Handful of fic recs

A quick round-up of fic recs from the flist, so that y'all/I may find them again.

Jack Harkness, meet Terry Pratchett's Death. Hilarity ensues. Death and the Definitely-Not-A-Maiden Both howlingly funny and subtly profound.

Jack being Jack, there was also only so long that he could ignore the fact that he was being stalked by a tall dark stranger with a large (agricultural) implement.



Classic Sarah and Four: she always had his number, even when she didn't have his company. Match Point

"Oooh, I see what you meant about Florana, Doctor. The carpet of perfumed flowers is right under this layer of quarry rocks and dirt, is it?" She coughs, and waves as much of the dust as she can in his general direction.



This appears to be a WIP, but the chapter up works as a standalone love letter to old and new school: the Doctor gets a clue-by-four With a Little Help From My Friends

When Martha called him and said she needed his help, the last thing the Doctor expected when he emerged from the TARDIS was for Jack to grab him, cuff him, and stuff him into a car. (Well, maybe not the last thing. It was rather less likely to have Jack show up and turn into a giant pudding, for instance.)

Two more podcast reviews

I may have found a long, piffly podcast that I actually enjoy: Staggering Stories. (Proving that I'm still more interested in someone else's opinion of Ark in Space than I am of their knitting.)

One thing that I find very attractive is that they're ur-geeks; the 'casts I downloaded cover at least references to Superman, Babylon 5, lots of Doctor Who, Heroes, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, and more.

Another and even more attractive trait is that although they piffle around and get silly (the final minute is nothing but bloopers), there is no blatant padding. As Podshock lost me by doing almost 5 minutes of nothing but dialog samples from shows that I'd already seen, this was very important to me. They're taking their time, but they're actually *talking,* not throwing in whatever to make up the time.

And the most attractive trait of all is that they do put the time on their website. Everything that they will discuss is right there, listed by time, so if they do start wandering on about something that doesn't interest you, you know exactly the time mark to move to. If I could, I would insist that every podcast in the world do this from now on.

In short, two thumbs and a Nano up as listening for every geek who is mainly a Whovian but has an interest in the rest of the SF/F world. It looks like they come out at a nice regular bimonthly schedule, too.



The other one is The Moth. It's a bunch of storytellers, telling stories. That's it. Short stories. I don't know if I'll subscribe, but I'll certainly point out the Neil Gaiman one as being worth listening to, because, hello - Neil Gaiman!

Although I must say that for some reason, those episodes took an extraordinary amount of time to download, almost three times the d/l of other podcasts that are much longer.



Speaking of single-episode recommendations, a fair chunk of the flist would get a giggle out of Episode 76 of the Reduced Shakespeare Company podcast, "Nerd" vs. "Geek". A linguistic examination. On the same page is their "The Authorship Question" (#72), which is a howlingly funny take on the "Did Shakespeare Write Shakespeare" debate.

I've not only subscribed to the RSC podcast, I went and got all of their previous episodes, which I'm seeding throughout the more current 'casts. Still enjoying the hell out of it.