REC: Huntsman

[biichan.livejournal.com]

Story: Huntsman
Author: LizBee
Rating: None (probably All Ages or Teen)
Word Count: 6217
Author's summary: "A passing huntsman heard Red Riding Hood's cries..." Martha knows where fairy tales come from. She just never expected to be part of one.
Characters/Pairings: Tenth Doctor, Martha, Rose, Romana I, Romana II, Seventh Doctor, Jamie, Susan, Ninth Doctor, The Bad Wolf, The TARDIS
Warnings: none, really, except some second person in the dream sequences

Recced because: This fic has it all: funny bits, serious bits, spooky bits, and poignant bits. It's about Martha and the TARDIS trying to get her to fix something that's gone wrong within it, but it's also about fairy tales. It's about the big bad wolf. It's about the ghosts in the machine.

It's wonderfully atmospheric and beautifully written. There's a real love for canon informing every word. Maybe the best way to express how good this fic is would be to let LizBee's words speak from themselves:

"If a Time Lord is the sum of his memories," says the Doctor, speaking quickly and quietly, so that you have to lean in to hear, "then a TARDIS is even more so. A vast, sophisticated computer, a growing machine that builds itself from the very people who travel in it. But this TARDIS is old, and she's carried so many people ... not merely Time Lords, as her creators intended, but aliens, alien minds integrating themselves into this vast computer. So many people, so many years..."

"Is that what's happened?" you ask. "A sort of computer virus?"

Comments

[palmetto.livejournal.com]

How have I never read this before? It's stunning.