Random Review - a Pros Reading and Posting Challenge!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

It's been aaaaaaages since there was much Pros in my flist, other than (lovely) Pros pictures, and I'm definitely as guilty as anyone of this. In particular, just now, I've not had a day off work for over a month and I must admit I'm flagging. I need some good things back in my world!

Almost always, Pros posts and chat and stories count as a good thing - so... a wee Pros challenge for anyone out there who still loves our lads, no matter how busy the world is getting!

There are two ways to take part:

1. If you're reading a Pros story right now, or if you've just read one, then post a quick resume of it on your lj, or here in ci5hq, with a link to the story for anyone else who might want to read and comment.

or

2. Nip over to The Circuit Archive which has a brilliant "Random Story" button, and click it! Read the story that appears, and post to your lj or to ci5hq to let us know what it is, and what you think of it! (Cheating is okay if it offers you a very long story that you don't have time to read - feel free to random until you get one that fits with your day!)

They don't have to be long stories - wee ficlets and drabbles are Pros writing too - and if there are other places where you can "random", then that's cool too. *g*


Would anyone like to play? *g* Let's see how many we can post, and make our fannish world just a bit brighter!

Random Reading and Posting Challenge - Mellow by Chris

[merentha13.livejournal.com]

A tap on the random button at The Circuit Archive took me to an author and story that I had not read before. The story revolves around Bodie and some plans he has for Doyle. Doyle, meanwhile has his own plans. The dialogue is spot on. Its a gentle, feel good fic. I definitely enjoyed it.

Mellow by Chris

Thank you BSL for posting the challenge!

Random reading and posting challenge - On Guard by Gloria Lancaster

[heliophile-oxon.livejournal.com]

This isn't actually a random read, but a what-I'm-in-the-middle-of-right-now read, and I apologise for not having the link handy as I'm reading it on my kindle. Oop, no, it's here http://www.thecircuitarchive.com/tca/archive/3/onguard.html

This is a favourite of mine, but it's a bit, well, different somehow - there's something quite weird and dream-like about the way GL captures Doyle's feeling of being distanced, cut off, as if everything is walled off behind glass and you can see and hear it but there's nothing quite real. Now I don't know what the author's intentions are, but for me it works brilliantly as a way of showing-not-telling that Ray is in a pretty bad way on some levels - while at the same time being strong, competent and a self-sufficient bastard. I can't stand the trope of dwelling on poor mistreated vulnerable CI5 agents magically healed and brought back to life and looked after by some other, often bigger and badder, CI5 agent who gets everything right and is sensitive and wise, and thank goodness this is very emphatically not that fic. This is the diametric opposite of that, in fact, and it may be the only fic I've read where something of that kind has happened somewhere in the background and yet is not an element that overbalances the story in all the wrong ways.

The story is beautifully paced, imo, and sort of divides naturally into sections - Ray and Bodie cross paths in Africa, neither knowing anything about the other - not even a name; they later find themselves partnered in CI5; then there's an interlude of sorts where Ray goes up north for the wedding of a niece and finds himself a bit of a fly on the wall watching a sliver of ordinary civilian life; and finally he comes back down to London. And all the while we see Bodie through Ray's eyes, with strenghths and imperfections and impenetrably opaque - to Ray - behaviour, and along the way we see Ray reluctantly - and without hope - coming to recognise that he's in love with him.

They are together in the end, imperfections and bumped shins and all, and the happiness is all the more powerful for it.

The author has a very distinctive style in this story, and I really think it's one of the outstanding ones - if by some miracle there's anyone who hasn't read it yet (or if you haven't read it for ages) I recommend remedying that as soon as possible :-)