Numbers Six, Seven and Eight

Six to Eight

(This is a trilogy so I'm covering it in one chunk)

Story:  In the Blood, In the Dunes, In the Heart

Author:  Jonathan J strange

Fandom:  Harry Potter

Stats:  60 total Chapters, 169k total words, Published in 2008, Pairing Draco/Hermione

Summary:  Between my boiler exploding and our car breaking down and having to have the boiler replaced and then my internet dying for several days it was a true miracle I could get through all 60 chapters of this trilogy of stories. 

I was recommended this trilogy by an IRL friend who read it back in the day when it was first published, though she confessed she hadn't read it since.  In the Blood is a short little smut-piece about a ridiculous situation in which Draco and Hermione get locked in the Room of Requirement during the final battle of Hogwarts and have sex.  It's completely silly and smutty and there's not much to it beyond that. 

In the Dunes, the second part is much better.  It picks up sometime after the events of the one-shot and brings the focus on Draco and Blaise who are living in hiding due to their involvement with the dark side during the final battle.  Cut off from magical society they are trying to live in a sea side town, which jumps around a bit due to some continuity errors, but ends up settled on the west coast of England.  Draco isn't faring well, his father is in prison and his mother, though he is unaware of this, is in the loony ward at St Mungo's after suffering a nervous breakdown, (which in a shocking break from cliché, she never recovers from.)  Blaise is faring slightly better, having sex with lots of muggle girls, getting himself a part time job and managing to find a place called ASDA to get their shopping and not being afraid of the post box.


The main characters jump around some from tight characterisation to moments of laughable dialogue, the friend who recc'd it informed me that at the time she was communicating with the author and suggested that this may be to some chapters not being ran through the beta first, as some have some pretty basic spelling errors and have blank authors notes and I'm to understand that the authors beta was largely reigning him in on the beta-ed chapters.  I would accept this as an explanation due to some of the chapters reading very poorly in comparison to others. 


One night Draco confesses to Blaise his tryst with Hermione and Blaise suggests Draco starts writing her love letters, this again brings in some continuity issues and the letters themselves are a bit....  cheesy, we'll say, but this escalates to Hermione finally arriving at the boys hideout to inform Draco that Lucius has been killed in prison.  With the help of some order members, Hermione sneaks Draco and Blaise into the Zabini mansion where the funeral is taking place so Draco can say goodbye to his father and Blaise can see his mother.  There they discover Narcissa has lost most of her sanity and fails to recognise Draco, thinking that he is a young Lucius. 


The boys return home where Draco renews his affair with Hermione and Blaise has it off with a muggle girl, only to be interrupted and attacked in the middle of the night by a very alive Lucius Malfoy who has faked his own death and is now mounting his own bid to become the new Dark Lord.  The boys are forced to turn to the order for help once again and manage to escape to the old Black Family manor (not Grimmauld Place, Narcissa's parents' home.)  It's decided though that Draco is safer away from Lucius as Lucius only wants to use him in his rise to power so they are sent out of the country. 


In the Heart picks up sometime later, the boys are now in a ski-lodge in the swiss alps, Draco has discovered a love of snow boarding and Blaise has been drowning his sorrows in the ladies of the ski lodges, after having left behind his old girlfriend from Hogwarts, whom he clearly still carries a torch for.  In the Heart is both the best part of the trilogy, but the worst in terms of pacing and some silly story decisions, the amount of characters who die, then turn out to be alive, then die, then turn up alive again is ridiculous. 


Lucius is now firmly established as a dark lord in his own right and Blaise's old girlfriend turns up to get the boys to return to England.  This part has the best character moments of the run and some truly excellent story moments which make it worth reading the prior two to get to, though I understand through my friend that the authors beta actually wrote large parts of this one, which he did not credit in the actual story, but did tell people privately at the time.  I also understand that towards the end the beta either jumped ship or wasn't consulted at all which leads me to believe where some of the more contrived parts of the story came from. 


I won't spoiler the main events of this one, should you choose to read it, I've left out enough info so you actually be quite surprised and delighted by some of the plot twists that happen.  Fair warning though, some of the stuff involving Lucius and Narcissa gets dark, really dark, and those of a nervous disposition should probably avoid it as though it may seem like a smut story at first, parts of it delve into horror and it's quite graphic.


