ishafel

K.M. Peyton - Flambards, Guy Gavriel Kay - Lions of Al-Rassan, Karin Lowachee - Warchild, Sarah Monette - Melusine, Georgette Heyer - The Masqueraders, Gordon Korman - MacDonald Hall, Chuck, RPF - Soldier-Poets, Pat Barker - Regeneration, Susan Cooper - Dark Is Rising, Stella Gibbons - Cold Comfort Farm

Flambards
Morning Ride
My fic, which is from a fandom that's obscure even by Yuletide standards (read nonexistent) but is a lovely, lovely look at two people who are clearly meant to be together, despite the canon's attempt to keep them apart. (Think Jo and Laurie in Little Women. Think Mary and Colin in The Secret Garden. Then go and find the Flambards books, read 'em, and then read my fic. And...SQUEE!)

The Lions of Al-Rassan
The Name of the Stars and the Moons
"The rest of the story plays out as one might expect. But what she does not expect, herself, is to love the complex and ruthless man who will take her from the Gate of the Fountain one autumn twilight into his arms and into the court of the world. After all, she is only seventeen years old." As in the original, it's the beauty of the language that makes this story memorable.

Somewhere in Time
Two men who are not yet friends and not quite enemies, taking each other's measure.

Warchild
you try and you try
"The pirates don't find you. You get the smallest gun and lock the rest up, but you go back behind the maintenance grate, you follow regs. You hear things, even through the door, and something through the ventilation system so it sounds like someone's moaning right behind you, and then shouting, and you almost come out then, but you don't. You wait until all noises have faded away, and even the drives of Mukudori herself cycle down and down until they're only a faint buzz against your fingertips when you touch your hand to the hull. And then there's nothing at all." Gorgeous and brutal.

Melusine
Self-Sacrifice
A new perspective on Felix. "Here, in the Mirador (all cruelty and foolishness, cruelty and foolishness brushed into elaborate pompadours and under bejeweled coifs, cruelty and foolishness wrapped within yards of petticoats and finery, cruelty and foolishness dripping from rings and earrings, cruelty and foolishness buried beneath leagues chatter that falls with the gleam of a pearl and the croak of a frog from every mouth), Gideon sees Felix, and futility, more clearly than ever."

The Golden Ones
This is...not at all how I see the fourth book playing out, but it's sharp and bright and brilliant and utterly fantastic. "I saw it the moment I opened the door, of course. I looked at Mildmay to see whether he'd spotted it too, but he was doing his usual best to resemble the sort of paving-stone that other paving-stones didn't ask to dinner. It was just like him not to be any help; he had been sulking ever since we left the Mirador." Marry me, seriously, I'm in love.

The Masqueraders
A Yule to Remember
""A pretty tangle, o mountain," Robin sighed as he wrapped the cannibalized handkerchief." Lovely Heyer-fic.

MacDonald Hall
Gordon Korman Never Wrote a Zombie Story (And Now We Know Why)
Bruno. Boots. Zombies. So, so awesome.

Chuck
Because Your Kiss (Your Kiss) Is on My List
"John Casey cleaned his third-favorite service weapon, the trusty old SIG Sauer, for the second time that week. That wasn't nearly as much as his first- and second-favorite weapons, which he'd cleaned at least three times each. Yet he still couldn't scrub the entire kissing thing from his brain no matter how much symbolic brain-bleaching he engaged in. It just wouldn't go away. Every time he looked at Bartowski, it hit him hard in the face. Every time he tried to sleep, Bartowski's terrifying, puckered lips were there. And it really pissed him off."

Hee. That is all.

Appreciation
Surprisingly sweet drabble.

Soldier Poets
Athanatos
Rupert Brooke, and war, and loneliness. Lovely.

Regeneration
Two Fusiliers
"Robert left on a Wednesday. He came back on a Monday. There were four years in between. And it was the in between, of course, that was so interesting. It's usually the in betweens, he found himself thinking as he watched Nancy come down the aisle in her white lace. Apple cheeks. She had apple cheeks." Fabulous and tragic.

The Dark Is Rising
One Goes Alone
Will, watching and waiting.

Cold Comfort Farm
The Starkadder Switchback
"Flora, leafing through her address book for all her wealthiest and most sensible American acquaintances, smiled sweetly in return. "Of course not," she said." Oh, yes. Lovely.