.)
3. Five Ways Aaron Hotchner's Marriage Ended.

Actually, I don't know if she's entirely guilty of dragging me into SGA, but since she and I are about the only fans of both shows I know of, I'm blaming her anyways. Especially since she started writing about the same time I started watching (though I can't tell which came first).

~~~

Fiction recs

I got 99 Problems by sperrywink. My favorite (but not only!) pairing in Criminal Minds is Morgan/Reid, and between Revelations and Profiler, Profiled, there is a LOT of reaction-fic to one, the other or both (and a lot of fic written prior went squicktastic). This is one of my favorites.

Superheroes by prettychemistry. More Morgan/Reid, dealing with trauma. A collection of scenes from a relationship.

What Goes Around... by bethos, swtalmnd, backinblack, and diagonalist. Basically? The longest Gideon/Reid PWP ever. Mom!Hotch being protective. Truth or Dare. A football party. (And lots of sex.)

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NCIS

I only recently got into this show. I haven't found a lot of fic in this fandom, and most authors write fic for other fandoms on this list too, so I won't be going into a whole lot of detail.

James Walkswithwind.

Yes, again.

1. Anonymity. Gibbs/DiNozzo. Bondage, conflict, hurt/comfort.
2. Issums Bunny. First of the Werebunny series. Yes. I know. Disgustingly cute.

~~~
katherine

How do I describe her fic? Long, plotty, lots of hurt/comfort, impressions of people (usually DiNozzo) being turned upside down and inside out, Gibbs getting (figuratively) smacked upside the head. Very...calm. Understated. Easy to get sucked into. Well-rounded original characters who don't go anywhere near Mary-Suedom. The Gibbsalanche to end all Gibbsalanches. (Hey, if Hotch can do a Hotchalanche, then Gibbs can have his own version.) And a touch of the supernatural in Angel of Death.

1. Risking It All. I like the different reactions the team has to learning about Gibbs and DiNozzo's relationship. I like how protective McGee is, not just of Gibbs and DiNozzo, but...that would be telling. I like the humor, and the friendship, and how the relationship doesn't overshadow everything else.


2. Playing the Odds. Want not equalling need, outside threats, a journey that can only come full circle. And finding the only thing missing from someone else's life.


3. As much as I want to rec Companions, I'm going to have to go with Box Step. Like synecdochic's Broken Wings, it's a painting of family and what it means.

~~~Nix

Nix has...lots of stuff I like. NCIS, Babylon 5 (you'll see more later), CSI:NY, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace...a lot more fandoms I'm not involved in. Her NCIS fic is mostly pre-Season 3.

1. Footsore and Fractious, the first in the Myths and Revelations series (a centaur AU, like James Walkswithwind's Horses of Different Colors). Gibbs is a centaur. Ducky's worried. DiNozzo finds out. Instinct vs. intellect happens thereafter. There's a small Numbers crossover. And no easy choices, a lot of angst and compromise and heartache.


2. Reference Material. Cliche!fic. Secrets, scheming, matchmaking and anxiety.


3. Hero Worship. DiNozzo's not quite the jock everyone thinks he is. And as a gamer, I just like this one. A lot.

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Babylon 5

There've been a few fandoms I sort of...drifted through briefly, moved onto other things, and came back to later with a vengeance. Stargate: Atlantis was one. Babylon 5 is the other (that I recall). Unfortunately for me, most of the fic I have vague recollections of reading the first time 'round is also lost to the ether.

I'm one of those who unfortunately doesn't see any chemistry between Sheridan and Delenn (even though it's probably the only well-done canon relationship in a fandom-series I've ever seen).

Nix

Nix has...Marcus/Neroon. My two favorite characters.::keels over:: Yes, I know they both die in season four, but still...

1. Patterns. Long, plotty, hurt/comfort, angst, healing, self-discovery, cultural differences. Yum. (I also seem to have subconsciously swiped a few themes for one of my fics, but it was unintentional, I swear.)
2. I'll Know Who You Are/Arms Around My Life, All Those Shattered Dreams trilogy. The reactions to their partnership are awesome, particularly Ivanova and Garibaldi's. And the sex is hot.
3. Crossroads. Post-Shadow War. I love Marcus' distraction during dinner.

---

Popslash, LOTRrps and J2/J3

Yes, I'm aware of the controversy surrounding RPS. I have mixed feelings; I read, but don't write. (Or, I haven't written yet. And I don't have any RPS plotbunnies.) However, if you don't mind or enjoy RPS, here's some suggestions:

Matthew Haldeman Time

Quite possibly the only author left whose fic I will skip plot specifically for the porn. Because it's just. That. Good.

1. Living. It's really really really long. No, I mean it. All those other fics/universes I've said were really long? Add them together. We're talking, like, ten megabytes of text. I miss Living. *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees in various combinations. There's polyamory. There's uh...other stuff. Break ups and makeups and backstabbing and freak outs and competition and riots and homophobia and and... Start from the beginning. And make sure you have a week or so to get through the main series, because you won't want to put it down. Or have a lot more self-control than I do. (Did I mention the porn is hot?)


2. Attainable. 2 *NSYNCers, 2 Backstreet Boys, polyamory. Breakups and cheating and make ups and fighting and hurt/comfort and...really hot sex.


3. Piece by Peace. Backstreet Boys. 98 Degrees. One bodyswap. Yes, I know. It's awesome. Read.

Darn it, do I have to pick just three? ::sigh:: You can't go wrong with any of it. (I can't get into Sucker though. I really can't. I tried. I tried really really hard.)

Okay, fine. I did one major series (Living), one minor series (Attainable), one long piece (Piece by Peace), I'm throwing Reason to Believe and Pick Your Door on the Left in as short story (and replacement for sequel).

~~~
Unfortunately, almost all of the popslash I wanted to rec aside from Matthew's seems to be gone.::sigh:: Some of it can be pried out of the Way Back Machine, but...oh well. This is what happens when you find a fandom way after the fact.
~~~
Pecos (Queen of Snarks)

LOTR FPS and RPS. Humor, angst, hurt/comfort, kidnappings, parties, and...dead kiwi birds that won't go away.

1. Torn Souls, starting with The Call Back. Elijah, Orlando, and Viggo get kidnapped.
2. In the Arms of the Angel. Orlando had ten years.
3. Telling Tales. And to balance out the hurt, the answer to the Wing!fic phenomenon. Introducing tail!fic.