Rating: 
In the Blood 5 out of 10

In the Dunes 8 out of 10

In the Heart  7 out of 10  (even though this is the most interesting part, I marked it lower due to some of the pacing issues)

Number Six to Ten

(I will update this as I go on)

Six to Eight

(This is a trilogy so I'm covering it in one chunk)

Story:  In the Blood, In the Dunes, In the Heart

Author:  Jonathan J strange

Fandom:  Harry Potter

Stats:  60 total Chapters, 169k total words, Published in 2008, Pairing Draco/Hermione

Summary:  Between my boiler exploding and our car breaking down and having to have the boiler replaced and then my internet dying for several days it was a true miracle I could get through all 60 chapters of this trilogy of stories. 



I was recommended this trilogy by an IRL friend who read it back in the day when it was first published, though she confessed she hadn't read it since.  In the Blood is a short little smut-piece about a ridiculous situation in which Draco and Hermione get locked in the Room of Requirement during the final battle of Hogwarts and have sex.  It's completely silly and smutty and there's not much to it beyond that. 



In the Dunes, the second part is much better.  It picks up sometime after the events of the one-shot and brings the focus on Draco and Blaise who are living in hiding due to their involvement with the dark side during the final battle.  Cut off from magical society they are trying to live in a sea side town, which jumps around a bit due to some continuity errors, but ends up settled on the west coast of England.  Draco isn't faring well, his father is in prison and his mother, though he is unaware of this, is in the loony ward at St Mungo's after suffering a nervous breakdown, (which in a shocking break from cliché, she never recovers from.)  Blaise is faring slightly better, having sex with lots of muggle girls, getting himself a part time job and managing to find a place called ASDA to get their shopping and not being afraid of the post box.

The main characters jump around some from tight characterisation to moments of laughable dialogue, the friend who recc'd it informed me that at the time she was communicating with the author and suggested that this may be to some chapters not being ran through the beta first, as some have some pretty basic spelling errors and have blank authors notes and I'm to understand that the authors beta was largely reigning him in on the beta-ed chapters.  I would accept this as an explanation due to some of the chapters reading very poorly in comparison to others. 

One night Draco confesses to Blaise his tryst with Hermione and Blaise suggests Draco starts writing her love letters, this again brings in some continuity issues and the letters themselves are a bit....  cheesy, we'll say, but this escalates to Hermione finally arriving at the boys hideout to inform Draco that Lucius has been killed in prison.  With the help of some order members, Hermione sneaks Draco and Blaise into the Zabini mansion where the funeral is taking place so Draco can say goodbye to his father and Blaise can see his mother.  There they discover Narcissa has lost most of her sanity and fails to recognise Draco, thinking that he is a young Lucius. 

The boys return home where Draco renews his affair with Hermione and Blaise has it off with a muggle girl, only to be interrupted and attacked in the middle of the night by a very alive Lucius Malfoy who has faked his own death and is now mounting his own bid to become the new Dark Lord.  The boys are forced to turn to the order for help once again and manage to escape to the old Black Family manor (not Grimmauld Place, Narcissa's parents' home.)  It's decided though that Draco is safer away from Lucius as Lucius only wants to use him in his rise to power so they are sent out of the country. 

In the Heart picks up sometime later, the boys are now in a ski-lodge in the swiss alps, Draco has discovered a love of snow boarding and Blaise has been drowning his sorrows in the ladies of the ski lodges, after having left behind his old girlfriend from Hogwarts, whom he clearly still carries a torch for.  In the Heart is both the best part of the trilogy, but the worst in terms of pacing and some silly story decisions, the amount of characters who die, then turn out to be alive, then die, then turn up alive again is ridiculous. 

Lucius is now firmly established as a dark lord in his own right and Blaise's old girlfriend turns up to get the boys to return to England.  This part has the best character moments of the run and some truly excellent story moments which make it worth reading the prior two to get to, though I understand through my friend that the authors beta actually wrote large parts of this one, which he did not credit in the actual story, but did tell people privately at the time.  I also understand that towards the end the beta either jumped ship or wasn't consulted at all which leads me to believe where some of the more contrived parts of the story came from. 

I won't spoiler the main events of this one, should you choose to read it, I've left out enough info so you actually be quite surprised and delighted by some of the plot twists that happen.  Fair warning though, some of the stuff involving Lucius and Narcissa gets dark, really dark, and those of a nervous disposition should probably avoid it as though it may seem like a smut story at first, parts of it delve into horror and it's quite graphic.

