Hieroglyfics Recs

The Quest finishes when Ray runs out of vacation time, but every year for the next ten years, he returns to Canada and he and Fraser do their three weeks of searching for the Hand. But when Diefenbaker dies [because I don’t want people going OMGDIEF, can’t read, woe!: this is futurefic, Dief is old, it’s not unexpected - but the lost of his best buddy devastates Fraser, and Ray’s the only one who really understands], they have to rethink their plans and their relationship. I have never seen a “same time next year” scenario with them post-CotW before, and I really liked the idea, seeing them older and more settled in their new lives, yet only really feeling alive with each other once a year. Wonderful dialogue and a thoughtful plot make for a very satisfying story.

(Podfic version as edited by Lim.) Every once in a while I see a mention of this story on my flist that begins, “I know I must be the last person to read this…” so I figure I’m maybe not the last. A great action/adventure/history in an engaging and clever format, read by three dozen readers and assembled with care and skill into a not-quite-seamless but nevertheless pretty darn good whole. The variations in volume and quality of the various recordings have been mostly evened out. And I realized that I really don’t mind hearing American and Canadian (and Athosian and Satedan :-) voices as rendered in an English accent; I thought it would throw me, but quickly the accent faded into the metaphorical background, and I just heard the story.

I loved this. It’s a kind of AU take on the end of the series, I guess, because the circumstances around Vecchio meeting Kowalski are entirely different, but oh, man, this is awesome. Victoria is caught in Atlanta, Fraser must go there to give a statement, Vecchio calls Ray K and warns him that Fraser is probably going to go crazy - and it turns out that crazy, for Fraser, means drinking heavily and sexing up everything in sight. (Including Ray, of course.) Yum.

This story reminds me, in an oblique way, of AJ Hall’s HP story Lust Over Pendle. The stories themselves have nothing in common, but what both share is a sort of trancendence of genre, in which the world of the story is utterly original, surpassing canon, yet reasonably derived from it. Hall’s story is a comedy of manners, while M’s is cyberpunkish SF; both have action-adventure plots which bring the authors’ worlds into a collision with the more familiar canonical ones.

In this story, John, Teyla, and John’s son Ben - whose mere presence raises questions in the reader’s mind, and who is really at the heart of this story - are refugees on a planet called Bajan, which is somehow protected from the Wraith. To be allowed to stay, John must give up one memory at a time to the Bajan authorities. Slowly the strands of detail weave a story, and we learn who Ben is, why John has left Atlantis, and what has happened to other refugees from the Wraith.

I remember being confused by the combination of “gen” as a descriptor with NC17 as a rating. After reading the story, I have to agree that this story is essentially gen. However, it is most definitely about relationships: John’s friendship with Teyla, his somewhat off-balance relationship with his case officer Ekatarin, his prickly detente with other characters I shall not mention here, and most of all the fierce love between John and his son. (The NC17 is for explicit het sex, John/OFC; it is not a romantic relationship, more of a convenient outlet between military comrades.) I really like the action-adventure component of the story; the bits of John’s parents and life on Earth didn’t work for me as well, although some repeating themes I thought were beautifully done. The thematic structure is fantastic, really well done, with interesting parallels drawn between events of various episodes and the events of the story. The writing is evocative without calling attention to itself.

This was written between S2 and S3, so the events of S3 have made it AU. I strongly rec this story for action-adventure fans and John Sheppard fans in particular.

Tim Bayliss/Billy Tallent. This is a rewritten version of Shell’s first fanfic, and as someone who tried but failed to read the earlier version, I can say this is a bazillion times better, with tightness and focus and pacing that was missing from the first attempt. Bayliss is undercover, posing as a member of a Utah polygamist cult that is clearly based on the Fundamentalist LDS church. This is the element that originally attracted me to this story; I saw a documentary about the FLDS, Banking on Heaven, at a film festival earlier this year, and I can say that as horrifying as the elements of this story are, they’re not very far removed from the reality.

Just before going undercover, Bayliss meets Billy Tallent, who while in Arizona to play a concert meets a young escapee from the cult, who is subsequently murdered. The two men feel an instant connection. In fact, for me, it’s a little too instant - not the immediate sex, but the closeness of their relationship afterward - and because of this, the story feels more like an established-relationship story than a first-time, to me. (By the way, if I were rating this story I’d give it NC17, because the sex scenes are explicit.)

If you, like me, don’t know anything about Homicide, skim (or ignore) the prologue, which will only baffle you. (Interestingly, I discovered after reading that Bayliss is canonically bisexual.) If you don’t know anything about HCL, don’t worry. In fact, IMHO the characterization of Billy is a long stretch from canon, even given the passage of time and the way the events of HCL (which this story does spoil) might have affected him. But actually, this Billy is a far more sympathetic and even heroic character - to the point that I felt as though some of his actions (and some aspects of their relationship) were unrealistic for anybody. But, you know what? I didn’t care. It was still a great read, and hurt/comfort fans will sigh happily.

due South/Tru Calling, Harrison/RayK, RayK/Fraser, Harrison/RayK/Fraser, NC17, series of novel-length stories: Undone, Unfinished, and The Ending Hour [not yet read by me].

I started reading this knowing nothing about Tru Calling other than that Joe Flanigan was in one episode. I realized quickly that I needed a little background, so I read its IMDB entry, which told me that Tru Davies has the ability to make days repeat themselves in order to save people from being killed - and that was all I needed to make sense of this entertaining, plotty series. Harrison reads as an original character and is interesting enough, although he seemed quite a bit like Ray to me. The writing has a nice punchy feel to it, with each section ending with a good zinger that pulled me on to the next bit. The first story reminded me more than a little of my own Across the Great Divide. Needless to say, it hit both my crossover kink and my time-travel kink.

I preferred the first story, which seems a little cleaner and more put-together than the second; I have not yet read the third.

Fraser/RayV/Amanda, NC17, novel. Crossover with Highlander: The Series. A plotty adventure with lots of sex! The first sequel, The Catch, by Kellie, is Fraser/RayK/Amanda and novelette length; there are more sequels, comprising “The Fishing Series,” but the rest are all solely due South.

Fraser’s a professor - this time, in geology - but Ray’s a cop. (I think this is the only AU I’ve seen in which RayK is a cop and Fraser is not a Mountie.) They meet in Hawaii, where Ray is on vacation and Fraser’s doing research. There are plenty of canon characters in new roles, but the enjoyable plot - although very much a due South style plot - isn’t drawn from any specific canon events.

Ray is a car mechanic, Fraser is an archeology professor. (And Ray Vecchio is a wiseguy, so expect some Ray-V-bashing.) A lot of familiar characters appear, but (as far as I can tell - I hadn’t seen all the episodes when I initially recced this story, and haven’t re-read it since) the plot doesn’t draw from any specific canon events. Still, a fun read and definitely worthwhile.

I love this story’s summary: Fraser returns to Chicago after a short holiday up north and finds a stranger in Ray Vecchio’s place. Too bad it’s not Ray Kowalski. Here, Ray K runs a garage, and someone has just murdered one of his mechanics; Fraser helps investigate and falls in love. The plot moves with perfect pacing, there are clever echoes of canon, and the romance tugged at my heartstrings with just the right amounts of sexiness and sappiness.

Novella-length WWII-era AU. Elegantly conceived and beautifully written, with spot-on characterizations (and excellent casting choices in most cases) and scorching sex. I love this story so much. Easily my favorite of the 2005 sga_santa stories, and a strong contender for favorite SGA story ever. Seriously. Go read it.