Please don't tell the librarian.
April 11, 2011 5:30 PM Subscribe
I can't believe that not only did I read fanfiction, I'm actually looking for more of it. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationalitywas and is just such a good read that I have to put my puritanical objections away on the entire subject. I'm looking for fanfiction about Dune, LOTR, Harry Potter, surprise me.
Extra points if its funny and better than the original.
Best answer: Have you read the Psychic Serpent trilogy, yet? There's way too much quoting of architecture textbooks at the beginning of each chapter, but the three (most especially the second volume) are much, much better than Rowling's books 5 through 7. It was mostly written before book 5 came out, maybe even entirely (I read it as it was being published, so it's hard to remember for sure.) The parody of the series is also quite entertaining.
If you're willing to accept Hermione in, ah, alternative pairings, the ladies at WitchFics are quite talented. Watch out for NSFW stuff all over the place, though. And be aware that Anna never finished Last Tango in Paris.
posted by SMPA at 5:52 PM on April 11, 2011 [2 favorites]
If you're willing to accept Hermione in, ah, alternative pairings, the ladies at WitchFics are quite talented. Watch out for NSFW stuff all over the place, though. And be aware that Anna never finished Last Tango in Paris.
posted by SMPA at 5:52 PM on April 11, 2011 [2 favorites]
I read fanfic too--got into it in between books 4 and 5 of HP. *ducks head* There are lots online, but, to me, Minisinoo writes particularly well. Her website is now defunct, but it should still be on fanfiction.net or on Know It Alls.
BTW, some are slash and some are Not Suitable For Children
posted by onegoodthing at 5:53 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
BTW, some are slash and some are Not Suitable For Children
posted by onegoodthing at 5:53 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
Best answer: My bookmarks at Archive Of Our Own, which mostly hosts fanfic.
Theories About Nuclear Winter, part I and part II. Calvin & Hobbes. Excellent.
posted by brainwane at 5:55 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
Theories About Nuclear Winter, part I and part II. Calvin & Hobbes. Excellent.
posted by brainwane at 5:55 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
I meant to add - I enjoyed Red Hen's analysis of Harry Potter. If you're interested in "what might have been" and "what should have been" and can stand a bit of rolling on the floor laughing, Jodel is your woman, even if it is all non-fiction. I prefer her backstory/explanation for the characters to JKR's in every instance, except perhaps Molly Weasley, who she hates.
posted by SMPA at 6:00 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by SMPA at 6:00 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
Oh man. You need to get yourself to Livejournal, stat. It is the biggest fandom community I know of, and has literally everything you want about fandom. Harry Potter fandom is pretty notoriously batshit crazy (ship wars, flames, trolls, you name it).
A good place to start for recs is Crack Van, an lj community with editors in each represented fandom picking recommended pieces each month. It's hit-or-miss, but less so that just walking around in the dark. Just click what fandom you want and explore the archives.
Oh and, good luck! Fandom is fun and funny and infuriating and totally enveloping if you let it. There's meta, fanart, recaps, analysis, everthing you want about your favourite show. Come for the fic, stay for everything else!
Feel free to meMail me for more information, although I am not a HP specialist.
posted by hepta at 6:40 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
A good place to start for recs is Crack Van, an lj community with editors in each represented fandom picking recommended pieces each month. It's hit-or-miss, but less so that just walking around in the dark. Just click what fandom you want and explore the archives.
Oh and, good luck! Fandom is fun and funny and infuriating and totally enveloping if you let it. There's meta, fanart, recaps, analysis, everthing you want about your favourite show. Come for the fic, stay for everything else!
Feel free to meMail me for more information, although I am not a HP specialist.
posted by hepta at 6:40 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
I agree with hepta that LiveJournal has a thriving fanfic community. It's currently being hammered with ddos attacks, so you may have difficulty accessing the site from time to time.
Like oinopaponton, I have a, er, friend who has been known to read fanfic. She recommends Hall of Heroes if you don't mind a Snape-centric story. It's funny, and who can resist a story that contains "Valkyries, meat, mead, horned helmets, singing Giants, and The Ballad of Severus the Small and his Tiny, Tiny Stick"?
Feel free to MeMail me, if you want. I happen to know several HP specialists.
posted by jessian at 6:52 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
Like oinopaponton, I have a, er, friend who has been known to read fanfic. She recommends Hall of Heroes if you don't mind a Snape-centric story. It's funny, and who can resist a story that contains "Valkyries, meat, mead, horned helmets, singing Giants, and The Ballad of Severus the Small and his Tiny, Tiny Stick"?
