Recs: Hercules and Starsky & Hutch
Hercules - Imagos - Randi DuMois
While Hercules and Iolaus are fighting a minotaur, they accidentally spring a trap that may have been set by an unknown enemy from an alternate reality. A hot, intense and suspenseful story that also features the Zena cast to good effect.
Iolaus heard a loud crash in the branches overhead and skidded to a halt, fetching up against a broad trunk. He reached for his knife before remembering it was gone. He rolled his eyes, flattening himself back against the tree and trying to be invisible. Oh, great. I'm fighting a harpy, in the dark, unarmed. When he related this adventure to Herc, he would imply that he had had some kind of plan that made this make sense.
Hercules - Hero Worship - Nym
Time starts catching up with Hercules and Iolaus. This story has a completely different tone from the series -- serious, wistful, and emotionally complex -- but Nym pulls it off beautifully with prose that are delicate, lyrical and gorgeous. And the sex is very, very hot. What more do you want?
I always feel clumsy, compared to Iolaus. Goes back to when we were kids, before Cheiron sweated the worst of it out of me at the Academy. Iolaus was always picking me up, patching me up, or laughing because I tripped over myself somehow. He's always had grace but no patience, and I've always had patience and the grace comes hard - learned not born. We make a good pair, mismatched as we are. Iolaus doesn't mind that I can't kiss. He says I'm the best fuck in the world. He says it in my ear when I'm about to come. We've both got good timing.
Hercules/Buffy - When Hellmouths Collide - Kimberly Rector and Martha Wilson
Buffy, Xander, Giles and Willow are accidentally sent through a dimensional doorway to a strange new world, where they run into our favorite pair of mythological heroes, Hercules and Iolaus. A great cross-over with humor and the goofy quality of each show coming to the fore. A passing familiarity with each series would probably help, but I think the characters are strongly enough written that you could get by without. A lot of thought and care clearly went into making these two universes work together. Plus a long-suffering Giles is just priceless.
They rounded a small hill and ahead saw a wooden wagon that was stuck in a mudhole. Four men, all dressed in drab-colored cotton clothes and rough leather jerkins were struggling to free it. They saw Hercules and Iolaus coming up the track and waved to them, calling greetings. As they drew closer, Giles saw the wagon was loaded with bushels of fruit and was drawn by two enormous draft horses with shaggy coats. "Kiwi and Clydesdales. In ancient Greece," Giles said wearily to himself. "Of course."
Hercules - Argonauts All - Angela Field
A good murder mystery that features a younger Hercules and Iolaus competing together to become Argonauts. More a 'what if?' for the original than the Young Hercules series, Argonauts All is long, satisfying and a lot of fun to read.
"An exiled prince seeks..." Hercules started to read.
"Ah, that'd be the catch," Iolaus murmured. "And you're to old to be so gullible."
"Seeks the help of stalwart men who wish to become true heroes, remembered for all time for joining this fabulous quest..." Hercules continued determinedly, ignoring him.
"Who writes this stuff?" Iolaus muttered. "He's got more wind than Boreas."
"This is the chance of a lifetime for the brave few who dare to go where no man has gone before..."
"Uh oh..." Iolaus shot a quick look up at Hercules and groaned softly at the eager light of battle entering his friend's blue eyes.
"Your chance for fame by helping a prince regain his lost throne..."
"Read, good chance of getting yourself killed helping the wrong guy and nothing to show for it, except get out of the palace quick before he forgets who you are and they execute you to be on the safe side."
Hercules - Home is Where the Heart is - Kimberley Rector and Martha Wilson
Hercules has a problem: Iolaus is dead and Hercules can't find his shade in the Underworld. A vastly more satisfying version of how Iolaus might have been brought back after Dahak. Good angst, setting and atmosphere. Also features a delightful character, Kheper.
Hercules took a deep breath. "Look, I'm sorry I have to ask this, but I just need to hear you say it. You're not going to...turn evil suddenly and try to take over the world or anything, are you?"
