VERY good advice
Nov. 29th, 2009 04:25 pmSomeone has answered my "Veela" challenge, and it's an absolute cracker: http://mentalguy.livejournal.com/71931.html Only beware, it is incredibly grim and painful.
A very strong fic rec
Sep. 11th, 2009 08:57 amDon't on any account miss this delight: http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/karasaunty/ER01.html
A fic rec - Tetleybag's "Goodwill"
Aug. 29th, 2009 08:36 amhttp://www.fictionalley.org/authors/tetleybag/goodwill01.html
Professor Grubbly-Plank takes a walk in the Forbidden Forest and finds a young girl beating seven bells out of Draco Malfoy. The reason why shows perfect sense and a real understanding of the teen-age experience. These are children doing as children do, not, as so often in HP fiction, shortened adults: in fact, I would not be surprised if it was based on some painful personal memory of early teen embarrassment. And while the point that Tetleybag has to make could, in the wrong hands, be controversial and even offensive, the truth to life of the story places it beyond argument. It is written with delicacy and elegance, with not one word too many, without any attempt to make any point except what arises from the story itself. In short, it is a lesson in every aspect of short story writing.
Professor Grubbly-Plank takes a walk in the Forbidden Forest and finds a young girl beating seven bells out of Draco Malfoy. The reason why shows perfect sense and a real understanding of the teen-age experience. These are children doing as children do, not, as so often in HP fiction, shortened adults: in fact, I would not be surprised if it was based on some painful personal memory of early teen embarrassment. And while the point that Tetleybag has to make could, in the wrong hands, be controversial and even offensive, the truth to life of the story places it beyond argument. It is written with delicacy and elegance, with not one word too many, without any attempt to make any point except what arises from the story itself. In short, it is a lesson in every aspect of short story writing.
An excellent mystery featuring a truly fascinating mystery student - NOTHING like a Mary Sue - and an amazingly well-characterized Severus Snape. The author manages to give him remarkable power and a real protagonist's presence without in the least lessening his bastard attitude and moral ambiguity. Read it, you won't be sorry.
http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/shosier/GAAUB01.html
Only the first chapter of a long chaptered fic, but it already shows signs of exceptional quality. A little girl playing by herself in the woods around Ottery St Catchpole makes the aquaintance of two seven-year-old red-haired twins. This is imaginative, lovely and fun. A perfect balance between infant Utopia - how many parents or guardians would allow a seven-year-old to run free on her own in this day and age? - and childhood romance - the friendships born and made with hardly a question asked, just "Who are you?" - "I am Anne", as if that explained everything, the way that everything is either so exciting you just have to run for it or so boring you are already looking for something else to do - all so dense with that smell and feel of early years, JUst lovely. I have not been so entusiastic about a HP chaptered fic since Inverarity. Do go and read it.
Only the first chapter of a long chaptered fic, but it already shows signs of exceptional quality. A little girl playing by herself in the woods around Ottery St Catchpole makes the aquaintance of two seven-year-old red-haired twins. This is imaginative, lovely and fun. A perfect balance between infant Utopia - how many parents or guardians would allow a seven-year-old to run free on her own in this day and age? - and childhood romance - the friendships born and made with hardly a question asked, just "Who are you?" - "I am Anne", as if that explained everything, the way that everything is either so exciting you just have to run for it or so boring you are already looking for something else to do - all so dense with that smell and feel of early years, JUst lovely. I have not been so entusiastic about a HP chaptered fic since Inverarity. Do go and read it.
To wash one's mind of all those damned Harry/Draco fics: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2468349/1/Daily_Prophet_My_Ass. Read and laugh!
Two recommendations
May. 19th, 2008 01:33 am1) Everyone who loves music and/or follows the BBC and/or lives in or has to do with Britain ought to sign this petition. If you don't, and the kind of attitude it denounces spreads or even survives, you will have yourselves to blame.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/youngmusician/index.html
2) Wemyss' new fic http://wemyss.livejournal.com/125758.html is excellent. It requires some knowledge of modern British history and is heavily tinged with the author's idiomatic, not to say idiosyncratic, politics, but it is one of those few ideas that are so good that I find myself wishing I had had them.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/youngmusician/index.html
2) Wemyss' new fic http://wemyss.livejournal.com/125758.html is excellent. It requires some knowledge of modern British history and is heavily tinged with the author's idiomatic, not to say idiosyncratic, politics, but it is one of those few ideas that are so good that I find myself wishing I had had them.
I am only on the tenth chapter of the first of two chaptered fics by one Ilex, featuring one Anastasia Twigg-Jones, and I already know that, failing colossal flaws somewhere, this is going to enter the roster of favourites. Anastasia Twigg-Jones, Professor of Defence against the Dark Arts, lover of Severus Snape, friend of the Marauders, Lily Evans and Frank and Alice Longbottom, friend and mentor of Harry Potter, has every feature of the most abandoned Mary Sue - and is an absolute screaming delight, childish, charming and hilarious. Recommended.
http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/ilex/LAFL.html
http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/ilex/HBIAB.html
http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/ilex/LAFL.html
http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/ilex/HBIAB.html
The strongest possible fic rec
Mar. 27th, 2008 07:23 amNo matter whether you are or not actual Harry Potter fans, if you care for good writing at all, and miss reading "Inverarity"'s two Harryverse novels, Alexandra Quick and the Thorn Circle and Hogwarts Houses Divided, you will be kicking yourselves, and you will deserve it. Inverarity creates enormously attractive characters, each brilliantly individual and motivated, and then places them in compelling situations; her cliffhangers are the best I have seen since I first read Dick Francis, and right now, in the unfinished Hogwarts Houses Divided, she has come up with the mother of them all. (Alexandra Quick is completed, but it is only the first of a series.) The writing is delightful, clear, descriptive without being diffuse, and has excellent dialogue; the pacing is superb; and there is that intangible extra, the sense of drive, the storytelling energy, which makes a reader keep reading no matter what. This is not just for Harry Potter fans: it is a first-rate sequel of stories by an amazingly accomplished writer who really should be getting paid for her work.
A warm fic rec
Jan. 6th, 2008 10:55 pmSomeone who signs herself Inverarity, and who seems to be a first-time writer, is publishing a really first-rate American variant on the Harry Potter mythos, called "Alexandra Quick and the Thorn Circle" (http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/inverarity/AQATTC.html). The story is definitely in the HP tradition, but interestingly varied, with a sparky, spiky female heroine, a powerful and scary female Dean (headmistress), an addictive plot, and beautifully designed local colour up the wazoo. I have become more or less addicted to this story, and I recommend it to everyone.
I'm back from my holidays. I'll tell you about it when I have downloaded some of the photos I took. (I'm no![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
asakiyume or solitary_summer, but if I cannot take interesting pictures in Rome, where can I take them?)
I'm back from my holidays. I'll tell you about it when I have downloaded some of the photos I took. (I'm no
asakiyume or solitary_summer, but if I cannot take interesting pictures in Rome, where can I take them?)
