Will this work? Oh please, Semagic. Please? Dratted Chef cluster. *hugs Crack Van tight*

There’s Only One Thing by k
Pairing: Seth Cohen/Ron Weasley
Author on LJ: callmesandy
Author Website: lowercase k collected
Why this must be read: Short but sweet. Seth wanders around London and sees a hot redhead.



There’s Only One Thing

Title: Rapture by Wombat
Pairing: Mulder/Methos
Author on LJ: Not to my knowledge.
Author Webpage: Wombat's fanfiction
Why this must be read:

One of the great masterpieces of fanfiction literature. It's as simple as that.

There are a lot of incredibly talented writers in fandom, but it's a small number among them who truly master the art of building a plot. It's rare to come across a fic that has the full power of a first class suspense novel, where every detail fits perfectly in the puzzle of the whole and unpredictable events unfold with seeming inevitability to pull you deeper and deeper into the story, marvelling at the pattern that emerges, hanging on by the skin of your teeth as the rollercoaster ride of the adventure drags you towards a spectacular finale. In short, a page-turner, keeping you spellbound not with steaming sex scenes or the woes of a starcrossed romance, but through the sheer force of the evolving plotline. Wombat's Rapture is just such a rare story.

Not that it's in any way lacking in the areas of hot, writhe-inducing sex or gripping romance - how could it be, considering the pairing? - but it's just so much more than that. Most crossover fics simply transplant a single character from one show to another, but here the entire universes of both Highlander and The X-Files are made to interact, the full cast of both shows playing vital roles to the development of the plot. Everyone, from Amanda to Frohike, is perfectly in character, their dialogue spot on and oftentimes hilarious, and every relationship is treated with insight and depth. Riddles out of long-lost history meet modern science and theories of alien invasion, and it all merges seemlessly. As the story takes the protagonists around the world, characters from other fandoms turn up as well, providing unexpected moments of brilliance as icing on the cake, and if you're in this for the Mulder/Krycek interaction, just hang in there till chapter six, when the two enemies get to take a trip together that might be among the funniest sequences ever put down in fic. That part alone would be worth the whole novel, but this story is riveting from first to last.

In San Francisco, the brutal murder of a woman he once was acquainted with forces Mulder to remember a period in his life long past, his last summer before university, when an unusual man taught him how to have faith in himself. He doesn't want to see a connection, but the evidence leads only in one direction - towards Paris and the long lost friend calling himself Adam Pierson.

In the Mediterranean, a mysterious group of people are preparing themselves for the end of the world. They have already acquired a virus that could bring about the destruction of humanity, but what would armageddon be without the last surviving horseman of the apocalypse? They have a use for the Immortal who once went by the name of Death, and they intend to find him.

What ensues is a race against the clock, across large parts of Europe and America, involving powerful forces that our heroes have never expected to face. Who will be left standing in the end is anybody's guess, but I doubt you will be able to stop reading until you know.

In three words central to the story: "Come and see." I guarantee that you won't regret it.

Rapture

Subject: FARSCAPE/FIREFLY (R)

Title: The Walls of the Sky by Hossgal
Pairing: Aeryn Sun, River, Simon
Author on LJ: hossgal
Author Website: n/a
Why this must be read:

I know only the barest facts about Firefly, but this intricate and lyrical crossover by Hossgal is so well-crafted that I didn't have to. I was hooked from the opening paragraphs.

Hossgal uses a fairy-tale motif to tell a gripping story that is evenly balanced between action and characterization. It's a dark tale, full of lost love and betrayal and bloodshed and death... yet its brooding atmosphere never descends into oppressiveness, and the ending--in the tradition of both series--leaves the reader with hope.

( Excerpt )


The Walls of the Sky

Fandom: HIGHLANDER/X-FILES
Pairing: Methos/Fox Mulder
Author on LJ: flambeau
Author Website:The Flambeau Factory
Why this must be read:

When one strange show meets another strange show…things get stranger. And people start to wonder about goats. As usual, Mulder and Scully are investigating an odd occurrence and poor Methos finds himself in the mix. Witty dialogue that sounds practically pitch perfect for the characters, as well as a steamy involvement between Methos and Mulder, all wrapped together with the yarns of a stand-alone-show type mystery. It just gets more bizarre from there, and if not perfectly bow-tied, it wraps itself up neatly by the end.

( 'China' Sampler )

China

This was supposed to be posted yesterday but... See what I mean? ;)

Fandom: FARSCAPE
Pairing: Rygel, John Crichton, other
Author on LJ: kernezelda
Author Website: n/a
Why this must be read:

It's easy to underestimate Rygel... Dominar of six billion subjects though he may be, he's still diminutive, gassy, and practically immobile without his thronesled. Add cranky and greedy and egocentric to the mix, and what you might end up with is a cardboard, stereotypical character.

But Farscape liked to take those stereotypes and twist them almost beyond recognition, and over the course of four seasons and a miniseries, Rygel was never predictable.

Yeah--he's a puppet. But you've never seen a puppet behave quite like this.