Kheper leaned over to a scroll that lay unrolled next to him and ran one dusty finger down it. "No," he said thoughtfully. "This is going to take up the rest of the day. But I could pencil it in for tomorrow if you really want to insist on it."
"No, that's all right." How do I manage to get myself into these situations? wondered Hercules. Scratching itself, the monkey leered at him from a cluttered tabletop. Oh, yeah. I've gone off the deep end.
Hercules - Reputations - Naomi Prince
An out-of-sorts Hercules gets a request for help that seems simple enough, but Iolaus is of course suspicious. Reputations has a nicely developed theme -- recurrent enough to be resonate, light enough to avoid being pat -- plus humor, banter, running gags and dead-on characterization all wrapped up in unusually smooth prose. All of Naomi Prince's stuff is great, and this is one of her best.
"Obviously," continued Jason, probing, "if you two have fallen out over something, that's your business and I wouldn't want to pry." He watched Iolaus carefully, gauging his response. That isn't the problem, so he'll deny it, which is ideal as it leaves me room to dig deeper.
"It's not... we haven't..." said Iolaus indignantly. "Everything's fine between us."
Jason nodded thoughtfully. "Must be something else then. Have you been dead again and he forgot to mention it?"
"Oh come off it, Jason," protested Iolaus. "It's not like I do it on a regular basis." The sardonic arch of Jason's eyebrow was not lost on him and he added, "Much."
Starsky and Hutch - Strange Days - Lucy Hale
A very natural gen to slash transition story with great banter and a well integrated case-file. To boot, Lucy Hale manages to preserve the relationship dynamic throughout. Plus there's a nice array of flirting -- from simple joking between friends to half-serious flirting they're not even fully aware of, all the way to the fairly blatant.
Hutch whacked Starsky in the head and moved out of the office. "Just come on. Goof."
Starsky followed, rubbing his head with a melodramatic wince. "Domestic violence is on the rise, you know.”
"Yeah? Who was beating who with the pillow last night"
"I guess you always hurt the ones you love."
Starsky and Hutch - Goliath - Suzan Lovett
A long, satisfying read that is brilliantly plotted with a very realistic feel and interesting incidental characters. Set after the series, a back on duty and hungry for action Starsky goes undercover to complete the take down of a mob ring. The job get complicated and deadly and lingering issues from the shooting start gumming up the works. Starsky and Hutch have a great rapport here -- they act like people who are good enough friends, close enough to being family, not to be polite or especially nice to each other all the time -- they get mad at each other, get on each other's nerves, hurt each other -- but, on the big stuff, they simply don't have limits to how far they'd go or what they're willing to do for each other.
Hutch wasn't supposed to be here, Starsky realized. Dobey threw a monkeywrench into the works. He was torn. Where Hutch wasn't wanted, he should prefer to be unwanted himself, but whatever was going down seemed to be big. It just might be the chance to break him out of the moldy corner he'd been parked in. He glanced at Hutch. The light blue eyes that met his were noncommittal. Your choice, they said.
Starsky and Hutch - Black and Bruised - Rosemary
A lot of fics gloss over the problems Starsky and Hutch were clearly having in the last season, skipping straight to post-series Starsky recovery stories. Here Rosemary offers the classic slasher's rational and resolution to their problems.
Hutch tried not to over-react. He smiled and tried to accept the teasing in the light vein in which it was offered, but it was no laughing matter. The thought of Starsky even joking about wanting a new partner twisted his insides with the sickening lurch of a rock climber who unexpectedly feels his surest hold give way, leaving nothing but open air beneath him.
Starsky and Hutch - Homecoming - Lucy & Cheryl M.
Extraditing a prisoner, Starsky takes Hutch to see his old home in New York. Very few things go right. Solid characterization with one of the rightest-feeling takes on Starsky out there, smooth prose and tons of atmosphere -- Lucy & Cheryl M. have a great feel for slang and casual detail. The brisk pacing and how the angst is toned down to a realistic level are also strong points. And Starsky's last line is perfect.
