Calufrax

Story: In Alien Soil
Author: Lyricwritesprose
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 1957
Author's Summary: Peri and the Doctor discuss botany, and the Doctor remembers what interests her.
Characters/Pairings: Peri Brown, The Doctor (6th)
Warnings: None

Recced because: Only the other day, I was discussing the venerable Who tradition of offloading surplus companions by marrying them off to random guest characters, and mentioned that I thought Vicki taking off with Troilus was actually one of the occasions when it worked as a storytelling choice. One of the more bizarre examples has to be Peri's apparent romance with Yrcanos at the end of Trial of a Time Lord. I think in recent years I've come around to the idea of it, however ill-advised it might seem. For one thing, it's a better outcome for Peri than the other alternative facing her in that particular story. For another thing, I've found that I actually quite like BRIAN BLESSED's turn in "Mind Warp" and his interactions with Peri - you can almost believe in their relationship if you, like, squint a bit. I also rather like the bizarre version of events given in the epilogue of the Target novelisation, where he somehow ends up as a pro wrestler in 1980s California with Peri as his manager. I think the main thing that's brought me around to quite liking Peri's ending, however, is that there is so much really nice fic out there about what she did next. And this, from a writer who needs no introduction around these parts, is a very fine example.

There is much more to this fic than that, however. We get a nice scene from the period when Peri was still travelling with Six, which features a discussion of botany (nice to see Peri getting a chance to use her expertise) and of Gallifreyan botany in particular. I'm a sucker for Gallifreyan worldbuilding at the best of times, but this is some tip-top stuff addressing a bit of lore we've all heard of but perhaps not thought too deeply about and in a genuinely science-fictional manner too. The part of the story set in Peri's post-Doctor period is just as good, with lots of nice hints about just what sort of society Krontep is (Yrcanos, you may not be entirely surprised to discover, is not some weirdly violent outlier as far as his culture and people go), and how Peri's time there hasn't always been easy but how she has managed to make a fulfilling life there. The main thing I like about this fic, however, is the great characterisation (something I always come back to when discussing fics I like); Peri and the Doctor both shine here, with Six's unique manner and verbosity coming through particularly clearly. I think it's Peri you'll remember afterwards, though, for her wit, her wisdom and her overcoming of adversity, as well as the heartfelt but not uncritical affection she has for both of the men in her life beyond Earth.

Well, go on - go and read it!

( An Extract )

Thank you, thank you, it's good to be back and I hope all of you will enjoy the next fortnight's reccing. I'd especially like to welcome all the members of Illinois's law enforcement community who have chosen to join me here on calufrax at this time...

...

Anyway, on with the fic:

Story: The Music Snob of Sherwood
Author: Lyricwritesprose
Rating: All ages
Word Count: 200
Author's Summary: The Doctor does not have a very good bedside manner.
Characters/Pairings: The Doctor (12th), some "Merrie" Men
Warnings: None

Recced because: Well, we're five episodes in to Series 8 of New Who/the Twelve era/whatever you want to call it, and on the whole I'm enjoying it greatly so far. So I thought I'd definitely include at least one Twelve fic in this reccing run just to highlight the fact that a lot of people are already doing good work with the new Doctor and his era. I'm sure they'll be doing even better work when S8 is over and Twelve is bedded in and we know more about him, but stuff like this is very nice to be going on with in the meantime, very nice indeed. And I don't know about my fellow reccers on here, but I always get a certain satisfaction to securing the bragging rights of having recced hot-off-the-presses good fic like this before any of the rest of them got to it. ;)

I also thought this fic would be a good one to draw attention to at this point because it highlights one of the aspects of the new Doctor and his stories that I am especially enjoying, namely the Twelve's brilliant cantankerous spikiness; he may or may not be a good man, he shows signs of being a kind man underneath it all, but he quite a lot of the time is far from being a nice man, at least not when he's right in your face. Peter Capaldi plays this aspect of the Doctor (and let's be honest, pretty much all of the other ones too) brilliantly, and you can almost hear him spitting the words out in this nicely done double drabble. It also builds on what has for me so far been possibly the most purely enjoyable S8 story, the amazingly silly (this is not a bad thing in Who, if you ask me) Robot of Sherwood, and more than does justice to the side of the Doctor displayed in that particular episode.

And on top of all that, let's be honest; this is an author you know you're in safe hands with. She does not disappoint. And that goes for this fic too. Go and read, enjoy, and offer appropriate words of appreciation over on Teaspoon.