Rating: 
In the Blood 5 out of 10
In the Dunes 8 out of 10
In the Heart  7 out of 10  (even though this is the most interesting part, I marked it lower due to some of the pacing issues)

My Immortal

Story:  My Immortal

Author: Tara Gillespie aka  XXXbloodyrists666XXX aka goffikgurl666 aka Two Dudes trolling

Fandom:  Harry Potter

Stats:  44 total Chapters, (one is supposedly a hacked chapter), 23,000+ words, Published in 2006, Pairing OC/Harry OC/Draco OC/Everyone

Summary:  Chances are that you might have heard or even read My Immortal and be wondering what the hell something like that is doing on a reading challenge list, but for the uneducated, here's a brief history.  My Immortal is a Crack/Troll fic which surfaced on fanfiction.net sometime in 2006, but the original upload has since been deleted.

It is infamous for almost every word in it being misspelt in some way and having the most insane plot, if you can really call it that, that you could ever imagine.


For a long time there was a massive debate about whether or not this was actually a real fan fiction or if it was the work of trolls.  I have always been on the side of trolls, because some of the supposed spelling mistakes made far better jokes than real jokes would have and because it covered almost every cliché at the time from fanfic writers and some were never spelt twice the same way in all 44 chapters and it takes a real talent to make sure that your spelling is that bad. 


Recently there was a confession written on a website by a guy who claimed that he and an online friend had conspired together to write My Immortal and he had been locked out of the account after 15 and had nothing to do with it after that point.  Whether he was just trying to seem cool or if he did indeed write My Immortal, I am sure that someone wrote it that badly on purpose and that's all that matters. 

When one of my friends read it for the first time she moodily confessed that she had written one or two Mary Sue characters in the past who bore a passing resemblance to the main character and subsequently vowed never to do that again having been thoroughly embarrassed by the situation.

So it didn't take me long to start cheating, I've actually read this before (I know, boo-hiss!)  However it was way, way, back when it was first published and I've never actually read the full thing before, just random snippets and some of the funniest quotes that people have published all over the place.  So I thought it really couldn't hurt for me to give it a full read.

My Immortal is the story of Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way, or 'Enoby' as she ends up being through most of the time.  She's a seventh year Slytherin 'goff' who enjoys wearing black, listening to My Chemical Romance, being a Satanist and slitting her wrists.  The plot is about the main character, who is a vampire, strutting around Hogwarts, fighting against 'prepz' like Dumbledore, who listens to Avril Lavigne, Voldmort trying to get Ebony to kill Harry, who goes by the name Vampire, Ebony going back in time to try and prevent Tom Bombadil (really), from becoming Voldy by making him fall in love with her and the author breaking the forth wall to argue with 'prep' reviewers, Tara and her best friend/beta Raven falling out over some unknown drama and a supposed 'hacking' incident. 

That's just the tip of the madness.  The clothing descriptions are detailed enough to make even Patrick Bateman's eye twitch and the spelling takes a downward turn after Tara and her Beta have a falling out.  Hermione's name has changed to B'loody Mary Smith, she's converted to Satanism after discovering her parents were really vampires and she's adopted and has also changed houses to Slytherin.  Dumbledore starts calling everyone 'MOTHERFUCKERS' because he has a headache.  Snape and Lupin take to videotaping students having baths...  I really wish I was making this stuff up.

It is without doubt, utterly hilarious and probably the most successful fanfic ever uploaded to fanfiction.net, when I last saw it on the site it had over 20,000 reviews.  As long as you read it with your tongue in your cheek I think you'll get a good kick out of it.

Rating: Beyond the rating system.

Some quotes from My Immortal:

    “Hi Draco!” I said in a depressed voice.

          Chapter 3                                   

     AN: I sed stup flaming ok ebony’s name is ENOBY nut mary su OK! DRACO IS SOO IN LUV wif her dat he is acting defrent! dey nu eechodder b4 ok!

        Chapter 4's Author's notes        

     And then…………… suddenly just as I Draco kissed me passionately. Draco climbed on top of me and we started to make out keenly against a tree. He took of my top and I took of his clothes. I even took of my bra. Then he put his thingie into my you-know-what and we did it for the first time.

    Chapter 4                                 
      

         “My name’s Harry Potter, although most people call me Vampire these days.” he grumbled.
         “Why?” I exclaimed.
         “Because I love the taste of human blood.” he giggled.

     Chapter 6                             
                

     I ran out of the room and into the Forbidden Forest where I had lost my virility to Draco and then I started to bust into tears.

Chapter 8                             
 

Voldemort got a dude-ur-so-retarded look on his face. “I hath telekinesis.” he answered cruelly.