As in most big cities, there was the smell of concrete, soot, and gradual decay. The littered alleys and rotting buildings contrasted with his memories of rural Minnesota. He remembered a summer when some kids from the West Side of Chicago had visited his grandfather's farm. He hadn't believed them when they said they'd never seen a tree before. What a dismal place to grow up.
Starsky and Hutch - Velveteen Hutch - Sylvia Bond
This story has a killer Hutch voice and Sylvia refuses to shy away from his faults and shortcomings, making him seems so real -- her version of him just clicks. Sylvia's prose are top-notch with a great feel for rhythm and pauses. There's also lovely snark and dry self-deprecating humor.
When I arrived in L.A., I was going to be every criminal's worst nightmare: a hall monitor with a badge. They had them in Duluth when I was a kid in junior high, and there's even a picture of me in the yearbook. There I stand against a brick wall, with my blond hair, an armband, and a clipboard. I look like a neo-nazi, I really do. But I was going to do it, bring down all the evil in the world, me and my clipboard.
Starsky and Hutch - Hopscotch - Teri White
Post-series Starsky and Hutch try going on vacation. Of course, everything goes to hell. The second book in a trilogy, but which stands on its own, Hopscotch's brilliance is believable character change. Hutch especially by the end of the story is fundamentally different than at the beginning, -- can't go back kind of different -- and Teri makes it work. Be warned, this one's an epic -- and a suspenseful one at that -- and it's hard to stop once you've started.
Starsky shifted slightly in the seat and pulled from beneath his butt a paper bag half-filled with French fries. "You're a lot of fun sometimes."
Hutch leaned forward and rested his chin on the steering wheel, staring glumly into the slowly-dying Los Angeles night. "Fun?" he muttered. "You want to talk about fun? Well, partner, let me say that spending ten hours cooped up in a car with you and your moveable delicatessen is not exactly my idea of a good time, either. In fact, it ranks just behind an attack of the stomach flu."
Starsky sampled a flattened French fry. "You know," he commented morosely, "if I was a sensitive kind of guy, I might be deeply hurt by some of the things you say to me."
While Hercules and Iolaus are fighting a minotaur, they accidentally spring a trap that may have been set by an unknown enemy from an alternate reality. A hot, intense and suspenseful story that also features the Zena cast to good effect.
Iolaus heard a loud crash in the branches overhead and skidded to a halt, fetching up against a broad trunk. He reached for his knife before remembering it was gone. He rolled his eyes, flattening himself back against the tree and trying to be invisible. Oh, great. I'm fighting a harpy, in the dark, unarmed. When he related this adventure to Herc, he would imply that he had had some kind of plan that made this make sense.
Hercules - Hero Worship - Nym
Time starts catching up with Hercules and Iolaus. This story has a completely different tone from the series -- serious, wistful, and emotionally complex -- but Nym pulls it off beautifully with prose that are delicate, lyrical and gorgeous. And the sex is very, very hot. What more do you want?
I always feel clumsy, compared to Iolaus. Goes back to when we were kids, before Cheiron sweated the worst of it out of me at the Academy. Iolaus was always picking me up, patching me up, or laughing because I tripped over myself somehow. He's always had grace but no patience, and I've always had patience and the grace comes hard - learned not born. We make a good pair, mismatched as we are. Iolaus doesn't mind that I can't kiss. He says I'm the best fuck in the world. He says it in my ear when I'm about to come. We've both got good timing.
Hercules/Buffy - When Hellmouths Collide - Kimberly Rector and Martha Wilson
Buffy, Xander, Giles and Willow are accidentally sent through a dimensional doorway to a strange new world, where they run into our favorite pair of mythological heroes, Hercules and Iolaus. A great cross-over with humor and the goofy quality of each show coming to the fore. A passing familiarity with each series would probably help, but I think the characters are strongly enough written that you could get by without. A lot of thought and care clearly went into making these two universes work together. Plus a long-suffering Giles is just priceless.