( A Sample )

Story: They Say
Author: Lyricwritesprose
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 744
Author's Summary: The oppressed rely on whispers.
Characters/Pairings: None, directly.
Warnings: Some references to slavery and the violence and brutality involved in same. Nothing graphic, however.

Recced because: Another author who has become no stranger to these pages in recent months and years, and there's a reason for that. If you ask me (and seeing as you're reading my rec post, in some sense you already have), Lyricwritesprose is one of the very best new Whofic writers to emerge onto the scene in the past few years, maintaining a consistently high standard of interesting fics with things to say about Doctor Who, its characters and universe that are worth thinking about. This fic is no exception.

There's a wariness among some Who fans regarding what I've heard referred to as the fetishising of the Doctor. The tendency, perhaps, to invest him with godlike or superheroic status over and above that of an extremely clever and resourceful adventurer in time and space. Probably the prime example in many of these fans' minds would be the moment in Forest of the Dead - "Look me up." I think the point is that the Doctor shouldn't be able to rely on the power of his reputation alone in confrontations with powerful enemies - and I think it's an opinion Stephen Moffat has at least paid lip service to in the idea of making the Eleventh Doctor "anonymous" again and portray him as deliberately trying to lower his profile in the universe, even if this was perhaps not executed perfectly in practice.

This fic deals in these sorts of areas, takes them head on, and paints a brilliantly thoughtful and original picture of the, for want of a better term, Whoniverse and what it must be like to exist in it. This is a dangerous cosmos, the author makes clear, perhaps more dangerous than the series itself occasionally remembers, filled with conflict and oppression and evil. And yet, quite literally its saving grace, it has the Doctor. And this isn't the Doctor as some sort of lionised godlike superhero - his personality and indeed existence are immaterial. This is about the footprint the Doctor leaves, the effect his actions have upon the universe he exists in and the lives of the people living in it, and the hope that footprint provides for all of the others out there in the darkness, regardless of whether they know how or why it exists. It is, quite simply, lovely stuff, the kind of thing I really relish in a good fanfic.

I would characterise this as a companion piece to the author's other story "Invisible Road", which was also recently recced on the comm. That's more than worth your reading time as well. If I were you, I would go and read both of them right now and leave appropriate words of encouragement for the author.

( A Taste )

Story: A Still More Terrible Night Awaits Us
Author: Lyricwritesprose
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 1,278
Author's Summary: The distinction between cosmic horror and cosmic wonder is at least partly one's point of view.
Characters/Pairings: Ace, the Doctor (7th), the Master (Ainley) and a famous 20th Century author, although to say more than that would be to give the game away.
Warnings: None, really...
Recced because: Well, mainly because it's a particularly fine entry in the annals of one of the more skilled and prolific authors the Teaspoon has acquired in recent months. Lyricwritesprose has been very productive indeed over the course of the past year or so, and consistently good across the whole of this output. This is one that I only read very recently for the first time, but it instantly grabbed me, and I think it's only right in the circumstances to share.

I think this story probably works a lot better if the reader is (as I will confess to being) at least reasonably aware of the oeuvre and recurring themes of the real life author who appears in it as a guest character; it works especially well if you are also familiar with said author's somewhat idiosyncratic prose style, which here is the subject of a pastiche simultaneously as amusing as it is impressive. I really cannot be more specific than that, because a lot of the joy of this story, for me anyway, was in the slowly-dawning recognition of exactly who the character was, had to be, confirmed in the final line. I think, though, that the story still works very well even if the reader is not familiar with the guest character's works; I think it says something very perceptive about the Doctor and his adventures that some Who fans might hesitate to recognise. We see the Doctor, by and large, from the point of view of his devoted companions and pseudo-companions he acquires in the course of the various stories; what must it be like, though, to see the Doctor and his adventures from the outside, looking in? Without going overboard on the "Time's Champion"/"Time Lord Victorious" stuff that can occasionally be a bit too much, this story reflects on that side of the Doctor's nature and how he and his associates might sometimes appear to those who stumble, unawares, upon this world. And indeed upon what a vast and uncaring universe, full of powerful and dangerous beings, the Whoniverse often appears to be.

Above all, though, this is a very well-written story by a top-notch Who fanficcer currently at the height of their powers - I urge you, go and read it now and leave a few words of acknowledgement for the author.

( A Most Squamous and Loathsome Excerpt... )