Chapter 9                            
  

     Suddenly Draco jumped out from behind a wall.
    “Why didn’t you fucking tell me!” he shouted. “How could you- you- you fucking poser muggle bitch!” (c is dat out of character?)

 Chapter 10                        

Then I looked out the window and screamed… Snap was spying on me and he was taking a video tape of me! And Loopin was masticating to it! They were sitting on their broomsticks.

Chapter 11                       

“I MAY BE A HOGWARTS STUDENT….” Hargirid paused angrily. “BUT I AM ALSO A SATANIST!”

Chapter 11                     

And if that lot doesn't wet your appetite for more insanity, nothing will.

Quick Update

Between going dark for 24 hours and that horrible three dimensional place called real life getting in the way, I'm a bit behind schedule, but I'm going to try and get back on track as best I can.

Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith

Book: Only Forward 

Author: Michael Marshall Smith

Stats:  approx 120k words, Published in 1994, Sci Fi

Summary:  I was recommended this book by a friend.  Said friend's exact words were, "it changed my life."  This particularly friend, whilst sometimes has been known to brief bouts of fangirlish excitement, is not typically the kind of person to say such a thing.  So that was a recommendation which I could hardly ignore. 



The truth is that once you've become an adult, few books can change your life.  When you're child a book can really change you, it can affect your entire outlook on the world, it can help to shape the person you're going to become.  As an adult, it becomes rarer that a book can quite have that effect, because the world has already shaped most of who you are and most of us to stubborn to change. 


There are few books that I have read as an adult which have actually changed my view on the world.  There are books which I have read that I liked and ones which I love to the core, which I will read over and over and count amongst my favourites, but few that actually changed me.

Harry Potter had a big impact, not because of the story, but because of the fandom, being a part of that fandom has done many wonderful things for me and I'll always be grateful to it for that, but I don't count it as one that changed me.  In fact the only one which I recall that did was 1984 by George Orwell, and a contributing factor to that may be that I've always been a bit paranoid about zombies and monsters, but it gave me something else entirely to worry about. 

Only Forward, may have just changed my life.  I know that sounds like a hard sell on a book I just happened to enjoy and only finished reading two hours ago, but I'm totally serious.  Only Forward, may have just changed my life.

I'm still in the midst of that afterglow you get when you know you've just seen something brilliant, something that you suddenly want everyone you know to know about. 

The surface is that this is a story about a guy called Stark.  Stark is funny, hilarious in fact, the narrative is from his 1st person and he directly addresses the audience and somehow manages to instantly have you on his side.  He solves problems in a futuristic place called The City, The City is divided into Neighbourhoods, like Colour Neighbourhood for people who dig colours, The Action Center Neighbourhood for people who like to be Doing Things and Cat Neighbourhood for cats. 

Stark guides us through Neighbourhoods and his life as he takes on a job to find a missing person, a person who needs to be found before it's too late. 

The characters are real and alive, the story is compelling, the narrative is vivid and complex and between the excitement of the plot and the hilarity of the jokes, there are times where I had to close the book for a few minutes and just enjoy thinking about the parts I'd just read because they spoke to me in a way that nothing else has come even close to in a long time. 

Even if the book isn't going to change your life, it's a really enjoyable read.  I highly recommend it and I really hope that you get half the enjoyment I did out of it.

Rating:  10 out of 10

Books I've read in 2012

This is to keep track of the published books I've read this year.  With the massive task I've set for myself, plus my film review schedule, I've got the feeling that it's actually going to amount to a very short list this year, possibly the shortest list of books I will have ever read in a year, but I can but try.

Links follow to my full review of each book.

Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith

Number Five - American Psycho Shorts

I didn't think that setting the rules; must be in English, must be complete and must be at least 1000 words was being too hard, but guess how many American Psycho fanfics meet that criteria on fanfiction.net.  If you guess 10, then you're right!  And three of those are for some reason filed separately because fanfiction.net only just recently decided to give the book it's own category instead of just combining the two. 

So from 10 fanfics I didn't really have a great deal of choice over what I was going to be reading.  American Psycho is probably the book I've read the most, I stopped counting when I got to 200 and decided it had already reached an unhealthy number.  It's definitely one of my favourite books of all time, but I get why it doesn't have a huge fandom, being in Bateman's head is not a pleasant place to be.

So for this reason, I have decided to cover three short ones, because ALL the American Psycho fanfics are short and these three barely hit the 1k mark, but I'll be dammed if I'm going to cover 200 fan fictions and one of them not be an American Psycho fic.

