Hi, I'll be your Pros driver this month. I've only been in Pros fandom about a year and am still maneuvering my way through the multitudes of fiction online, let alone in zine format.

My tastes in Pros vary, from A/U's to sweet B/D PWP's, so I will try and give you a varied taste of what Pros fandom has to offer online. But, I only will be offering the Bodie/Doyle pairing, I am a OTP girl. I don't read anything else. So all you Murphy/Bodie fans will have to wait until next month! *g* I have some favorite authors, so you may see the same names a few times in the subject line.

Enough about me...onto the fiction!


Fandom: PROFESSIONALS
Pairing: Bodie/Doyle
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website:
Why this must be read: Like a good Harlequin Romance novel, this story sucks you into the author's fantasy world and barely lets you escape at the end.

An A/U set in 1892, where Bodie is a sheikh and Doyle his captive, this story may have the two lads not working for CI-5, but they are completely in character. Wonderful secondary characters add to the tale and what you get is the ultimate Desert Prince kidnaps and woos his virgin captive scenario, where battle of wills occurs, the lovers part and are reunited -- eventually.

The dialogue is fresh and hot, plus the idea of Bodie as a sheikh...cold shower anyone? This is truly a classic novel in Pros fandom. (Plus if you can ever get your hands on a copy of the novel in zine format, do. I have it and the art alone is worth the money I spent for it because of the Suzan Lovett illos).

Arabian Nights

Fandom: SPORTS NIGHT
Pairing: Casey/Dan
Author on LJ: sparcck
Author Website: http://www.cloverclash.com/
Why this must be read:

This MUST be read for several reasons, one of which is that it was an answer to a "Rub it Till it Breaks" challenge and that's always good news.

Another is that it's a very excellent look at PostAprilistheCruelestMonth!Dan.

A third reason, even, is for writing like: Maybe he had tried to not press his face against Casey's neck when he felt Casey put his palms flat against his back when they hugged, because normally there were manly back-pats to go with the manly keep-your-crotch-area-away-from-mine type hugs.

I could really keep this up for a while, but I'll just leave it at: Read it because it's smart. And hot. And there's Kosher beer.

Repair Work

((Hi there, I'm the Sports Night reccer for this month, I've never done this before, but I think I've got it under control. A lot of my favorite Sports Night fic comes from authors that I had read in other fandoms and then discovered, quite happily, that they also wrote SN. That's the case with this first rec, whose author I know mostly for her lotrips. So, uh, yeah, there'll be some maybe-familiar author names this month and a healthy serving of Dan/Casey.))

Fandom: THE O.C.
Pairing: Oliver/Marissa
Author on LJ: kissmeagain
Author Website: New Words for the 1990s

Why this really should be read:

The pairing might make you wince, but this is a wonderful story. Oliver, crazy and fun and often annoying on the show, is portrayed here, after he's locked up on the show, as crazy and fun and chilling. So very worth a read for a great look at a pivotal character on the show.

And it begins: He picked her because she was naïve and beautiful. Marissa had huge eyes and awkward breaks in her sentences, and she trusted him just because he said she could. Her hair shimmered under the lights, curving behind her neck, and he knew everything about her from the way she set her shoulders.

Empty World Rambling (Dollhouse, Dollhouse)

also, hi! I'm your crack-van rec'er for the o.c. for the month of august. I hope I help y'all find something you like!

It's practically compulsory to write something here saying hello, I believe, so: hi. I'm Katie, your friendly neighbourhood B7 dealer this month. I'm still bitter that most of the best fic is in zines which my status as a skint student means I can't afford, but hopefully there's enough left for me to rec that you might not have seen some of it before. :)

(I'd like it on the record, though, that my favourite B7 story ever has already been recced, which I consider very unfair. If you've not read it, GO. Seriously. If you're anything like me, you will never see B7 in the same way again. It's that good. But I digress.)


