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crack_van2006-06-27 01:09 pm
wickedwords.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2006-06-27 01:09 pm
Entry tags:
Your Cowboy Days are Over by M (NC-17)
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: Sheppard/OFC (though not the focus of the story)
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
samdonne
Author Website: Derivative Fiction
Why this must be read:
This story is great science fiction. It showcases characters making some very hard choices, against a backdrop of a rich alien culture, with interesting plot, angst, H/c, and multiple layers of theme. (One of my big literary kinks)
This story is great fan fiction, delving into who John Sheppard is and exploring the Stargate universe, assembling bits and pieces of canon (such as the episode 'Allies' and the on-going genetics storylines) and extrapolating from them to create much more than the sum of its parts.
This story is future fic, raw and uncompromising in its conclusions, full of resonant emotional intensity. It's a novel, and I sank into the story as I read it, walking away with something approaching an emotional hangover when I was done.
Though of course, everyone's mileage on the reading experience will vary.
They trade one of John's childhood memories and the last of the medical supplies for passage on a cargo ship, and land on Bajan in mid-winter. The memory is nothing exceptional: Rachel Sheppard doing the baseball mom thing on a Saturday afternoon in 1975, at Fort Bragg. She wears a bottle green shirt, the left wristcuff stained with soda; she yells, "Show them what you're made of, Big J!" when John is up for bat in the fourth inning and Frank Sheppard has left the stands; even with the sun in his eyes, John hits a line drive that takes him to third base. Because little league is nothing anyone in this galaxy has ever heard of, the clip sells at a premium. Teyla holds his hand during the upload and hums an Athosian chant, but John's okay. He's got more where that came from.
That first month, they stay down-city in a cheap resthouse packed with other immigrants, deep in the bowels of Bajan minor where the suns only contribute a permanent kind of dawn. Their room is small and bare, but they keep it clean. The bed is little more than a mattress propped up on the floor, but big enough for the adults to share and for Ben to sleep in a knobby ball against John's back.
After a long day of menial jobs or no jobs at all, they huddle together, too tired to be bothered by the high-pitched squeals of the critters getting hacked in the kitchen next door. John's arm reaches behind him, curled around his son's slim waist, the child's face tucked between his shoulder blades. Teyla's hand cups John's elbow, fingers splayed over the efflorescence of Ellia's old feeding wound.
The long winter, the constant press of bodies, the economics of memory that leave John shaking: none of that can intrude upon this hard-won peace. Home is a roof over their heads, food that doesn't fight back, and a shield at last.
Your Cowboy Days are Over
Pairing: Sheppard/OFC (though not the focus of the story)
Author on LJ:
samdonneAuthor Website: Derivative Fiction
Why this must be read:
This story is great science fiction. It showcases characters making some very hard choices, against a backdrop of a rich alien culture, with interesting plot, angst, H/c, and multiple layers of theme. (One of my big literary kinks)
This story is great fan fiction, delving into who John Sheppard is and exploring the Stargate universe, assembling bits and pieces of canon (such as the episode 'Allies' and the on-going genetics storylines) and extrapolating from them to create much more than the sum of its parts.
This story is future fic, raw and uncompromising in its conclusions, full of resonant emotional intensity. It's a novel, and I sank into the story as I read it, walking away with something approaching an emotional hangover when I was done.
Though of course, everyone's mileage on the reading experience will vary.
They trade one of John's childhood memories and the last of the medical supplies for passage on a cargo ship, and land on Bajan in mid-winter. The memory is nothing exceptional: Rachel Sheppard doing the baseball mom thing on a Saturday afternoon in 1975, at Fort Bragg. She wears a bottle green shirt, the left wristcuff stained with soda; she yells, "Show them what you're made of, Big J!" when John is up for bat in the fourth inning and Frank Sheppard has left the stands; even with the sun in his eyes, John hits a line drive that takes him to third base. Because little league is nothing anyone in this galaxy has ever heard of, the clip sells at a premium. Teyla holds his hand during the upload and hums an Athosian chant, but John's okay. He's got more where that came from.
That first month, they stay down-city in a cheap resthouse packed with other immigrants, deep in the bowels of Bajan minor where the suns only contribute a permanent kind of dawn. Their room is small and bare, but they keep it clean. The bed is little more than a mattress propped up on the floor, but big enough for the adults to share and for Ben to sleep in a knobby ball against John's back.
After a long day of menial jobs or no jobs at all, they huddle together, too tired to be bothered by the high-pitched squeals of the critters getting hacked in the kitchen next door. John's arm reaches behind him, curled around his son's slim waist, the child's face tucked between his shoulder blades. Teyla's hand cups John's elbow, fingers splayed over the efflorescence of Ellia's old feeding wound.
The long winter, the constant press of bodies, the economics of memory that leave John shaking: none of that can intrude upon this hard-won peace. Home is a roof over their heads, food that doesn't fight back, and a shield at last.
Your Cowboy Days are Over