Yuletide recs the first
One of the things I love about Yuletide is the opportunity to beta-read a lot of stories in a variety of fandoms. I think I've got a pretty good eye for story structure, cadence, and flow, and it's really satisfying to take a good story and help the author craft it into a superb story. Plus, that way I get a preview of Yuletide before the collection opens - win/win! Between the stories I beta-read for my flist, those I picked up on chat, and those whose authors found me on the beta spreadsheet, I read something like 80K of fic this year!
This first set of recs includes the best of the stories I beta-read (in fandoms I know or could easily pick up; I hesitate to rec in fandoms I don't know, even though I beta-read at least one story that has me wanting to read the original book), as well as others in their fandoms I particularly liked.
Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
First, I have been looking forward to the chance to rec The Doctor's Fruit (Aubrey/Maturin, 1672 words) ever since I beta-read it. It's a delightful short and funny romp that (except for the slashy bits) feels as though it could have come direct from the series; in fact, I actually checked my electronic copies of the books to see if this scene had been surreptitiously lifted from canon. Excellent character voices, and it will put a smile on your face.
I also really enjoyed the other Yuletide story in this fandom, The Whitehall Affair (gen/canon pairings, 5219 words) in which Stephen, given a mission by Sir Joseph Blaine, enlists Jack's help. Sophie and Diana are in this one as well, and they make as perfect (and as unlikely) a team as their husbands.
The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
The gods surely have smiled on fans of this series, with lots of excellent (and many long!) stories in the collection. I was fortunate to beta three of them and they are all really good.
A Ruby Held Up to the Sunrise (Attolia/Eugenides, 3571 words) is the story of how and why Gen gave his queen her ruby earrings, and it's got the feel of canon to it, with a structure that alternates the story of the earrings with Gen telling the story to Attolia, and the involvement of the gods (which is one of the things I like best in canon).
if you'll be my bodyguard (Attolia/Eugenides, Eugenides/Costis, 14696 words) is a wonderful outsider-POV story; in this case, it's that of Costis' sister Thalia, who has come to the city to visit. Thalia is essentially an original character, and she's beautifully fleshed-out; her story is interesting in itself, in addition to the way her perspective sheds light on the canon characters. There is also an absolutely wonderful scene in which Thalia encounters someone the reader will recognize, but she does not; this is my favorite type of unreliable narrator.
Finally, I am just in awe of the worldbuilding that went into The Crow and the Sword and the Hunt (gen/canon pairings, 20908 words). As with the previous story, part of the charm for me is that the reader recognizes things that the viewpoint characters do not, and again, the original characters are well-drawn and have interesting stories of themselves. In this case, the original characters are Princess Cecily of Tirnamag and her sister Anne, Queen of Avalion, and if you're thinking those place names sound vaguely familiar, you're right; this is the fantasy-Tudor-England equivalent to the fantasy-classic-Greece of canon. The gods make their appearances as well, and there are some excellent in-story mythological tales, just like canon.
In addition to those three which I was privileged to beta, there are several other stories I particularly enjoyed in this fandom.
Charioteer (gen/canon pairings, 13852 words) is a heart-stoppingly exciting adventure story in which Costis has been captured by the Mede (which in this story is fantasy-Roman rather than Persian) and turned into a slave charioteer...and then Eugenides shows up. This is twisty and turny, full of plans that go awry and wheels within wheels, and poor Costis never quite manages to catch up with the king's daring and the queen's cunning.
Global and Eternal (gen/canon pairings, 3264 words) may only be a quarter the length of the previous story, but it still packs a lot of twists and turns into its length - or rather, most of it seems to happen in the interstices of this spare story. It really captures the tense and complex relationship between Attolia and Gen, and the court intrigues that permeate canon.
The Two Queens (gen, 1782 words), a faux-historical article about Eddis and Attolia, is stylistically fabulous and surprisingly engaging. There is a lovely hint of unreliable narrator here as well, for of course a researcher sifting through the documents that have survived to her time may draw erroneous conclusions.