Feel free to MeMail me, if you want. I happen to know several HP specialists.
posted by jessian at 6:52 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
I don't think it's what you're looking for, but if you like the 'so bad it's good' stuff, ToplessRobot.com runs a regular Fan Fiction Friday feature.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:53 PM on April 11, 2011
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:53 PM on April 11, 2011
Best answer: There's the Shoebox Project, which has a fair bit of slash later on. It's a very, very long mixed-media Harry Potter story and will make you laugh. And cry.
posted by honeydew at 6:54 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by honeydew at 6:54 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
I've been reading Ender Potter too. The only other FF I've liked is this: XCOM meets SG1. A cross between a vintage video game and the Stargate series. I don't think you need experience with the game to enjoy it.
posted by Chekhovian at 7:28 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Chekhovian at 7:28 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
The HP fandom is huge and awesome (except for the drama which can get really out of hand sometimes). I've read a lot of HP fanfic (mostly NSFW). But if you're open to an unconventional pairing, try The Politician's Wife by pir8fancier. The pairing is Hermione/Draco, it is set post-war, and has amazing characterizations. The interactions between Hermione and Draco are fun to read, and there are also parts that are somewhat sad. It's, frankly, one of the best pieces of fanfiction I've read in any fandom and it's spoiled me for a lot of other stuff out there.
posted by Mouse Army at 8:51 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Mouse Army at 8:51 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
Best answer: The Last Ringbearer is a surprisingly good Middle-earth story, set just after the War of the Ring, which is told from a completely different point of view. The first few pages could use some editing, and the spy-vs-spy intrigue in the middle eventually gets too clever for its own good, but it's a far better piece of work than I expected. I read the whole thing *on screen*, no kindle-reader or whatever.
posted by Mars Saxman at 8:52 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Mars Saxman at 8:52 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
Oops, I forgot to add that pir8fancier also wrote Snape: the Home Fries Nazi which is now a classic Snape/Harry slash story. It's NSFW and pretty angsty, but it also has great characterizations.
posted by Mouse Army at 8:55 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Mouse Army at 8:55 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
Seconding The Last Ringbearer. It's not funny, and the comment above about the spy-vs-spy intrigue is spot on, but it's a fascinating reimagining of the Lord of the Rings that attempts to situate it in a more modern, rational context. I read the whole thing on my iPhone and would say it's one of the better fantasy novels I've read recently.
posted by pombe at 9:26 PM on April 11, 2011
posted by pombe at 9:26 PM on April 11, 2011
brainwave: Theories About Nuclear Winter, part I and part II. Calvin & Hobbes. Excellent.
My goodness, thanks for this. If a mostly-grown man feeling like a fifteen year-old girl while reading fan-fic is wrong, I dont want to be right.
posted by brightghost at 9:46 PM on April 11, 2011
My goodness, thanks for this. If a mostly-grown man feeling like a fifteen year-old girl while reading fan-fic is wrong, I dont want to be right.
posted by brightghost at 9:46 PM on April 11, 2011
Seconding Livejournal. It has more fic (good and bad) that you can read in several lifetimes.
On my iTouch, so no links, but a couple fic off the top of my head that are all pretty easy to find:
Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past: FANTASTIC WIP where a thirty-year-old Harry, after having beaten Voldemort but losing everyone he loves in the process, goes back in time to try and change things.
A Lack of Color by kevo (on the twoseekers comm on LJ) GoF AU with Harry/Cedric and one of my fave slash fics ever.
Inell (inell.livejournal.com) has fantastic het, gen and slash fic of all flavours, a large portion of it Hermione-centric. She does excellent Kirk/McCoy from ST:XI as well.
Realizations by Wishweaver (fanfiction.net) Slow-moving but excellent story set the summer after GoF. Again, WiP, but worth it.
Honestly, HP fandom is so vast, you're better off just diving in and exploring. Good luck and have fun!
posted by Tamanna at 10:15 PM on April 11, 2011
On my iTouch, so no links, but a couple fic off the top of my head that are all pretty easy to find:
Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past: FANTASTIC WIP where a thirty-year-old Harry, after having beaten Voldemort but losing everyone he loves in the process, goes back in time to try and change things.
A Lack of Color by kevo (on the twoseekers comm on LJ) GoF AU with Harry/Cedric and one of my fave slash fics ever.
Inell (inell.livejournal.com) has fantastic het, gen and slash fic of all flavours, a large portion of it Hermione-centric. She does excellent Kirk/McCoy from ST:XI as well.
