Prosfic Reading Challenge -- Various Fics

[tinturtle]

byslantedlight asked:
Is anyone reading Pros fic at the moment?

I've kind of been binging on Pros fic since Bistocon. I've read four and a half novel-length fics and a large assortment of shorter ones (many of which were hardly short).

I started off with several of the stories people identified as their desert island fics during the con panel. Those were mostly not to my taste, to one degree or another. It may be that I am just not an AU person (at least where long fics are concerned--I did enjoy reading jat_sapphire's Dirty Computer series last week). After the desert island fics, I read PR Zed’s novel Exile, which I liked much better. It takes place in the canon universe and is notable for its vivid OCs, among other things.

The two most memorable fics that I have read this week are Firsts, also by PR Zed, and Orpheus Turns Around by halotolerant. Firsts is a really wonderful fic that takes some of the scattered pieces of the lads’ backstories and makes them the foundation of a rich narrative. It is a fic I am sure I will read again. Orpheus Turns Around was also very good. halotolerant seems to excel at depicting complex emotion, and this story reflects that. It also has an interesting setting, evocatively described.

Comments

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Pros gatherings are so good for inspiration! *g* Fascinated that you didn't like so many of other people's Desert Island Fics - which ones did you read? I do remember that lots were AUs, and it took me a while when I found Pros to fall into AUs. I could never quite see the point of them, when I was here for the lads, but eventually I found that the best ones were still properly the lads, just in different settings, and my interest kicked in. I really do have to see our lads though, otherwise I can't go there at all - but that counts for CI5-based stories too. *g* And of course we all see our canon lads differently, which is one reason there are so many versions out there in stories. *g*

Exile never quite works for me - and partly it's because I'm constantly thrown by those ACs - the Gallagher brothers from Oasis (Noel and Liam - clearly them in the artwork too!)

I thought I'd read all Halotolerant's stories, but I'm looking at Orpheus Turns Around and not remembering Venice at all, so I must put that near the top of my list! *g*

ETA - just checked Exile online via your link, and I see it doesn't include the illustrations. I think "Liam" and "Noel" would still have thrown me, but probably not as much if I hadn't seen the pictures too - I read it in the zine form.

[tinturtle]

byslantedlight said:
Exile never quite works for me - and partly it's because I'm constantly thrown by those ACs - the Gallagher brothers from Oasis

Yes, I can see how that might be distracting. I'm not familiar with Oasis at all and only know of the connection from reading the comments on the story, so it's not something that I had to figure out how to overlook.

byslantedlight asked:
Fascinated that you didn't like so many of other people's Desert Island Fics - which ones did you read?

Probably I just didn't choose the right ones.

I began with Harlequin Airs by Ellis Ward, which I had actually stumbled over and started in the week before the con. I found it kind of slow, with too low a mission-to-romance ratio. (I also found the "tying someone up without their permission" part of the romance decidedly unromantic.) Then I got to the end, which to me was entirely implausible--both Cowley's behavior and that of the lads.

Next I read Professional Dreamer by Pamela Rose. I liked that better and even found it moving in parts, but I couldn't quite get around what I felt were poorly addressed consent issues. I also didn't like the ending much. It felt tonally out of place.

After that I read part of Arabian Nights, also by Pamela Rose. Given my problems with the other two novels, that was probably a silly thing to do, but I was curious to see if the premise could possibly work. Well, if that's your reason for reading a fic, I suppose you can't complain about what you get. It worked better than I expected, but not well enough for me actually to read the whole thing.

Sometime during all this, I had also read The End is Where We Start From by PFL, which was on the list of desert island fics as well. That one I did like, quite a lot, but after Arabian Nights I decided to shelve the DI fic list for the time being.

I then read Pamela Rose's Where the Worms Are, which was not on the list but which a few people had mentioned at the con. I liked that overall, though the character of Elizabeth didn't quite work for me somehow and the romantic part of the plot felt a little tacked on. (The romantic part of the plot also exhibited the annoying only-gay-for-each-other trope, but I know one shouldn't fault older stories for that.)