Five-Point-One

Story:  Escort

Author: Overthinkery

Fandom:  American Psycho

Stats:  One shot, 1665 words, Published in 2012,

Summary: Escort is an ok little one shot, told from the third person POV of a prostitute named Desiree.  It's basically just a short kill story, she gives Bateman some sexual servicing and then gets killed for her trouble.  There's not really much to say about it on the whole, it's ok and while it's about American Psycho, it doesn't feel like American Psycho, but I'm going to assume that it's a film fanfic over book fanfic and with a grand total of 10 to choose from, I'll take what I can get.



I would say it's definitely a good start, but would offer the following advice for the author: American Psycho fans know what they're in for, so don't be afraid to be crude.  It's ok to use the most vile language you can think of because no matter how bad you think it may be, I can guarantee that it's much worse in the book.

I'd be very interested in seeing what this author could do in the future, perhaps with a longer fic, it's certainly to do something out of Bateman's POV, so props for that.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Five-Point-Two

Story:  Girls Again

Author: raincoatandaxe

Fandom:  American Psycho

Stats:  One shot, 1141 words, Published in 2008,

Summary: It's a nice little one shot, the author said it was written to see if she (I'm assuming from the picture) was able to write like Bret Easton Ellis, I'd say she probably can, but there's four or five lines in there that are right from the book and I think it would have been better to maybe make homage to those lines rather than quote them word for word. 

The story is 1st person and from Bateman's POV (yes!), during about the mid-point of the novel, though it diverges a little from the canon, and recounts the state of a few people he's just killed and the things that he will be doing later.  There's plenty of gore in there so it's not for the faint hearted, then again, American Psycho on the whole isn't for the faint hearted and this really feels like an American Psycho story.

Rating: 7 out of 10



Five-Point-Three

Story:  Plotting

Author: OrbThesela

Fandom:  American Psycho

Stats:  One shot, 1087 words, Published in 2008,

Summary: Full disclosure, I was actually already aware of this author because of another fic which I would have included in the 200 if I hadn't already read it, but I hadn't read this one, I wasn't actually aware it was hers until opening up the authors page for the link as she's mainly a Harry Potter writer.


Again this one is in 1st person and Bateman's POV (yes, again!) it's set in present time, or at least I'm guessing 2008 when it was published and has some nice Batemanesque mentions of the things lying around his apartment and how much they cost, but I really want to know what he's wearing.  The story is about a girl Bateman is in the process of killing and the reasons why he is killing her, I won't say what they are because it's quite funny when you find out and I don't want to ruin the surprise.  There are some very run-on sentences (pot/kettle, I know), but that's very much Ellis' style in the book, so props.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Number Four - Dancing in the Dark

Story:  Dancing in the Dark

Author: DamageCtrl

Fandom:  Avatar: The Last Airbender/Avatar: The Legend of Aang

Stats: 7 Chapters, 64,000+ words, Published in 2006, Pairing Zutara/Blutara (Zuko/Katara Blue Spirit)

Summary:  Before the rumours begin that I selected this one because I am a closeted Zutaraian, I would like to quosh this rumour here and now.  I am in fact an out and proud Zutaraian, I just arrived to the fandom a little late...  that's all.  Actually it was one day late, the day I discovered it was the after the last episode had aired, so I missed the shipping wars.  One of my favourite clichés for this pairing is the use of Katara's Painted Lady meeting Zuko's Blue Spirit, but it's not seen often and rarely seen done well, so if someone sees one of these, point it my way.

Alright let's get this out of the way with while we're at number 4 instead of number 74, when it comes to fandom, I become a right girl's blouse.  That's not an insult to the lovely ladies who may be reading this blog, if you're unfamiliar with the term.  What I mean is that I always, and not intentionally mind, end up shipping the doomed ships, but get caught up in all the fever and romance of it all, trust me this is not an easy thing for a guy to admit.  I have known of more than one young man who has created for himself a fanfiction.net account with a female sounding name so they can get away with reading the more smooshy, romantic, fluff.  Over the years I ship and have shipped, Draco/Hermione, Zuko/Katara, Eric/Sookie, Buffy/Spike and yes, I know that last one happened in canon, but they cocked it all up in the comics, so much so that I doubt I will read anymore Buffy comics again....  Xander/Dawn in season 8 comics....  not even kidding about that...  *shudders*

But you didn't come hear to read the ramblings of my shipping history, you want to hear what this story's about!  Probably. 