They rounded a small hill and ahead saw a wooden wagon that was stuck in a mudhole. Four men, all dressed in drab-colored cotton clothes and rough leather jerkins were struggling to free it. They saw Hercules and Iolaus coming up the track and waved to them, calling greetings. As they drew closer, Giles saw the wagon was loaded with bushels of fruit and was drawn by two enormous draft horses with shaggy coats. "Kiwi and Clydesdales. In ancient Greece," Giles said wearily to himself. "Of course."
Hercules - Argonauts All - Angela Field
A good murder mystery that features a younger Hercules and Iolaus competing together to become Argonauts. More a 'what if?' for the original than the Young Hercules series, Argonauts All is long, satisfying and a lot of fun to read.
"An exiled prince seeks..." Hercules started to read.
"Ah, that'd be the catch," Iolaus murmured. "And you're to old to be so gullible."
"Seeks the help of stalwart men who wish to become true heroes, remembered for all time for joining this fabulous quest..." Hercules continued determinedly, ignoring him.
"Who writes this stuff?" Iolaus muttered. "He's got more wind than Boreas."
"This is the chance of a lifetime for the brave few who dare to go where no man has gone before..."
"Uh oh..." Iolaus shot a quick look up at Hercules and groaned softly at the eager light of battle entering his friend's blue eyes.
"Your chance for fame by helping a prince regain his lost throne..."
"Read, good chance of getting yourself killed helping the wrong guy and nothing to show for it, except get out of the palace quick before he forgets who you are and they execute you to be on the safe side."
Hercules - Home is Where the Heart is - Kimberley Rector and Martha Wilson
Hercules has a problem: Iolaus is dead and Hercules can't find his shade in the Underworld. A vastly more satisfying version of how Iolaus might have been brought back after Dahak. Good angst, setting and atmosphere. Also features a delightful character, Kheper.
Hercules took a deep breath. "Look, I'm sorry I have to ask this, but I just need to hear you say it. You're not going to...turn evil suddenly and try to take over the world or anything, are you?"
Kheper leaned over to a scroll that lay unrolled next to him and ran one dusty finger down it. "No," he said thoughtfully. "This is going to take up the rest of the day. But I could pencil it in for tomorrow if you really want to insist on it."
"No, that's all right." How do I manage to get myself into these situations? wondered Hercules. Scratching itself, the monkey leered at him from a cluttered tabletop. Oh, yeah. I've gone off the deep end.
Hercules - Reputations - Naomi Prince
An out-of-sorts Hercules gets a request for help that seems simple enough, but Iolaus is of course suspicious. Reputations has a nicely developed theme -- recurrent enough to be resonate, light enough to avoid being pat -- plus humor, banter, running gags and dead-on characterization all wrapped up in unusually smooth prose. All of Naomi Prince's stuff is great, and this is one of her best.
"Obviously," continued Jason, probing, "if you two have fallen out over something, that's your business and I wouldn't want to pry." He watched Iolaus carefully, gauging his response. That isn't the problem, so he'll deny it, which is ideal as it leaves me room to dig deeper.
"It's not... we haven't..." said Iolaus indignantly. "Everything's fine between us."
Jason nodded thoughtfully. "Must be something else then. Have you been dead again and he forgot to mention it?"
"Oh come off it, Jason," protested Iolaus. "It's not like I do it on a regular basis." The sardonic arch of Jason's eyebrow was not lost on him and he added, "Much."
Starsky and Hutch - Strange Days - Lucy Hale
A very natural gen to slash transition story with great banter and a well integrated case-file. To boot, Lucy Hale manages to preserve the relationship dynamic throughout. Plus there's a nice array of flirting -- from simple joking between friends to half-serious flirting they're not even fully aware of, all the way to the fairly blatant.
Hutch whacked Starsky in the head and moved out of the office. "Just come on. Goof."
Starsky followed, rubbing his head with a melodramatic wince. "Domestic violence is on the rise, you know.”
"Yeah? Who was beating who with the pillow last night"
"I guess you always hurt the ones you love."
