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