Fun fact!  The author of this story is called DamageCtrl, I once had a friend in real life, whose name was Damage Control, no joke, that was his name, he's no longer with us, but he was crazy and awesome.

So the basic story of this one is that it's set at the point where the gAang are in Ba Sing Sei and the girls happen to discover the tea shop where Iroh and Zuko are working while they are posing as refugees.  Katara meets Zuko while he's in disguise as the Blue Spirit and of course, doesn't know who he is and they end up falling for each other through the medium of dance. 

It doesn't really get going until Chapter 2, but it maintains a nice speed once the two characters are actually thrust together and the scenario that's set up does feel like one that actually could happen to these characters within this context. 

The characters, aren't all that in character, they do more or less act in character for most point, but seeing that this is one of the author's earliest fics, I'm guessing they just hadn't got the hAang (<- see what I did there?) of the characters yet, and at times while they do seem like their show counterparts, others they do not.  Katara is probably the least in character, she doesn't do anything that Katara would never do in a million years, she's just not very Katara-like at points.  I think the problem is that the show is very comedic and relies on visual humour, being anime style, and this fic, while having some jokes and some very funny ones at that, is a more serious story so it's missing some of the more defining character moments that you would maybe see in a typical episode.

There are some problems with the writing that I think could have been helped by an experienced beta reader, some mistakes which are common enough, even in published novels, but still end up jumping out at you.  For example:

""No, I don't," she hissed. "Now do you mind? You're being quite rude." Katara narrowed her eyes. "

This line isn't actually said by Katara, it's a woman Katara is speaking to.  It's just a few little awkward mistakes like that, but these really aren't huge glowing errors.

It's your standard, fluffy romance fic, there's a rather amusing subplot involving Iroh and some of the old guys who visit the tea shop betting on who Zuko will end up going out with and there's some nice Toph moments, though a few feel a little forced.  I enjoyed it quite a lot and I think most Zutara shippers would probably enjoy it, but it's definitely one that Kataang fans should avoid.



Rating: 7 out of 10

Thoughts so far

While it may appear to the untrained eye, that I am merely three fics in, I am in fact only three fics in.  (Silence!)    I've kind of worked out a list of fics I've got lined up to read next.  Some I've read the summaries of and I'm looking forward to getting to them. 

What I've been doing so far when I've read a story, is leaving a short note instead of a full review, because I don't think it's too fair to leave all my ramblings in the poor author's inbox, I've also been favouriting each story so I've got an easy way to find it again and I figure that it's the least I can do to improve their stats while I waffle on about the ins and outs of their hard work. 

Their hard work is really what I wanted to talk about.  It's ok to hate a book and post a scathing review online because you've spent hard earned money on it and the author got paid and will probably never stumble across your review.  Fan fiction authors work just as hard as published authors and they aren't being paid for their hard work.  I think really, even if you disliked a story, the least you can do for a fan fic author, is at least leave a comment.  I know that people tend not to do that unless they either really loved or really hated it and that isn't very helpful for people who genuinely want to know how they can improve or what bits might have been good or bad. 

I admit though that I was nervous about posting a note on these stories letting the authors know I'd posted an off-site review, because there's a real person at the end of that username and sometimes we tend to forget that on the internet.  Posting film reviews is one thing, I expect that film makers have thick enough skins to accept criticism and probably don't care about the opinions of a small-time blogger like myself, the same goes for published authors. 

Fandom though, is another fish entirely and while I try to be honest and fair about the fic I'm reviewing, I'm aware that people are doing this for fun and walking in and crapping all over someones hard work for the sake of being a harsh critic is not really going to be helpful to anyone.

Number Three - Practical Solutions

Story:  Practical Solutions

Author: Aurette

Fandom:  Harry Potter

Stats:  4 Chapters, 18,341 words, Published in 2011, Pairing HG/SS

Summary:  Now I feel a bit bad for selecting this one, the lovely Jennifer Mabe gave me a quite a nice list of rec's from Harry Potter and Twilight and she gave me a strong recommendation for the author and suggested the fic Of Muggles and Magic.  So I followed the link and clicked to the authors page so I could read what the synopsis was for the story and realised that it was a Regency HG/SS fic that was 192k long.  Now weirdly, although I am proud to sail aboard the great ship Dramione, I have a bit of a soft spot for HG/SS fics, their authors tend to be a little older and therefore the stories are often really quite good and usually have more plot to them than just snogging in a cupboard.  That being said, I'm not a huge fan of Regency fics and though I'm supposed to be using this to branch out and read stuff I wouldn't normally read, a 192k Regency fic might not quite be the right place for me to start.  So, instead I selected the next one of this author's list, which is Practical Solutions and for the Regency, there was another one on the list which was a Dramione, so I'll probably give that one a go instead as it's also a bit shorter....  only 155k...  *gulp*

