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crack_van2004-11-13 10:58 am
st-crispins.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2004-11-13 10:58 am
Entry tags:
To Live In Interesting Times By Taliesin (NC-17)
Fandom: THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
Pairing: Solo/Kuryakin (but AU)
Author on LJ: No.
Author website: This appears on www.file40.net, but also see: http://users.frii.com/wanderer/fanfic/reach.html
Why this must be read:
Taliesin needs no introduction. She’s not only a prolific writer, but she edits the popular, award-winning slash zine, Relative Secrecy.
Of all her many stories, however, this is my favorite and certainly one of the most memorable. It’s set in a bleak AU universe, a dystopian near-future (and considering our current state of politics, not so hard to imagine) and it’s narrated by an unnamed narrator who will become Illya Kuryakin. This narrator has had the misjudgment to ally himself with a politician of principle and ideals, and runs afoul of the new, oppressive regime ruling Russia.
A political prisoner, he manages to escape into an unforgiving wilderness where he’s picked up and taken to a secret hospital by a mysterious stranger:
He was dressed all in black, not as some will do purely for effect or fashion, but as if it fit the very nature of him. Black suit over a black shirt, no tie, the glittering gold cufflinks in each immaculate sleeve the only color about him. His hair and eyes were also black, or so dark brown as to make no difference. I thought absurdly that I must indeed be dead, for this could only be death personified. On any other man, the unrelieved black might have looked like artifice. It might even have been laughable. But not here; not him.
His handsome face was blandly expressionless, with the sole exception of a slight tilt to the corners of his mouth, which almost made him look, if not benign, at least approachable. It lent him a sort of solid warmth, the hint of someone trustworthy, perhaps even likable. His eyes, however, belied the whole --- hard and cold as any stone.
Fans will recognize this as Napoleon Solo, of course, but a canon Solo turned inside out --- darker, chillier, more dangerous than we’ve ever encountered before. Our narrator, now called Illya Kuryakin, is recruited into an underground version of U.N.C.L.E. in which the stakes are even higher and the job far more soul-killing than they are in the canon series.
The man named Solo takes Kuryakin under his wing and they become partners and eventually lovers, working together on murderous assignments (in every sense of the word) until Kuryakin decides he’s had enough violence and killing. But of course, as he makes us all too aware no one ever quits this U.N.C.L.E.
No one.
To Live In Interesting Times
Pairing: Solo/Kuryakin (but AU)
Author on LJ: No.
Author website: This appears on www.file40.net, but also see: http://users.frii.com/wanderer/fanfic/reach.html
Why this must be read:
Taliesin needs no introduction. She’s not only a prolific writer, but she edits the popular, award-winning slash zine, Relative Secrecy.
Of all her many stories, however, this is my favorite and certainly one of the most memorable. It’s set in a bleak AU universe, a dystopian near-future (and considering our current state of politics, not so hard to imagine) and it’s narrated by an unnamed narrator who will become Illya Kuryakin. This narrator has had the misjudgment to ally himself with a politician of principle and ideals, and runs afoul of the new, oppressive regime ruling Russia.
A political prisoner, he manages to escape into an unforgiving wilderness where he’s picked up and taken to a secret hospital by a mysterious stranger:
He was dressed all in black, not as some will do purely for effect or fashion, but as if it fit the very nature of him. Black suit over a black shirt, no tie, the glittering gold cufflinks in each immaculate sleeve the only color about him. His hair and eyes were also black, or so dark brown as to make no difference. I thought absurdly that I must indeed be dead, for this could only be death personified. On any other man, the unrelieved black might have looked like artifice. It might even have been laughable. But not here; not him.
His handsome face was blandly expressionless, with the sole exception of a slight tilt to the corners of his mouth, which almost made him look, if not benign, at least approachable. It lent him a sort of solid warmth, the hint of someone trustworthy, perhaps even likable. His eyes, however, belied the whole --- hard and cold as any stone.
Fans will recognize this as Napoleon Solo, of course, but a canon Solo turned inside out --- darker, chillier, more dangerous than we’ve ever encountered before. Our narrator, now called Illya Kuryakin, is recruited into an underground version of U.N.C.L.E. in which the stakes are even higher and the job far more soul-killing than they are in the canon series.
The man named Solo takes Kuryakin under his wing and they become partners and eventually lovers, working together on murderous assignments (in every sense of the word) until Kuryakin decides he’s had enough violence and killing. But of course, as he makes us all too aware no one ever quits this U.N.C.L.E.
No one.
To Live In Interesting Times
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Considering the speed of this post, I swear you have a tap directly into my computer. :)
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As for the AU thing, there is a saying according which we can see the shadows of future (future projects long shadows behind).
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But I like a dark Solo and the black apparel, etc. is reminiscent of the roles RV has played elsewhere, notably Gault, in Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars. Most of that movie is so-so but RV has several kick ass scenes in which he plays a character much like the Solo here.
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http://www.fanficdepot.com/fanfic/interestingtimes.html