The Listeners - Walter de la Mare
This wasn't a canon I knew when I offered to beta this story, but it's a poem which you can read here; but you don't need to have read it to enjoy The Moonlit Door (gen, 6120 words), which is a fairy tale about a knight who makes a bargain with the Shadow Folk. Lots of recognizable elements of the fairy tale tradition, and various bits of myth.
This first set of recs includes the best of the stories I beta-read (in fandoms I know or could easily pick up; I hesitate to rec in fandoms I don't know, even though I beta-read at least one story that has me wanting to read the original book), as well as others in their fandoms I particularly liked.
Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
First, I have been looking forward to the chance to rec The Doctor's Fruit (Aubrey/Maturin, 1672 words) ever since I beta-read it. It's a delightful short and funny romp that (except for the slashy bits) feels as though it could have come direct from the series; in fact, I actually checked my electronic copies of the books to see if this scene had been surreptitiously lifted from canon. Excellent character voices, and it will put a smile on your face.
I also really enjoyed the other Yuletide story in this fandom, The Whitehall Affair (gen/canon pairings, 5219 words) in which Stephen, given a mission by Sir Joseph Blaine, enlists Jack's help. Sophie and Diana are in this one as well, and they make as perfect (and as unlikely) a team as their husbands.
The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
The gods surely have smiled on fans of this series, with lots of excellent (and many long!) stories in the collection. I was fortunate to beta three of them and they are all really good.
A Ruby Held Up to the Sunrise (Attolia/Eugenides, 3571 words) is the story of how and why Gen gave his queen her ruby earrings, and it's got the feel of canon to it, with a structure that alternates the story of the earrings with Gen telling the story to Attolia, and the involvement of the gods (which is one of the things I like best in canon).
if you'll be my bodyguard (Attolia/Eugenides, Eugenides/Costis, 14696 words) is a wonderful outsider-POV story; in this case, it's that of Costis' sister Thalia, who has come to the city to visit. Thalia is essentially an original character, and she's beautifully fleshed-out; her story is interesting in itself, in addition to the way her perspective sheds light on the canon characters. There is also an absolutely wonderful scene in which Thalia encounters someone the reader will recognize, but she does not; this is my favorite type of unreliable narrator.
Finally, I am just in awe of the worldbuilding that went into The Crow and the Sword and the Hunt (gen/canon pairings, 20908 words). As with the previous story, part of the charm for me is that the reader recognizes things that the viewpoint characters do not, and again, the original characters are well-drawn and have interesting stories of themselves. In this case, the original characters are Princess Cecily of Tirnamag and her sister Anne, Queen of Avalion, and if you're thinking those place names sound vaguely familiar, you're right; this is the fantasy-Tudor-England equivalent to the fantasy-classic-Greece of canon. The gods make their appearances as well, and there are some excellent in-story mythological tales, just like canon.
In addition to those three which I was privileged to beta, there are several other stories I particularly enjoyed in this fandom.
Charioteer (gen/canon pairings, 13852 words) is a heart-stoppingly exciting adventure story in which Costis has been captured by the Mede (which in this story is fantasy-Roman rather than Persian) and turned into a slave charioteer...and then Eugenides shows up. This is twisty and turny, full of plans that go awry and wheels within wheels, and poor Costis never quite manages to catch up with the king's daring and the queen's cunning.
Global and Eternal (gen/canon pairings, 3264 words) may only be a quarter the length of the previous story, but it still packs a lot of twists and turns into its length - or rather, most of it seems to happen in the interstices of this spare story. It really captures the tense and complex relationship between Attolia and Gen, and the court intrigues that permeate canon.
The Two Queens (gen, 1782 words), a faux-historical article about Eddis and Attolia, is stylistically fabulous and surprisingly engaging. There is a lovely hint of unreliable narrator here as well, for of course a researcher sifting through the documents that have survived to her time may draw erroneous conclusions.
The Listeners - Walter de la Mare
This wasn't a canon I knew when I offered to beta this story, but it's a poem which you can read here; but you don't need to have read it to enjoy The Moonlit Door (gen, 6120 words), which is a fairy tale about a knight who makes a bargain with the Shadow Folk. Lots of recognizable elements of the fairy tale tradition, and various bits of myth.