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crack_van2004-11-13 10:06 am
st-crispins.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2004-11-13 10:06 am
Entry tags:
Small Kindness Affair By Vicky Loebel (PG)
Fandom: THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
Pairing: none (gen)
Author on LJ: No.
Author website: http://www.loebelclark.com/FanfictionHub/FanFicHub.htm
Why this must be read:
Because her stories usually appear in print first and then are archived at her own website, Vicky Loebel’s work is not as well known around MFU fandom as it probably could or should be. That’s too bad because she’s a lot of fun to read. She has a quirky, playful sense of humor and her stories are always rich with incisive and occasionally unexpected details. If you want to get a real feel for what it must be like to work for U.N.C.L.E. --- the office politics, the competition among the field agents, the resentment and jealousies that swirl around Solo and Kuryakin’s luck and status, read Vicky.
Many of her stories are set before Solo becomes CEA, which means we also meet his predecessor, the gloomy, by-the-book Gordon Hutchinson, a wonderful character who, though he isn’t canon, should be. Vicky has a couple of other interesting OC’s, the snarky Australian, Paul Matthews chief among them, but she also does a great job giving the canon support staff their due. Most notably, she gets a lot of mileage out of the nebbish, bespectacled George Dennell (“The Waverly Ring Affair”) who has a rich inner fantasy life and fancies himself U.N.C.L.E.’s version of Clark Kent.
In this story, U.N.C.L.E.’s charity front is throwing a party on Christmas Eve for a group of orphans. It’s told from multiple viewpoints, which gives it a sort of Rashomon quality, with all the main characters observing and commenting on the situation and each other. For example, here’s Paul Matthews observations of Solo and Kuryakin putting up the tree:
Across from Mandy are the other crewmembers drafted from Section Two: Illya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo, alias Blondie and Dagwood. Note the fine sense of harmony between them as they tug an eighteen-foot Fraser fir in opposite directions, failing to raise it to vertical. Dagwood’s the dark-haired bloke in folded-up shirtsleeves whose manly features hold just the right hint of long suffering as needles rain down upon him. Blondie’s the shaggy runt in black t-shirt, rolling his blue eyes in ridgie-didge Russian disgust. Don’t think for a minute either one of ’em stripped to bare shirt and holster to keep dirt off their jackets. Every sheila in the room’s got her eyes on them.
And here’s a sample of the story’s enjoyable good humor: George Dennell, who can’t locate a saw, decides to pare down the tree branches using another method:
George put on a pair of dark glasses. “I couldn’t find a saw, but I think this will do.” He lifted a miniature blowtorch and lit it in exactly the same number of seconds it took the rest of us to picture life after reducing U.N.C.L.E. headquarters to ash.
“George!” There was a general surge in his direction.
If you’re not Section Two, if you’ve never been beaten or shot at, jumped from a train, squeezed through a ventilation shaft, been stuck so full of junk you don’t know your own name, or listened to Ethel Merman belt out “There’s No Business Like Show Business” nineteen times in a row, then taking a blowtorch to a fir tree sounds like a horribly dangerous idea.
If you have been those things, it still seems pretty risky.
Pretty risky, indeed. And of course, Thrush isn’t going to allow this little public relations event to go on without a hitch. Soon, the agents have a lot more to worry about than who’s going to wear the Santa suit.
Small Kindness Affair
Pairing: none (gen)
Author on LJ: No.
Author website: http://www.loebelclark.com/FanfictionHub/FanFicHub.htm
Why this must be read:
Because her stories usually appear in print first and then are archived at her own website, Vicky Loebel’s work is not as well known around MFU fandom as it probably could or should be. That’s too bad because she’s a lot of fun to read. She has a quirky, playful sense of humor and her stories are always rich with incisive and occasionally unexpected details. If you want to get a real feel for what it must be like to work for U.N.C.L.E. --- the office politics, the competition among the field agents, the resentment and jealousies that swirl around Solo and Kuryakin’s luck and status, read Vicky.
Many of her stories are set before Solo becomes CEA, which means we also meet his predecessor, the gloomy, by-the-book Gordon Hutchinson, a wonderful character who, though he isn’t canon, should be. Vicky has a couple of other interesting OC’s, the snarky Australian, Paul Matthews chief among them, but she also does a great job giving the canon support staff their due. Most notably, she gets a lot of mileage out of the nebbish, bespectacled George Dennell (“The Waverly Ring Affair”) who has a rich inner fantasy life and fancies himself U.N.C.L.E.’s version of Clark Kent.
In this story, U.N.C.L.E.’s charity front is throwing a party on Christmas Eve for a group of orphans. It’s told from multiple viewpoints, which gives it a sort of Rashomon quality, with all the main characters observing and commenting on the situation and each other. For example, here’s Paul Matthews observations of Solo and Kuryakin putting up the tree:
Across from Mandy are the other crewmembers drafted from Section Two: Illya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo, alias Blondie and Dagwood. Note the fine sense of harmony between them as they tug an eighteen-foot Fraser fir in opposite directions, failing to raise it to vertical. Dagwood’s the dark-haired bloke in folded-up shirtsleeves whose manly features hold just the right hint of long suffering as needles rain down upon him. Blondie’s the shaggy runt in black t-shirt, rolling his blue eyes in ridgie-didge Russian disgust. Don’t think for a minute either one of ’em stripped to bare shirt and holster to keep dirt off their jackets. Every sheila in the room’s got her eyes on them.
And here’s a sample of the story’s enjoyable good humor: George Dennell, who can’t locate a saw, decides to pare down the tree branches using another method:
George put on a pair of dark glasses. “I couldn’t find a saw, but I think this will do.” He lifted a miniature blowtorch and lit it in exactly the same number of seconds it took the rest of us to picture life after reducing U.N.C.L.E. headquarters to ash.
“George!” There was a general surge in his direction.
If you’re not Section Two, if you’ve never been beaten or shot at, jumped from a train, squeezed through a ventilation shaft, been stuck so full of junk you don’t know your own name, or listened to Ethel Merman belt out “There’s No Business Like Show Business” nineteen times in a row, then taking a blowtorch to a fir tree sounds like a horribly dangerous idea.
If you have been those things, it still seems pretty risky.
Pretty risky, indeed. And of course, Thrush isn’t going to allow this little public relations event to go on without a hitch. Soon, the agents have a lot more to worry about than who’s going to wear the Santa suit.
Small Kindness Affair
no subject
http://www.loebelclark.com/FanfictionHub/SmallKindnessWeb/SmallKindnessWeb.htm