Yuletide recs -- batch 1 of 3

[carbonel]

I know it's the first batch of three because I'm reading the stories by fandom, by column. Yes, I have an obsessive-compulsive streak. I'm okay with that.

Casablanca

Sentimental Reasons (16.5K words): A long, and completely believable story about Sam and Rick's relationship, before and after the events of the movie.

Dark is Rising books, Susan Cooper

Three From the Track (2.5K words): A prequel to the series from Merriman's point of view.

Discworld

A Place Called Home (3K words): About Drumknott and his lines between home and work, and how they get blurred.

A Day in The (2K words): The first day of the rest of Death's life. With cats.

Doctor Who and Arcadia

Skasis (.5K words): A really lovely vignette of a crossover.

Doctor Who/Torchwood/Lord Peter Wimsey

No Man's Land (20K words): Captain Jack runs into Lord Peter Wimsey during World War I, except that things aren't quite as they seem.

Doctor Who/Diane Duane's Young Wizards

But Rather Darkness Visible (3K words): Dairine meets the Doctor for the second time. A sequel to "The Waters of Mars."

Child Ballads

Moments With Sweet William (1K words): A brief description of what Sweet William's life might have been like.

Fairy Tales

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Duckling (5K words): A modern story that plays with the original story in a wonderful way.

Lord Wolfe and the Ape-Leader (32K words): A Regency spoof that has almost too much fun, but not quite.

Beauty and the Beast (and why should BatB have its own category, separate from "Fairy Tales"? I almost missed it.)

Fiddler in the Mountain (6K words): A modern retelling.

Beast of Both Worlds (2K words): A slyly humorous feminist retelling.

Faking It -- Jennifer Crusie

And to All a Goodnight (21.5K words) Christmas at the Goodnight menage, and Davy Dempsey wants to fix everyone.

Making It (5K words): Nadine decides she has to do something about Ethan, one way or another.

Fionavar Tapestry -- Guy Gavriel Kay

These were my gifts; the second one was entirely unexpected, and I didn't discover it until after Yuletide Madness opened.

Patterns (6.5K words): This one made me so very happy. I asked for a "What happens next" story, and this one answered all my questions in a totally believable way.

In Silence, Coming Home (.5K words): Dave and Kim return to our Earth.

Comments

[nancymcc.livejournal.com]

From context, am I right that:
"recs" = "recommendations"
and
"by fandom" means all these are fanfic
?

If that should be self-evident because 'twas you that posted it, I guess I'm pretty ignorant about you.

[carbonel]

I don't know about self-evident, but yeah, I devote what some people might consider an unreasonable amount of time to fan fiction and media fandom pursuits. I sometimes feel as if I have a foot in two separate fannish worlds.

The key word in that post that is almost certainly not self-evident is "Yuletide." Yuletide is a fan fiction gift exchange that's been going on for five or six years now. The idea is that you request a story in a small fandom ^[1] (small because it's something that is either of interest to only a few people, or that used to be larger and has dwindled as people moved on to other fandoms) of your choice, and someone will write you a story in the area that you request. In exchange, you give the listing of fandoms that you're willing to write a story in, and the people who manage the whole thing will pair you up with someone who has requested something that you've offered to write. The stories go live without any authors' names on Christmas Day, and then the authors names are revealed on New Year's Day. So in between, people do recommendation lists that are based solely on the stories rather than on any reputation of the various authors.

I've read Yuletide stories for several years -- the writing quality is generally remarkably high -- but this is the first year that I wrote a story for it and (therefore) received a gift story.

[1] "Fandom," in this context, means the particular TV show, movie, book, or whatever that the fan fiction is based on.

[freneticfloetry.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for reccing my Faking It fic. :)

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

I decided to put up a "read in 2009" entry here: http://magentamn.livejournal.com/191464.html

The other books I was going to suggest was Sharon Shinn's Mystic and Rider, et al.

[carbonel]

Thanks. Looks like our tastes overlap somewhat, at least. And I know I've liked Shinn's Samaria books, though they were a little much on the romance-novel side for me.

[aedifica]

I'm very, very slowly working my way through this list, and I've enjoyed the ones I've read so far (all two of them). Thanks for the recs!