Realizations by Wishweaver (fanfiction.net) Slow-moving but excellent story set the summer after GoF. Again, WiP, but worth it.
Honestly, HP fandom is so vast, you're better off just diving in and exploring. Good luck and have fun!
posted by Tamanna at 10:15 PM on April 11, 2011
Holy crap - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is awesome!
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:54 PM on April 11, 2011
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:54 PM on April 11, 2011
If you're a lover of backstory, The Dune Encyclopedia is a great read. Written by dozens of experts and vetted by Herbert himself, it's about as close as you can get to reaching into the Duniverse and plucking out an actual almanac. It's absurdly detailed, exceedingly realistic, and includes a lot of interesting stories -- not just dry profiles of planets and historical timelines, but excerpts of poetry, lengthy biographies, journal entries, and other stories not seen in any of the books. There's lots more in the post I did on it last year, including chapter highlights and links to a searchable PDF of the book.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:58 AM on April 12, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Rhaomi at 12:58 AM on April 12, 2011 [1 favorite]
LOTR fan fiction is vast. Sturgeon's law naturally applies in spades :)
You could do worse than poke around the fan fiction of Altariel & Isabeau. Or the 180,000 word Legolas / non-canon character romance that a friend wrote (Amid the Powers and Chances of the World, also on FFnet ) to prove that it was possible to write such a thing and not have it be cast into the depths of Mary Sue awfulness on sight.
(These are all friends of mine & I haven't actually read any of it because I'm mildly allergic to Tolkein Fan Fiction, but I'm told that they're good. At least one of the three is a published author, but YMMV obviously! I imagine you can also find their stuff on fanfiction.net if you poke around for it.)
Henneth Annun has a lot of (supposedly) higher quality Tolkein fan fiction: there's a review bar of some sort. See also Tokein Fan Fiction
posted by pharm at 6:47 AM on April 12, 2011 [1 favorite]
You could do worse than poke around the fan fiction of Altariel & Isabeau. Or the 180,000 word Legolas / non-canon character romance that a friend wrote (Amid the Powers and Chances of the World, also on FFnet ) to prove that it was possible to write such a thing and not have it be cast into the depths of Mary Sue awfulness on sight.
(These are all friends of mine & I haven't actually read any of it because I'm mildly allergic to Tolkein Fan Fiction, but I'm told that they're good. At least one of the three is a published author, but YMMV obviously! I imagine you can also find their stuff on fanfiction.net if you poke around for it.)
Henneth Annun has a lot of (supposedly) higher quality Tolkein fan fiction: there's a review bar of some sort. See also Tokein Fan Fiction
posted by pharm at 6:47 AM on April 12, 2011 [1 favorite]
I used to read TONS of Harry Potter fanfic - I am afraid to check out any of these links in case I get sucked in again!
I'm at work so can't provide a link, but Mistful - who also wrote as Maya - used to write extremely funny and clever Harry Potter fanfic, including epic length Harry/Draco saga Underwater Light, which was really popular a few years back. I don't think she does anymore, and I don't know where you can find her old stuff, but Google should help you.
My favourite by her is Flame and Shadow - main pairing Ron/Pansy - I KNOW!!!! But if you can find it, read it! It's funny and touching and very well-written.
posted by Ziggy500 at 7:02 AM on April 12, 2011
I'm at work so can't provide a link, but Mistful - who also wrote as Maya - used to write extremely funny and clever Harry Potter fanfic, including epic length Harry/Draco saga Underwater Light, which was really popular a few years back. I don't think she does anymore, and I don't know where you can find her old stuff, but Google should help you.
My favourite by her is Flame and Shadow - main pairing Ron/Pansy - I KNOW!!!! But if you can find it, read it! It's funny and touching and very well-written.
posted by Ziggy500 at 7:02 AM on April 12, 2011
2nding Maya too. "Draco Malfoy, the Amazing Bouncing... Rat?" had me in stitches.
posted by onegoodthing at 8:21 AM on April 12, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by onegoodthing at 8:21 AM on April 12, 2011 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks for all the tips. The Sturgeons law thing is part of why I needed some help to do any kind of searching. I know I'll like some of it, but if I read too much of the dross, I'll never read any more. I think I'll be looking for bookmarks and going through this list.
The Calvin and Hobbes link alone was worth the question.
posted by mearls at 10:13 AM on April 12, 2011
The Calvin and Hobbes link alone was worth the question.
posted by mearls at 10:13 AM on April 12, 2011
Oh, heavens. You want ones with actual story, right?