"Hermione doesn't have time for a relationship. Snape doesn't have the patience. It's a good thing they are not having one..."  Is the summary for this fic.  It also contains a warning that it's shameless, smutty, fluff.  Ah smutty fan fiction, the internet's female equivalent to tentacle porn.  This fic is indeed shameless, smutty, fluff, utterly shameless.  Snape and Hermione are quite out of character, but I really didn't mind as this fic is quite hilarious.

About 3 paragraphs I began copy/pasting all my favourite quotes so I could share at least one, then the entire thing became far too long and I spent ages going over the list trying to decide what my favourite line was.  Eventually I settled on this:

""Why? Did I excite you?"

"You? No. Little PVC skirts sans knickers? I'm a simple man, Granger. Umbridge would excite me in that get-up.""

The basic story is that Hermione and Snape hook up due to mutual horniness and disinterest in relationships, it's a nice, little, fluffy, smut piece, which should capture the attention of any Hermione/Snape fan.  It's funny and well written and I think I feel safe in recommending it to all. 

Rating:  8 out of 10

Number Two - Wanted

Story:  Wanted

Author:  Amberdreams

Fandom:  Supernatural

Stats: One shot, 12,041 words, Published in 2011

Summary:  I've never read a Supernatural fan fiction before, but wanting to come up for air out of the Potter fandom for the purposes of this reading challenge I thought I had better branch out.  I wouldn't say I'm a big fan of Supernatural, I've watched every single episode, but all my favourite characters have been killed off over the course of time and I think I now watch it out of habit rather than pure indulgence.  I found this by doing a general search in the Western genre, because I'd never read a Western fanfic and to my understanding, they are in fact, quite rare.  (Well, they are in Potter anyhow.)

There are some grammar problems, but nothing major, I think they are perhaps more due to tired eyes not catching the odd slip-up than genuine error on the authors part.  At 12k, believe it or not, it's not the longest one shot I've ever read.  I have a bit of a soft spot for long one-shots, stories that would otherwise be poorer for being split into smaller sections.  The story takes place around season 3 of the show and diverges from the canon in order to tell the story.

The Winchesters are in 1874 and they are hunting evil, but get caught by a lawman who is sure that the boys demon hunting activities are just a series of spree murders, rather than helping people.  I felt that the writing overall was quite good and some of the dialogue is peppered with little character moments that help to encapsulate the feeling of the show and how the characters are portrayed in the canon. 

I feel quite bad for saying this, I mean there's nothing really wrong with the writing and it was written for a challenge and I know how challenge fics can sometimes end up a little odd due to the nature of how they are written, but, it's little on the boring side.  Nothing really happens.  Well, things happen, but those things aren't really all that interesting and I found my rebellious forefinger kept reaching for the downwards arrow key, but I persisted in reading it.

I kinda wish I could give it a higher rating, as I said there's nothing wrong with it, it's just not my personal taste and so it's probably a bit lower than completely unbiased reviewer would mark it.  Saying that however, I have seen some of the supposed 'unbiased' reviewers kicking around fanfiction.net and some of them have a tendency to be rather cruel and seem to forget that fan fiction writers put just as much hard work into their writing as published authors, but these guys aren't being paid for it.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Number One to Five

(I have changed this from one to ten, to one to five, as I didn't realise how long it was getting.)

Number One - A Sarcastic Git's Golden Rules at Hogwarts

Story:  A Sarcastic Git's Golden Rules at Hogwarts

Author: Twisted Biscuit

Fandom:  Harry Potter

Stats: 29 Chapters, 38,500+ words, Published in 2007

Summary:  A humour story to get us started, someone in Hogwarts has been placing notices around the school, they are dripping with sarcasm and we are seeing the results.  It covers topics from teachers to Gryffindors to Muggle lovers to people with flower namesakes and takes a bash at almost every character in the book with it's tongue firmly stuck inside it's cheek.  Not so much of a story as it is a highly amusing collection of lists, poking fun at the plot holes and clichés of the Potter series, Potter fans however, should get a good kick out of it.  Some chapters are stronger than others, but all in all, totally enjoyable.

Rating:  8 out of 10

Okay, forget books, how about One Year 200 Fanfics?