Fandom: BLAKES 7
Pairing: none
Author on LJ: astrogirl2
Author Website: none, as far as I know
Why this must be read:

I'm a big fan of the 5 Things That Never Happened thing, and this is an awesome example of just why that is.

At their best, AU fic allows us greater understanding of the actual canon - by looking through a lense of what didn't happen, we get to see the real events in clearer focus. This one does that with a vengeance. It also brings its own kind of tragedy, which is just as it should be. This is Avon as he could have been, oh-so-easily, and for such a short fic, it packs one hell of a punch.

Five Things That Never Happened to Kerr Avon

Hello I'm FBF and will be driving the van for the next 31 days. I'm going to try and give you a little bit of everything this month, a little pain (okay a lot of pain - it's Farscape folks), a little humor, a little romance, a little porn. I'm going to, for the most part, be driving on some well known roads in honor of the new folks out there just getting into the fandom (waves hi to the nice people), but I will take an unexpected detour or two along the way.

Fandom: FARSCAPE
Pairing: John/Aeryn
Author on LJ: n/a
Author Website: Crash Debris
Why this must be read:

First off I want to inform you this link is for the "Director's Cut" version of this piece. If you want to read the originial as it was posted on Kansas go here and start with parts 1&2, or you can just read the Director's Cut version.

Now for the why. It's good. Really, really good. It has a little bit of everything in it, humor, torture, mental angst, love, sex, friendship. It takes place sometime later and the events of S4 did not happen in this universe. IMO Crash is a popular writer in this fandom for two reasons, she is good at it and the way she writes is easily accessible to the masses. This is a great, fun, at times painful, and easy read. She sucks you into the story and makes you want to know what happens. FYI it does contain minor spoilers for the first three seasons, just so you are warned.

( Excerpt from Child of the Night )

And that happens just in the first couple of pages.

Child of the Night

So the last time I served as reccer for "Oz," I was an utter failure. Real life stepped in and threw me for a loop, and I never came through. Please forgive me, Oz fen - I promise to do better this time. This month, I do solemnly swear to be diligent and post no less than two recs per week!


Fandom: OZ
Pairing: B/K implied.
Author on LJ: cmshaw
Author Website: cmshaw's fanfic
Why this must be read:

There have been hundreds of discussions in Oz fandom regarding Beecher's love for Keller - why does he love him? How can he do so? And does he really love Chris at all? In "Envy," cmshaw approaches these thorny questions in a roundabout way, with Sister Pete's misplaced lust for Keller as the catalyst, and cmshaw hits all the right notes. This fic is smart, sharp, and has a beautiful bite to it, just like Beecher himself, and cmshaw's writing is gorgeous, with a poetic rhythm that carries you along to the last word.

An excerpt:

You couldn't learn the pain and the passion that was Chris Keller from a series of half-hour counseling sessions; you learned the good and the bad of the man with his blood under your nails, your bones under his hands, his spunk and your own staining the same dirty sheets together. She could talk about his lies but she'd never touched his lips, never opened them up and sucked out the truth behind them into her own mouth, not the way he had.

Envy

Fandom: STAR WARS: TPM
Pairing: Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan, references to Bruck/Bant
Author on LJ: helenish
Author Website: http://www.helenish.net
Why this must be read:

Hi, folks. I'm laughingacademy, and I'll be your pilot for the duration of August. Welcome aboard.

Our trip begin with one of the first stories I read in this fandom. I found it through fearlessdiva, who cites it as the inspiration for her take on Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon in her multi-part story, "The Language of Baked Goods" (which I would be pimping like mad if it weren’t for crack_van's no-WIP policy).

Pleasure-slave stories and mind-wipe stories run through this fandom like kudzu, and it didn't take writers long to realize that these are two great tastes that taste great together. Helen's story (her only foray into TPM fic to date, alas) is a sweet, sexy, lighthearted take on this hybrid plot. At the end of a diplomatic mission, Obi-Wan, "instead of having a intractable, insubordinate Master, now had an intractable, insubordinate pleasure slave." The boys' awkwardness as they try to come to terms with the episode is both realistic and touching, and the dialogue is a delight:

( 'Ah, yet another blow struck for the public image of the Jedi,' Bant said... )

Lost in Translation

Hello, I'm Cat and I'll be serving up your Horatio Hornblower recs for the month of August. I'm relatively new to this fandom, but have become deeply addicted in a very short time and hope to do my best to pass that addiction on this month.