Starsky and Hutch - Goliath - Suzan Lovett
A long, satisfying read that is brilliantly plotted with a very realistic feel and interesting incidental characters. Set after the series, a back on duty and hungry for action Starsky goes undercover to complete the take down of a mob ring. The job get complicated and deadly and lingering issues from the shooting start gumming up the works. Starsky and Hutch have a great rapport here -- they act like people who are good enough friends, close enough to being family, not to be polite or especially nice to each other all the time -- they get mad at each other, get on each other's nerves, hurt each other -- but, on the big stuff, they simply don't have limits to how far they'd go or what they're willing to do for each other.
Hutch wasn't supposed to be here, Starsky realized. Dobey threw a monkeywrench into the works. He was torn. Where Hutch wasn't wanted, he should prefer to be unwanted himself, but whatever was going down seemed to be big. It just might be the chance to break him out of the moldy corner he'd been parked in. He glanced at Hutch. The light blue eyes that met his were noncommittal. Your choice, they said.
Starsky and Hutch - Black and Bruised - Rosemary
A lot of fics gloss over the problems Starsky and Hutch were clearly having in the last season, skipping straight to post-series Starsky recovery stories. Here Rosemary offers the classic slasher's rational and resolution to their problems.
Hutch tried not to over-react. He smiled and tried to accept the teasing in the light vein in which it was offered, but it was no laughing matter. The thought of Starsky even joking about wanting a new partner twisted his insides with the sickening lurch of a rock climber who unexpectedly feels his surest hold give way, leaving nothing but open air beneath him.
Starsky and Hutch - Homecoming - Lucy & Cheryl M.
Extraditing a prisoner, Starsky takes Hutch to see his old home in New York. Very few things go right. Solid characterization with one of the rightest-feeling takes on Starsky out there, smooth prose and tons of atmosphere -- Lucy & Cheryl M. have a great feel for slang and casual detail. The brisk pacing and how the angst is toned down to a realistic level are also strong points. And Starsky's last line is perfect.
As in most big cities, there was the smell of concrete, soot, and gradual decay. The littered alleys and rotting buildings contrasted with his memories of rural Minnesota. He remembered a summer when some kids from the West Side of Chicago had visited his grandfather's farm. He hadn't believed them when they said they'd never seen a tree before. What a dismal place to grow up.
Starsky and Hutch - Velveteen Hutch - Sylvia Bond
This story has a killer Hutch voice and Sylvia refuses to shy away from his faults and shortcomings, making him seems so real -- her version of him just clicks. Sylvia's prose are top-notch with a great feel for rhythm and pauses. There's also lovely snark and dry self-deprecating humor.
When I arrived in L.A., I was going to be every criminal's worst nightmare: a hall monitor with a badge. They had them in Duluth when I was a kid in junior high, and there's even a picture of me in the yearbook. There I stand against a brick wall, with my blond hair, an armband, and a clipboard. I look like a neo-nazi, I really do. But I was going to do it, bring down all the evil in the world, me and my clipboard.
Starsky and Hutch - Hopscotch - Teri White
Post-series Starsky and Hutch try going on vacation. Of course, everything goes to hell. The second book in a trilogy, but which stands on its own, Hopscotch's brilliance is believable character change. Hutch especially by the end of the story is fundamentally different than at the beginning, -- can't go back kind of different -- and Teri makes it work. Be warned, this one's an epic -- and a suspenseful one at that -- and it's hard to stop once you've started.
Starsky shifted slightly in the seat and pulled from beneath his butt a paper bag half-filled with French fries. "You're a lot of fun sometimes."
Hutch leaned forward and rested his chin on the steering wheel, staring glumly into the slowly-dying Los Angeles night. "Fun?" he muttered. "You want to talk about fun? Well, partner, let me say that spending ten hours cooped up in a car with you and your moveable delicatessen is not exactly my idea of a good time, either. In fact, it ranks just behind an attack of the stomach flu."
Starsky sampled a flattened French fry. "You know," he commented morosely, "if I was a sensitive kind of guy, I might be deeply hurt by some of the things you say to me."