Fandom: ROSWELL
Pairing: None
Author on LJ: moonwhip
Author Website: moonwhip.net

Why this must be read:
Let's try a list, shall we?
-It's funny.
-It's funny fic from a writer who does heart-wrenching angst really, really well.
-It's funny fic, from a writer who does heart-wrenching angst really, really well... about Kyle becoming a Buddhist.

This is a glimpse of Kyle during the season one hiatus that slyly attempts to answer that most holy of Roswell mysteries: exactly how did the one-dimensional jock we used to know become the character we all loved on season two?

The Japanese stuff, in particular -- some of the koan seemed pretty damn pointless, like "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Maybe the lesson would've seemed more valuable if he hadn't had a friend on the team who had weird joints and could make one hand clap.

True Confessions Of A Buddhist Jock

Fandom: HORNBLOWER
Pairing: Archie/Wellard, Archie/Clayton, Horatio/Archie
Author on LJ: cortese
Author Website: Janis Cortese's Fanfic Archive

Why this must be read:
Inamorata is set pre-Mutiny, and is about the changing relationships between Archie and Horatio, and Wellard, and about cycles of hero-worship, love, and abuse and also about memories and growing up. The grim realities of life aboard the Renown are balanced by Archie's memories of happier days with Horatio, and, unusual for fics set in this period, the story ends on an up note. Archie is perhaps a little more oblivious than his humbleness would explain, but his and Horatio's characterisation is spot on in all other respects. Not too angsty, not too fluffy, and with Janis Cortese's excellent, evocative writing, this story is a cut above your usual romance/angst fic.

( An excerpt )

Inamorata

Fandom: FARSCAPE
Pairing: John/Grayza
Author on LJ: kernezelda
Author Website:

Why this must be read: Kernezelda is the mistress of the slow, psychological thriller. In this fic, Kernezelda meticulously explores the slow breakdown of a Crichton who has nowhere left to run. She details how Crichton and Grayza both change over the course of many cycles of interaction. She addresses the themes of hope and despair and the power to prevail when it's darkest.

The world building is wonderful and the unsentimentality refreshing. The sometimes hazy tech of lesser writers is presented here in crisp and brutal detail.

Excerpt (More like an introductory teaser...)

That encounter concluded successfully so far as Mele-On was concerned -she had Crichton's offspring as hostage, she had him. It had given her great pleasure to expel his corrupt paramour from the carrier, Sun's unconscious body battered and broken through futile resistance. The Human's capture far outweighed the loss of example provided by public execution of the traitor Aeryn Sun.

Mele-On found the whole incident gratifying in the extreme. When she took Crichton to her bed in the arns following, she didn't bother to use her Heppel Oil. That would have been mercy, to allow him to hide his surrender behind the drug. And he had surrendered; given the choice of resisting or risking harm to his child, Crichton had chosen his future, fully aware of what it might hold.

That first night in her quarters, Mele-On asked him no questions; she required no answers; she wanted nothing more than to enjoy her triumph. It shone through Crichton's angry eyes, his rough touch, the hard set of his mouth. She heard it in his harsh breathing, tasted it in the salt of alien tears when he thought she finally slept.

He was nothing now, if not hers, and she would never let him go.


Future Interruptus is the sequel to The Future or Something Like It by officersun524, and the companion fic to Future's End also by Kernezelda.

Future Interruptus

Fandom: MAN FROM UNCLE
Pairing: Napoleon/Illya
Author on LJ: Not to my knowledge
Author's Website: None that I know of, but her MfU stories can be found on File 40
Why this must be read:
A truly erotic story that starts off at a simmer and slowly notches up by degrees. The sex scene is incendiary. At the end of a successful mission in Buenos Aires, Illya and Napoleon are treated to a night on the town by a grateful Innocent. Napoleon shows off his skill at the tango to distract himself from concerns over his partner's deepening isolation, while Illya watches and broods. Until he leaves. And Napoleon follows.

( read an excerpt )

I hope you enjoy this story as much as I do.

Tango