Fandom: HORATIO HORNBLOWER
Pairing: Archie/Edrington
Author on LJ: commodorified
Author Website: The Scriptorium
Why this must be read:

This story is, in one word, stunning. It's a beautifully written, character-driven story with what is easily the longest, hottest sex scene I've ever read. But this story isn't just about the sex, the mind-blowing to-die-for sex is just part of the whole. What this story is really about is Archie and Archie figuring out who he is and what he needs and learning to define himself as himself and not through his relationships with others. Archie/Horatio shippers should not be alarmed, this story is in no way anti-Horatio, in fact although the emphasis is on Archie and Edrington, Horatio gets both a part in the story and a share of the character development that's at its heart.

All the King's Men starts off literally minutes after the last scene of The Wrong War/Frogs & Lobsters and takes an old standby of Hornblower fandom--the shared shore leave--and gives it a fresh face and a neat twist. The characterizations are perfect, the story is a delight and--no matter how many times I read it--the smut continually leaves me devoid of both breath and speech.

All the King's Men

Hello ladies and gents! I'm Azar, and I'll be your X-Files rec'er for August. A brief summary of what you can expect from me? Unconventional pairings, fic that focuses on characters *other* than Mulder and Scully, and lots of Doggett. :-D What you won't see a lot of from me is MSR, DRR, or slash, since those aren't my preferences in XF. (I do have some favorite MSR stories from the days when I *was* a 'shipper, but I'm not one anymore.) Going through past recs, I noticed a lot more variety than I expected, but the past few months have still been pretty MSR heavy, so here's a little something different:

Fandom: X-FILES
Pairing: Krycek/Marita, a dash of Mulder/Krycek and Skinner/Scully implied
Author on LJ: deslea
Author Website: Literatti
Why this must be read:

You can't wander far off the beaten path (meaning MSR) in X-Files fandom without stumbling over Deslea. She first made her mark in the Skinner/Scully genre, but made it indellible when she ventured into mytharc-centric fic in which Mulder and Scully are peripheral characters at best. She almost singlehandedly invented the Krycek/Marita pairing as a serious subgenre of XF fic, and she has a grasp of the mytharc with its myriad complexities that Chris Carter could only *wish* he had. ;-)

Not My Lover is one of the best examples of Deslea's work. It tells the story of the mytharc from Alex and Marita's POV from the end of the second season up through the end of the seventh. It's hard to explain why Deslea's Krycek-as-hero works when so many others' don't, but I think it's because she doesn't ignore or downplay the dark side of the character, but also doesn't play it up to a point where you can't sympathize with him at all. Her Krycek--and Marita too--are both pragmatic and Machiavellian: they have a goal, to prevent colonization, and they'll do whatever has to be done, sacrifice whatever has to be sacrificed, to achieve that greater good. But you sympathize with the very human way they are each other's buffer against that necessity. Basically it's a story of love, loss, betrayal, forgiveness and redemption for two people caught not between light and dark but between varying shades of gray.

( excerpt )

Not My Lover
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Afterword

Fandom: ALIAS
Pairing: Not Disclosed
Author on LJ: hayes
Author Website: Not Applicable, was entered for the Weissfication.
Why this must be read: The first line of this piece reads, "It was a bad idea to pick up the hooker on his way home from work on Friday, but Weiss really didn’t care." I think that there is enough reason why one must read this amazing piece. Since everyone isn't terribly amused by hookers, there are some other reasons. The first reason is the economic, yet witty style of writing that Scott uses so well. While many authors use frilly phrases to dress up their settings and plots, the simplest words are able to successfully conjure up images. I also really enjoyed the dry sense of humor that is present throughout the work. Many Alias authors, seem to forget that for many, like Weiss, working at the CIA can be terribly boring and occasionally, droll. It's a charming piece and I really enjoyed beta reading it. So go read it!