One of my favorites for narrative was Chaos is Come Again (HP fandom) at http://www.mirrordance.net/aashby/bnw/ChaosIndex.htm
(Yeah, my browser is a million years old and I have java turned off because I'm lame.)
I also rather liked Lust over Pendle (HP fandom) at
http://www.lop.shoesforindustry.net/
posted by which_chick at 10:36 AM on April 12, 2011
One of my favorites for narrative was Chaos is Come Again (HP fandom) at http://www.mirrordance.net/aashby/bnw/ChaosIndex.htm
(Yeah, my browser is a million years old and I have java turned off because I'm lame.)
I also rather liked Lust over Pendle (HP fandom) at
http://www.lop.shoesforindustry.net/
posted by which_chick at 10:36 AM on April 12, 2011
Harry Potter fanfic, you say? How about the stories over at Table For Three, Restricted Section, or Between Friends? All NSFW, many enjoyable.
As for the rest of fanfic -- well, it's a big, big sub-culture. So big that it's hard to say where to start. Basically, pick your favorite piece of media or entertainment (including non-fiction and bands and sports teams) and someone has written fanfic about it. I'm rather fond of the Historical Slash community and the Rare Literary Slash community, just for the frisson of knowing that someone thinks William Pitt the Younger was a hottie, or Socrates. Fanfic writers can be really, really creative.
To drop a personal recommendation in this thread, here's James Bond in "Queen of Spades", which is a near-perfect intersection of sexy and erudite.
posted by Asparagirl at 6:03 PM on April 12, 2011 [1 favorite]
As for the rest of fanfic -- well, it's a big, big sub-culture. So big that it's hard to say where to start. Basically, pick your favorite piece of media or entertainment (including non-fiction and bands and sports teams) and someone has written fanfic about it. I'm rather fond of the Historical Slash community and the Rare Literary Slash community, just for the frisson of knowing that someone thinks William Pitt the Younger was a hottie, or Socrates. Fanfic writers can be really, really creative.
To drop a personal recommendation in this thread, here's James Bond in "Queen of Spades", which is a near-perfect intersection of sexy and erudite.
posted by Asparagirl at 6:03 PM on April 12, 2011 [1 favorite]
Seconding Minisinoo! From devouring her (now defunct) website, she's a real author, her Native American lit has been published for 15+ years? Something like that. She had a huge crush on Cedric and a couple of her stories are from his perspective.
posted by MeiraV at 7:07 PM on April 12, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by MeiraV at 7:07 PM on April 12, 2011 [1 favorite]
For something a little different, here is a copy of the infamous Eye of Argon (generally considered the worst fantasy story ever written) that has been given the Mystery Science Theater treatment.
Eye of Argon
It is a Mike episode though, so YMMV.
posted by Eddie Mars at 10:15 AM on April 13, 2011
Eye of Argon
It is a Mike episode though, so YMMV.
posted by Eddie Mars at 10:15 AM on April 13, 2011
Glad you liked "Theories," mearls! A few more of my bookmarks:
Erin Ptah's Colbert Report archive includes "The Thing With Feathers" (do you like Pratchett?), the fifth time Jon terrified Stephen, and "In Time".
"Second Verse (Same as the First)" by Friendshipper/Sholio. "The Marines call it the Planet of the Willing Virgins, you know." I don't know much about Stargate but this still kicked me in the gut (here's a warm-fuzzy chaser).
"Sisters of Bilhah" by kel is a wrenching, immersive sequel to Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. As the summary says: Sisters of Bilhah is the largest registered charitable organisation in the UK working with asylum seekers and refugees who were citizens of the former United States of America.
"Smaller Fleas that Bite 'Em" by rho is a short, funny sequel to Neal Stephenson's Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller.
posted by brainwane at 1:26 PM on April 14, 2011 [1 favorite]
Erin Ptah's Colbert Report archive includes "The Thing With Feathers" (do you like Pratchett?), the fifth time Jon terrified Stephen, and "In Time".
"Second Verse (Same as the First)" by Friendshipper/Sholio. "The Marines call it the Planet of the Willing Virgins, you know." I don't know much about Stargate but this still kicked me in the gut (here's a warm-fuzzy chaser).
"Sisters of Bilhah" by kel is a wrenching, immersive sequel to Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. As the summary says: Sisters of Bilhah is the largest registered charitable organisation in the UK working with asylum seekers and refugees who were citizens of the former United States of America.
"Smaller Fleas that Bite 'Em" by rho is a short, funny sequel to Neal Stephenson's Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller.
posted by brainwane at 1:26 PM on April 14, 2011 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by oinopaponton at 5:48 PM on April 11, 2011