So I had a sort of epiphany whilst eating toast and trying not to trip over the cat.  Knowing that I am, Mr Lazy incarnate and any good intentions I have at the start of the year to read 100 books will likely be thwarted by issues of money and not wanting to get off my bum to go to the town centre and buy more books - I couldn't make such an excuse with fan fiction. 

Fanfic is readily available all over the internet, which is where I'm living these days, it's free and it comes for just about every fandom you could think of from Archie comics to the Vampire Chronicles - (that's a little fandom joke, people.)

While some stories might struggle to hit 5k, I've read a good few 300k+ in my day and some of them, regardless of length have been a lot better than books I've spent hard earned money on.  A lot of them have not.  That's the beauty of fan fiction though. 

So here are the rules, and I'm asking (read: begging) for recs, because whilst I could just sift my way through the first 200 fanfics I find, I'd much rather read ones which have come recommended. 

1.  No fanfics from authors who have banned fan fiction, list here.

2.  The story must be complete, no exceptions.

3.  I must not have already read it, to count it on the list.  (If you recommend something I've read, I'll start making a little list at the bottom of the post.)

4.  It must be a minimum of 1000 words, longer stories are better, but I don't want to discount a truly excellent story just because it might be only 3000 words long. 

5.  It must be in English.

Guidelines for recommendations

* I'm operating on an honour system that you don't recommend a fan fiction that you've written yourself, it's kind of tacky to do that. 

* My main fandom is Harry Potter, but I have quite a wide range of interests so I will accept recommendations for pretty much any fandom I at least have a base knowledge of.  If I don't have a clue about it, I will start compiling a little list at the bottom on this post, because it will do me no good to get 200 recs for the Digimon fandom, when I've never watched an episode in my life and don't plan to start now. 

And that's it!  No need to get too bogged down in rules, I think.  Let the reading begin!

One Year, 100 books

I read an interesting post, here, about reading 100 books in a year.  What occurred to me is that in some years I will have read hundreds of books and some years maybe less than 20. 

So instead of setting myself up for a large fall I thought what if I used this blog to track exactly what it is I'm reading.  Even if I give up I could do a write up of why I gave up and it could spur me on to pick up the next book on my pile. 

What do to with this blog now that I've realised I'm too lazy to review books?

When I first decided to make a blog spot account I created this blog and a personal blog, I had loads of free time and fairly good intentions.  I hide my personal blog after realisation that I had posted far too many rants about people I knew in real life and they were likely to stumble across it at some point. 

I also created a movie review blog, which I quickly discovered was far easier to screencap and writing a movie review or doing a top ten list typically takes about four hours, but a full book review can take days to weeks, depending on how fast I read the book and, arguably, how good it is.  (Bad books take longer, because generally you're angrier about it and have a lot more to say.)

So what to do?

One of my online hobbies is reading up on old fandom controversies and, indeed, new controversies.  The Rob Granito stuff had me entertained for weeks and the recent shoving match between Penny Arcade and @OceanMarketting [sic] had me in heaps of chuckles. 

The thing is that other people, more talented people, people who were there at the time, have gone over and over this stuff and a lot of it is old news.  At one point I thought about going through Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments trilogy and trying to figure out how much of it she'd genuinely made up and how much I could identify as scenes from Harry Potter and Buffy, but then I realised I'd be more or less typing up her entire book and quite frankly I couldn't be bothered. 

Then I thought about going through the Draco Trilogy and trying to identify all the stolen material and figuring out just how much she actually wrote herself, because my suspicions have been that if you took out all the stolen material you'd be left with about 3000 words and some author's notes.  At this point though, 2012, the Draco Trilogy is largely forgotten about and it's online availability is very small and who would really care?  Those who know that she stole massive chunks of text are well aware that there's probably a lot that isn't discovered and those who like to live in blissful ignorance and like to pretend that she didn't steal on such a massive scale wouldn't want to read it anyway.

I did find a few old files that I'd transferred from an old laptop that were labelled 'Draco D' and 'Draco S' respectively that I'd been keeping whilst reading those fanfics and were full of unattributed quotes.  I never did finish reading Draco Veritas as by that point I was full of rage by the sheer number of stolen Babylon 5 quotes.  One day I might actually do something like that, but I doubt it.

One thing I do have is a stack of books shoved under the bed that I had started reading, then subsequently stopped reading for various reasons.  Life's too short to read shit books and a lot of them I'd given up on for having crappy plots or terrible POV transitions. 

So I'm still debating what to do with this blog.  I'll have a think.