![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So speaking of that Yuletide reading, here's those recs:
The Color of Shadow - A prequel to The Left Hand of Darkness, the story of the first Ekumen investigators on Winter, the ones who have to figure out the whole gender thing for the first time. It is not easy to write in Le Guin's worlds with a voice that matches hers, but this comes very close. Original characters, for all practical purposes anyway, but need to know canon for the setup.
Else the Puck a Liar Call - One possible answer to, "So why is Puck of Pook's Hill telling all those stories to Dan and Una?" The style is in parts as elliptical as later Kipling so it requires knowing the canon to follow, but should amuse you if you do.
Northanger Abbey of Marin - It is possibly too easy a target to, in a modern retelling of Northanger Abbey, replace gothic romances with Twilight. I still giggled through this. Especially brilliant: Isabella Thorpe calling herself Bella. Probably can be read without knowing the original but gains a LOT from it.
Mansfield End - An alternate ending to Mansfield Park starting from the premise that Henry Crawford aborts the elopement with Maria, one that adds in enough time for Fanny to finish growing up. Starts mid-stride with a replacement chapter 15 of volume 3, so requires knowing the original. The voice is closer to a modern Regency romance than Austen, but with occasional bite from a narrator influenced by hers. Bonus: more explicit acknowledgement of the Napoleonic war, including Trafalgar reportage from William Price.
No Unworthy Aim - Wendy Darling as a VAD nurse during the Great War, who meets in the wards a man found in the trenches without a hand and no memories of this world and an abiding anxiety around ticking clocks. Yes, Hook appearing in our world after his death in Neverland is not the most defensible premise ever, just roll with it.
A Brisk Young Sailor - A don't have to know canon backstory short novel for Mary Renault's The Charioteer, the experiences of a gay British naval officer during WWII. (So, yeah, a third war fic in a row, go fig.) (I've now recommended three of the five longest fics of the season -- there are some impressive writers out there.)
Ninety Five, a collection of "helpful" Windows tips and tricks from the Win 95 era. The tag "Creepypasta" is not applied in vain.
I actively disrecommend Weekend at Wilvercombe, but I did like the quote "You know what they say about life imitating art. Or is it art imitating life? I suppose it comes down to whether one prefers Aristotle to Mr. Wilde, which is rather a neat way of dividing the world, now that I think about it." (The story has Peter Wimsey's mother behind the scenes of the events of Have His Carcase doing things I simply do not believe. If you're going to read a Wimsey fic, make it As My Whimsy Takes Me instead.)
I've finished trolling the archive on my own initiative and anything else I stumble across will likely be from others' recs, so this is probably my last post for the season. Though speaking of recs, anyone have any more?
Subject quote from "Lugares," Robert Southey.
The Color of Shadow - A prequel to The Left Hand of Darkness, the story of the first Ekumen investigators on Winter, the ones who have to figure out the whole gender thing for the first time. It is not easy to write in Le Guin's worlds with a voice that matches hers, but this comes very close. Original characters, for all practical purposes anyway, but need to know canon for the setup.
Else the Puck a Liar Call - One possible answer to, "So why is Puck of Pook's Hill telling all those stories to Dan and Una?" The style is in parts as elliptical as later Kipling so it requires knowing the canon to follow, but should amuse you if you do.
Northanger Abbey of Marin - It is possibly too easy a target to, in a modern retelling of Northanger Abbey, replace gothic romances with Twilight. I still giggled through this. Especially brilliant: Isabella Thorpe calling herself Bella. Probably can be read without knowing the original but gains a LOT from it.
Mansfield End - An alternate ending to Mansfield Park starting from the premise that Henry Crawford aborts the elopement with Maria, one that adds in enough time for Fanny to finish growing up. Starts mid-stride with a replacement chapter 15 of volume 3, so requires knowing the original. The voice is closer to a modern Regency romance than Austen, but with occasional bite from a narrator influenced by hers. Bonus: more explicit acknowledgement of the Napoleonic war, including Trafalgar reportage from William Price.
No Unworthy Aim - Wendy Darling as a VAD nurse during the Great War, who meets in the wards a man found in the trenches without a hand and no memories of this world and an abiding anxiety around ticking clocks. Yes, Hook appearing in our world after his death in Neverland is not the most defensible premise ever, just roll with it.
A Brisk Young Sailor - A don't have to know canon backstory short novel for Mary Renault's The Charioteer, the experiences of a gay British naval officer during WWII. (So, yeah, a third war fic in a row, go fig.) (I've now recommended three of the five longest fics of the season -- there are some impressive writers out there.)
Ninety Five, a collection of "helpful" Windows tips and tricks from the Win 95 era. The tag "Creepypasta" is not applied in vain.
I actively disrecommend Weekend at Wilvercombe, but I did like the quote "You know what they say about life imitating art. Or is it art imitating life? I suppose it comes down to whether one prefers Aristotle to Mr. Wilde, which is rather a neat way of dividing the world, now that I think about it." (The story has Peter Wimsey's mother behind the scenes of the events of Have His Carcase doing things I simply do not believe. If you're going to read a Wimsey fic, make it As My Whimsy Takes Me instead.)
I've finished trolling the archive on my own initiative and anything else I stumble across will likely be from others' recs, so this is probably my last post for the season. Though speaking of recs, anyone have any more?
Subject quote from "Lugares," Robert Southey.