Faramir visits the tomb of the Stewards and has…an experience. This is a great gen ghost story, and although it makes more sense if you have read the historical appendices to LotR, that’s not altogether necessary. The ending made me a little weepy. I listened to the audiofic as excellently read by Greylin.
Gen. Faramir and Arwen play chess. I particularly liked the choices made for the names of the pieces in Middle-earth. I listened to the audiofic and the reader, Greylin, was a large part of my enjoyment.
(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.
32-minute podfic, 22MB. I started reading the (text version of the) story once, but it either didn’t impress me enough to finish, or I didn’t like it enough to leave a comment. I was being fairly picky about what I was reading at the time which probably had something to do with it. But also, I think that I’m more likely to enjoy a story if I listen to it, rather than read it - provided it’s presented well, which this one is.
This is an angsty story about what being undercover means to Ray K. The insights about how Ray prepares himself for being someone else are wonderful; I tend to forget that Ray is undercover as Vecchio, canonically, and that the way he approaches Fraser must be colored by this. I also really like the ending, which is not precisely happy, but (as I keep meaning to post about) I enjoy endings which are not precisely happy.
The reading is very well done. Keerawa has a pleasant voice, reads slowly, and infuses each line with meaning and energy. The individual characters come across clearly, including Ray-as-Ray and Ray-as-Gary both. The porn is quite sexy, and perhaps listening to this story while grocery shopping was not the smartest idea I’ve ever had.
Hermiod/Novak, Sheppard/McKay. Hermiod asks John to help him woo Lindsey Novak. This is a wildly entertaining and witty romp that really deserves a read despite the rather odd pairing and incomprehensible title. I also enjoyed the podfic of this story as read by Temaris, which can be found here on her site.