Templum Bellonae

This is a Spike/Xander story, continuing in Blue-Eyed Boy, with a Spike/Buffy epilogue, Some Scenes from the Later Life of Two Heroes (which continues in the in-progress Waiting Around.) I was just looking for some light, snarky, S/X fun when I stumbled across this, like fishing for trout and catching a shark instead.

After Not Fade Away, Spike is living with Illyria, mourning Angel and the rest of the gang, and isn’t really prepared when Xander, back from Africa and profoundly damaged, shows up in LA.

Over and above some really great writing, there are a few things I think this story does really well. Most S/X stories, profoundly as I love them, tend to gloss over Xander’s attitude toward demons in general and Spike in particular. This one doesn’t, while offering a plausible reason why Xander would get involved with him. I like that the story doesn’t take the easy way out, making Spike the answer to all of Xander’s problems. There’s also a certain amount of humour, even absurdity, which helps to lighten some of the darker moments.

The best thing about The Approved Mode of Payback and Blue-Eyed Boy is that they take a hard look at what the outcome of Chosen might have been, and sadly, their predictions seem all too plausible.

The Approved Mode of Payback by Herself

Not my favourite Angel S6, because no slash and not much Connor takes off a lot of points. But those deficiencies aside, it’s well-written and in-character. Angel, Spike, Illyria, and Gunn manage to survive the battle, but L.A. will never be the same.

Angel: Season Six by Mutant Existential Scoobies

Voyager

During “Future’s End,” Tom Paris sees two men holding hands in 20th century L.A. But Human males don’t do that anymore…

I don’t know why I didn’t rec this earlier. Actually, I could have sworn I did.

Maybe the geneticists should have tried to figure out what gene caused homophobia and wiped *it* out of the population.

What Is Lost by Siubhan

Follow-up to my recommendation of The Administration.

The following is part of another Administration novel, Good Citizens. This is set in the Administration, but has an entirely new cast of characters, taking the spotlight away from the corporate world, and the offices and I&I, and turning it onto citizens at the other end of the Administration’s social scale. There is no guarantee it will be finished, and may be revised or removed at any time—read at your own risk. At the moment I’m not working on any Administration stories, so Good Citizens is unlikely to be finished in the forseeable future.

Even though it isn’t and may never be finished, Good Citizens is an incredible read. When I read The Administration, I had a hard time really feeling the resister point of view. I understood it intellectually, but not viscerally.

But now I get it.

I fervently wish to see this story finished, although I’m afraid it probably won’t be. It hasn’t been updated since late 2003, anyway, so don’t look forward to new material anytime soon.

ETA: Seems to have been removed from Manna’s site, although I couldn’t find anything there saying why.

Good Citizens by Manna

Jeff and Rusty had once been best friends. Of course, Jeff was human then.

Everything Parhelion writes is wonderful, and this is no exception. And no one has a better grasp of period dialect and how to make it work.

Masks by Parhelion

When humans are seen only in terms of profit and loss, what happens to humanity?

Set in a slave state where corporations rule. Four interconnected stories (the last one by a guest writer); I like Redemption the best.

Take the darkfic warning seriously. This isn’t the kind of story that uses slavery as a plot device; the slave society is real, oppressive, unrelenting and inescapable.

ETA: Northern Corporate Dominion is now available only on livejournal. The first three stories are: Pride, Expulsion, and Redemption.

Northern Corporate Dominion by Remy

This series really ought to be published. It’s better than a lot of books I’ve read. It is dark, but not in the way I’d feared. I was expecting an outrageous dystopian future like that of Blade Runner, but it’s not like that. In The Administration, there are a lot of people fighting to maintain the status quo, and it’s easy to see why.

There is torture, rape and non-con sex, but it’s mostly incidental to the story. The BDSM is explicit, but I found it a lot of fun to read, even though I don’t usually enjoy BDSM scenes.

There are no bad guys. There are no good guys. There are only better guys, and worse guys.

One of the worse guys is Val Toreth. In a world where torture is a legitimate part of the investigative process, he works for the Investigation and Interrogation Division .

One of the better guys is Keir Warrick, a corporate director. His small corporation, SimTech, is developing a ’sim’ system which places users in a fully-immersive virtual reality.

Their world is the dark future dystopia of New London, where Europe is controlled by a totalitarian bureaucracy, which shares political power with powerful corporations. The oppressive government uses torture, violence and the various Divisions of the feared Department of Internal Security to maintain power. The corporations fight amongst themselves, using lethal force under the euphemism of ‘corporate sabotage’, uniting only to resist attempts by the Administration to extend its control over them.

The Administration is a series of three novels, three novellas and twenty-seven short stories, starting with Mind Fuck. They’re listed in reading order on the Administration page.

Also, see this follow-up recommendation.

The Administration by Manna

Gods, mortals and true love. Deftly executed and genuinely suspenseful plot. Very good characters in Kieran Trevarde and Ashleigh Trine. Slash.

23 Nov 06: Now also available in print! ISBN 1847288650; it’s carried by several online book sellers, including Amazon.

The God Eaters by Jesse Hajicek