I was still looking for long reads--I have stuff I'm avoiding in my real life--so I decided at that point to tackle Exile, which had been on my list for a while. PR Zed's writing is one of the major reasons I'm in this fandom. Having read and admired her Man from U.N.C.L.E. fics, I became curious what this other show was for which she had written so many more fics. Eventually I checked it out, and here I am.

[tinturtle]

In case anyone is wondering, the desert island fics chosen by attendees at Bistocon were as follows:

A Future of this Life – Verlaine
A Strange Working of Gravity – Jackie Thomas
Adagio Sequence – Sebastian
Arabian Nights – Pamela Rose
Calibre – JGL
Catch a Fallen Star – Tiranog
Comfort and Joy – Meridian
Harlequin Airs – Ellis Ward
Heat Trace – Helen Raven
Larton Chronicles – Rhiannon
Masquerade – Tarot
Professional Dreamer – Pamela Rose
Suitable Gravity – DVS
The End is Where We Start from – PFL
The Gift of the Moggy – The Hag
The Hunting – Jane
Transport Café – Fajrdrako
Veils of Mourning – Rhiannon
Waiting to Fall – Rob

Several of these were chosen by more than one person, but unfortunately I don't have a record of that.

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

Never feel you have to love anybody's else's favs! That why we have so many stories to pick from, thankfully!! I struggled to read Larton once. :) I loved Exile, but then I find Professional Dreamer and Arabian Nights silly, fun fic and I have read both of those several times.

Do try Suitable Gravity. I love that story, and also try Ellis Ward's Legacy of Temptation. An AU but one of my favs. If you want to stick with canon, you can try any of my canon based stories on AO3. I have many AUs but I also like a good case story. https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyK/works?fandom_id=34343110

[tinturtle]

sc_fossil said:
Never feel you have to love anybody's else's favs!

That is good advice, yes. I was too shy to venture a desert island fic, since I am not very widely read in Pros. Still, there was one fic that sprang to mind, and it is one that I know a lot of people would not like at all. Not at all. (It's gen, for one thing. *g*)

I will try Suitable Gravity. I've mostly enjoyed the short sci-fi AU fics I've read, so maybe it is a good genre for me.

[tinturtle]

P.S. One of the less-than-novel-length AU sci-fi fics I've enjoyed is Of Angles and Angels by Sarah K, which besides being sci-fi, is also wingfic, of all things. That I liked that does cast some doubt on the idea that I just don’t like AUs.

I enjoyed your trailer for that fic, too, though I watched it after reading, and therefore imagined the Capri looking more like the Serenity than the Millennium Falcon.

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

I believe a lot more people than will admit are bi-fictional. :)

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the trailer. I learned to do the Star Wars rolling text for that! It was my first wingfic and now I love it.

If you enjoy UNCLE, I'd recommend Deb Hicks' UNCLE x-overs on the https://archiveofourown.org/series/7916

I don't read much fanfiction so you've probably read more than I have! LOL! I go in spurts but in 20 years in fandom I've probably read about 20 percent of the Pros fic.

Oh, also read this one: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175755 One of my all time fav stories, and it's *gasp* gen! LOL! Blood Still Cries by Deb also.

[tinturtle]

I want to reiterate that I did like Where the Worms Are. Reading my comments again, I feel as if I was harder on the fic that I did like than on the ones I didn't. :-/

[gilda-elise.livejournal.com]

I hadn't come across Orpheus Turns Around, so thanks so much for that. I really do need to get back into reading Pros.

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

What I notice in stories like "Firsts" is the unusual way it's structured. I may have had it in the back of my mind when I wrote stories that are organized by something else than plot. Some of my favorites of my own stories are the ones in which the story is a list or a set of steps: there's an order but not a plot. But the story still feels intentional; there's still order and meaning.