yuletide recs

[raven]

So much wonderful stuff, this time around. These are just some of my favourites.

"And the church bells softly chime", Life on Mars.
Short, sharp look at Sam and Gene through Chris's eyes. The voices are down pat, and there's a lovely sense of Sam's "otherness".

Dream And Memory, Ballet Shoes.
Ballet Shoes! Seriously, I didn't know anyone wrote this. And the story is just lovely, a look at Winifred after Pauline's gone to America, and is sweet, delicate femmeslash. My favourite bit is a cameo from Petrova, who was always my favourite of the three sisters, who has apparently grown up exactly as you would expect: strong, confident, and a wee bit butch. Bless.

Not The First Date, The Time Traveler's Wife.
A handful of temporally confused incidents that read like they came out of canon. Delightful.

The Exquisite Barometer, His Dark Materials.
Oh, oh, oh. I don't know why this story hasn't been recced everywhere in sight yet, but it's my favourite story in the whole batch for good reason. It is a gorgeous, evocative, long and plotty look at the life of Will Parry after The Amber Spyglass. It has rich, textured language, fully fledged OCs and a perfect ending that I will not spoil but is just... aaah. Love.

Appealing to Aengus, Lord Peter Wimsey
Heee! So much fun. Perfect renditions of Peter and Harriet, who are having Christmas dinner in Oxford with the Shrewsbury dons.

Lives Through Breaking, Chronicles of Narnia
They were kings and queens of Narnia for scores of years, and then they were children again. This story gets that, gets it so beautifully and sadly.

Wild Honey, Fried Green Tomatoes.
Ruth and Idgie! I love these two, and this story fits nicely into canon and extrapolates on it beautifully.

Feeling Blue, Hilary McKay's Casson family books.
These books appearing on the fandom list filled my fannish heart with JOY. I thought I was the only person who had ever read them. Anyway, five years after Indigo's Star, Saffy's in Prague, Sarah has taken up teaching, Indigo's in love with Tom and Rose has taken a vow of silence. And there are people delivering washing-machines. This story just perfectly captures the Casson family lunacy, but manages to be touching and romantic at the same time.

A Voice For Cinderella, Malory Towers.
ENID BLYTON BOARDING SCHOOL FEMMESLASH OMG. Read it right now, and grin idiotically to yourself at the lashings of ginger beer and that dratted English sense of honour. Plus a cameo by Joey Maynard of Chalet School fame. Ahahaha. Basically I only read yuletide to revisit my childhood.

a (most dreadfully) involuntary sin, Anne of Green Gables.
Five times Diana was jealous of Anne. Touching and has the lyricism of the canon.

Requiem at Reichenbach, Sherlock Holmes.
Delicious is the word. Second-person POV that really works, a careful murder mystery, and a young Holmes in drag. Eeee.

Lighting the Lamps, Earthsea.
Short, but beautiful. Tenar's voice here is spot-on, and so is her relationship with Ged.

the hours between dawn and nothing, M*A*S*H.
Tragic and wistful, funny and charming, all at the same time. I haven't read M*A*S*H fic for years now, but this makes me want to go back. One of my favourites, and probably would be my favourite if it weren't for a bit of dodgy grammar and tense shifts. No matter, though; it doesn't distract you from the essential greatness of the story. And the ending is just lovely.

And, finally:
Je tire ma reverence, Bridehead Revisited.
This was written for me. It's short and sad, and full of well-observed detail. Thank you very much, anonymous Santa; I really liked it.

Comments

[ionescribens.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is a beautiful Brideshead piece--short, sharp, yet touches so many of the many emotional layers of the book.

[thecapitalc.livejournal.com]

OMG thank you so much for the recs- the Narnia and Brideshead Revisited ones were so delicately done, and gorgeous! And I never knew people wrote Ballet Shoes and Malory Towers (with Joey Maynard, no less!); so amazing!!

[absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com]

Hee! The Ballet Shoes one was written for me. *g* Isn't it gorgeous?

I'm not a Blyton fan but may go and read the Malory Towers for the sake of a Joey cameo... Thanks for the recs!

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

Not The First Date, The Time Traveler's Wife.
A handful of temporally confused incidents that read like they came out of canon. Delightful.

Thanks for the rec!