Yuletide recs #3: Stardust, Emma, Master Li, Pratchett's Nation (books)

[cimorene]

I noticed two film!Stardust pieces about Robert DeNiro's swishy, amazing Captain Shakespeare. They're remarkably similar, except for length.

• Names, Navigation, and Other Issues Arising on the Caspartine. This is from the POV of Shakespeare's first mate and follows his whole career from long before the movie. It's of medium-length, not truly epic, but it does justice to that original character without really moving the focus away from Shakespeare either, and allows him to be admired as I, at least, felt he deserved after the movie.


• To Sir, with Love is a little drabble on the same theme, also from the point of view of an OC first mate, with a slightly different feel.

And then some odds and ends -

• Terry Pratchett - Nation Hands Across the Sea. "The young Princess Ermintrude, heir to the crown of England, stared at the paper in front of her and tried to think how to begin her letter." It's just about perfect in every respect. I could have kept reading ten times as long, but at the same time, it's not too short to feel complete in itself and entirely convey its purpose in just the tone of the book, sensitive and hopeful and wry.



• The Chronicles of Master Li Three Jade Mice, a funny casefic with some really delightful details of magic and mystery to make it memorable.



• Jane Austen - Emma Poignant Sting A very good and authentic-tasting (which you might not think meant much until you consider that I've never recced or even bookmarked a Regency-period AU or an Austen piece before, because I consider that nearly everyone fails at getting period voice right) look at the Austenian world of Emma through a darker and more supernatural lens.That isn't something you would automatically think would work, and yet it does. A little heartbreaking perhaps, but ultimately heartwarming and engrossing. Featuring Emma's and Jane Churchill's pregnancies, Mrs Elton's frustrated social ambitions, and Miss Bates, the Cassandra of Highbury in a more literal sense than is usually meant!

And yesterday in the Die Hard 4 recs I forgot one which I had lost in my initial orgy of reading, I don't know how. It's one of the best Die Hard stories I've read in quite a while in fact:

• I'll Be Hard for Christmas, A solid, funny, quirky, satisfying, believable sequel to the movie, all about the War on Terrorism and John and Matt's War on Congressional Committee Hearings.

Comments

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

*officially thanks you for the rec *

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Just doing my job hobby, ma'am.