"It was a bad idea to pick up the hooker on his way home from work on Friday, but Weiss really didn’t care.

Fandom: LOTR
Pairing: None (although slight hints for Legolas/Gimli)
Author on LJ: afrai
Author Website: Musical Comedies Without the Music
Why this must be read:

Hi, I'm Castalia, your LOTR driver for this month. I'm going to be reccing a veritable hodgepodge of fics, focusing on some lesser-known works and characters who don't always get the spotlight. There will be gen and slash, and a good smattering of humor.

In fact, that's what we're starting with, humor. This fic never fails to bring the funny, and I still giggle at it as much on the fiftieth reading as on the first. afrai is a master at writing humor, and here she gives us an entirely unique spin on what Elrond might have been thinking directly before the Council.

( An excerpt... )

Just a Thought

Fandom: Man from UNCLE
Pairing: Napoleon/Illya
Author on LJ: shayheyred
Author Website: Not that I know of, but you can find some of her MfU work at The Chrome and Gunmetal Madhouse
Why this must be read: Because you should always lead with your strong suit?

Illya is a rather enigmatic character. We don't know the barest facts about his history, other than he is identified as "Russian". Naturally there's a lot of speculation about the forces that might have shaped him into the man we see on the show.

In Phoenix, Shay has crafted a gorgeous portrait of a man haunted by a traumatic past, and of the partner who cares deeply enough to keep chipping away at the cracks that occasionally surface in an otherwise seamless exterior.

Fabulously complex and rich in detail, this novel-length story offers excellent characterizations, a strong plot, a relationship that evolves and matures, clever dialogue and sex that melted me into my chair. This is a story that made me laugh and cry and go all warm inside.

( where there is smoke there is fire, and eventually the fire burns to ash )
I hope you enjoy this story as much as I did.

Phoenix

Hello, all. I go by 'Rob1' and I'll be your tour guide to 'Witchblade' fanfic this month. ( More about me... )

Fandom: WITCHBLADE
Pairing: None
Author on LJ: none known
Author Website: none known
Why this must be read:

I debated making this my first recommendation, as the story is set prior to the main canon and focuses on only two of the major characters. However, it is far and away my favorite story in the fandom, and if that's not enough reason to kick off with it, I don't know what is.

'Truce' explores the early childhood (around age 10) of Ian Nottingham, focusing on the odd relationship between Ian and Kenneth Irons- his guardian/mentor/master/bane. The mid-sized read is steeped in darkness, which is appropriate given the fact Ian was created to serve as an unflinching tool of his master's will. Irons, irritated with Ian's penchant for mischief, orders that the boy undergo a medical procedure that will grant him the memories of Ian's genetic predecessors (Ian is a clone- sort of). Unfortunately, the presence of 'other Ians' in the boy's consciousness results in difficulties for both Ian and Irons. Ian, now aware of what he lacks, is no longer complacent to be a soulless weapon and Irons is forced to deal with feelings he had long since buried.

What makes the story stand out are the characterizations and the subtlety with which they are revealed. Despite the darkness and disturbing subject matter (think 'Ender's Game'), there is a biting humor to the story. Jazz9star perfectly captures the voice of a pre-adolescent Ian- in all its capriciousness. The story is funny, it's sad, it's touching, and the reader is never certain how things will work out. It's a personal favorite and I believe it is accessible to those with no knowledge of canon. If you've ever been curious about Witchblade- or if you're just looking for a good read- this one is a sure bet.

( Excerpt: )

There are several other stories by this author set in the 'Young Ian' universe: Father's Day (Ian wants his bunny back), Sunday (Ian wants a birthday), and Snow (Ian wants a Christmas tree). I would highly recommend them all.

Truce