Kernezelda fleshes out (if you'll pardon the pun) the Hynerian everyone loves to hate in this fic, which credits him with a clever and calculating brain and an all-too-perceptive insight into the state of the universe, and John Crichton's role in it.

( Excerpt )


Bargain at the Price

Title: Namesake by Nin
Pairing: Edrington/OMC
Author on LJ: nindulgence
Why this must be read:

While Archie and Horatio's entire adult lives have been spent with the navy and it is generally clear what they've been doing since they were about 17, Edrington's life both pre and post Frogs & Lobsters is an open book. Here nindulgence paints a picture of a much younger Edrington. The young not-yet-the-Earl of Edrington and a friend, waking up of a Sunday morning. Light and happy, like a single brilliant ray of sunlight, this story just glows; a delightfully subtle crossover with Pirates of the Caribbean that does credit to both fandoms.

Namesake

I see I'm not the only one stymied in my desire to post a crossover link on Jan 15th by the LJ downtime... and by the way, damn but it's hard to find good TNG crossovers! I found only two others I wanted to rec... and they had both been recced already! Argh.

Title: Crossroads, by Selena
Characters: Wesley Crusher, Anakin Skywalker
Author on LJ: selenak
Why this must be read:

Stories that are sympathetic to either Wesley Crusher or Anakin Skywalker are rare in their respective fandoms. A crossover featuring them both would either be unbearable, or great. Since it's Selena writing it, it's great. :-)

A jump with the Traveller goes wrong, and Wesley finds himself in the cave on Dagobah, with Obi-Wan and Anakin wondering how he got there and if he has a connection to the Dark Side. Seeing the Jedi through Wesley's eyes allows Selena to make a number of points about how disturbing the Jedi actually are, and her characterization of Wesley and why he chose not to enter Starfleet is far more perceptive than I've ever seen anyone apply to this character. She also draws some very interesting parallels between Wesley and Anakin.

( Excerpt: )

Crossroads

Fandom: SMALLVILLE
Pairing: Clark/Lex (kinda)
Author on LJ: rageprufrock
Author Website: http://glitterati.illuminatedtext.com/site.html
Why this must be read:

This is almost on the order of an insta-rec. Pru only finished this story 10 days ago, although it had been posted as a Work-in-Progress on her LJ prior to that. It's a wonderful story, so I'm very glad to be able to rec it this month. The story is quite a technical feat: it sustains over 100 pages of narrative from a child's point of view, and manages to remain faithful to this perspective without slipping into preciousness. The child in question is Conner Clark Luthor, the genetic offspring of Lex Luthor and Clark Kent. Apparently Clark and Lex having a child created from their combined DNA is DC comics canon, which in and of itself is a complete hoot. Conner is a great character, and he has wonderful adventures as he seeks the truth of his origins, and attempts to connect with his elusive "mom." By turns touching and hilarious, "Conflicts of Interest" is a fun and satisfying read.

Conflicts of Interest

Fandom: Star Trek: TNG
Pairing: Picard/Q, but with some serious plausible deniability
Author on LJ: none known
Author Website: Star Trek Voyager Reviews (that's what it's called, but that's not all it is)
Why this must be read:

There's something very satisfying about a fanfic that reads *almost* like an actual episode. Sure, we've all read fics with loads more sex than you'd ever see on TV, hot explicit manly love, and plenty of intense romance. But a story that's *almost* like an episode, except with just a tantalizing hint of more emotion from certain characters than we get to see in the series, gives you a feeling like it could *be* an episode, and therefore, it feels more *real* than the hot'n'heavy manlove.

In this story, Picard and crew go to investigate the disappearance of a Federation anthropological team on a world undergoing an upheaval. They run into Q, who warns them to leave. They also run into Mary Sue. Except she's *not.* In one of the most entertaining sudden reversals I've ever read, an enjoyably written but somewhat Sue-ish original female character who's played up by the author as being all mysterious and intense and stuff turns out to be a canon character from the future... and it would spoil it to say who, except to say that the characters are both nothing alike, and enough alike that you can, indeed, believe that this woman is the future self of the canon character. Somebody's going to do a lot of growing up one of these days, you see.

The thing with the crew happening to run into Q doing something that has nothing to do with them but is his own agenda is something I *always* wanted to see on TNG (sadly, when it finally appeared on Voyager it wasn't nearly as cool as this story is.) The regulars all get something to do-- this story doesn't fall in the "I only care about one or two TNG characters so only they will get anything to do" trap fanfic often falls into. And I may be rare, but I *like* stories where the slash is kept at just a slight level higher than the series subtext. Q's feelings for Picard eventually become evident to the reader, but never actually to Picard himself, which frankly is more in Q's character than the passionate declarations of love I've seen in some fanfic.

( Excerpt: )

From Me To Q

Fandom: SMALLVILLE
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Author on LJ: decarnin
Author Website: http://garret.slashcity.net/

Why this must be read:

These stories are wonderful, but they are not for everyone. Please heed the warnings. As C.M. Decarnin says in one of the author's notes: "If in doubt, throw it out."

( fascinating stuff here )

Truth

The link above leads to the first in the series. All of these stories can be found at the SSA as well.