When Shadows Fall by Joby, Deb, and Desertsage (PG-13)

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Fandom: MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
Pairing: Some Chris/Mary and JD/Casey. Josiah/OFC.
Author on LJ: unknown
Author Website: http://www.magnificent7.com/fanfiction.html
Why this must be read:

I'm elspethdixon, and I'll be driving the van for Magnificent Seven this month. smilla02 has just finished giving us some nice slash recs, so I will be reccing mostly long gen fics, since M7 offers some truly spectacular gen.

"When Shadows Fall" was one of the first Magnificent Seven fics I had the good fortune to read, and at 3.12mb, also one of the longest. And, after three years, still one of my favorites--I have the entire thing saved to my harddrive, and still go back and re-read it every couple of months. All seven guys, including the often neglected Josiah and Nathan, are well characterized and have major rolls in the plot, as does Mary Travis, and the writers beat up Buck and Vin very nicely indeed ^_~.

Quick plot synopsis: Evil villains attempt to split the Seven up in order to take them down more easily, and an injured Buck and Vin are captured (Chris joins them in captivity eventually), and must be rescued by the rest of the team. There's also a well done B plot involving a mining scam and threatened Indian uprising.

The bad guys are a bit one-dimensional in their evilness, but their psychological warfare/divide-and-conquer plan has the benefit of actually being effective, making them a serious threat. The Seven don't always play well with other, and, deep down, not all of them are really team players--and Desertsage & co. take good advantage of those weaknesses here.

At least one of the writers is British or Canadian, and it occasionally shows (there are a couple accidental usages of the metric system), and the writing starts out a little choppy in places at the beginning, but as the fic goes on (and on) it smooths out and improves noticeably.

When Shadows Fall

Comments

[the-hobbet.livejournal.com]

Oh boy! I'm the driver up for next month and I've been reading and writing reviews in preparation for several months. The category I'm concentrating on? Long gen stories. I just hope we have different tastes.

BTW, great rec :-) For anyone who prefers to read stories in hard copy, I formatted this story for print - two columns per page, headers and footers, and room for binding. It looks nice if I do say so myself. It's 306 pages long. If anyone wants a copy, write me at ficprint @ bellsouth.net

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

*grins* I think I could rec gen for three months based just on the Ezra-centric Old West fic I've got saved to my harddrive (and that's not even touching the Vin-fic, or the ATF-fic, or...). There's enough well-written gen at Blackraptor that I don't think we'll run out.

It's 306 pages long

When I first discovered this fic, I was studying abroad and my apartment had no internet hook-up, so I had to save fanfiction to a floppy disk and bring it home to read it on my laptop at night. "When Shadows Fall" was too big a file to fit on one disk, so it took me almost a week to get through it.

[the-hobbet.livejournal.com]

Hi Elspeth,

Don't let me scare you off. I am looking forward to seeing which stories you rec.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Just added a new one (it's grad school and work that've been scaring me off).

[ivadel.livejournal.com]

I read this years ago when I first found Mag 7. Luckily it was complete at that time or I would have made myself crazy waiting for the next part. It's long, but it's one of the best stories I've read in any fandom. It gives a lot of time to every character and allows each of them to be a person.

The other day I started thinking about this story and wondering how to go about finding it again. Thanks!

Great Rec!