If you've taken a few minutes out of your day to read some fanfic, can you please head over to my writing meme to read an excerpt from my major WIPs. It would be lovely to have some feedback!

New homepage: If you have suggestions for my stories, or wish to adopt "2 Seconds" then comment there. My e-mail is often clogged with the SHAKSPER mailing list and I may not reply the next day. You will get a faster response by commenting on lj. http://machiavelli_imp.livejournal.com

Status of stories:

Note: I am currently writing a novel (target 100 000 words) on the North African campaign in World War II and what might have happened if Rommel had acted differently at the battle(s) of El Alamein. If that's you cup of tea, head to my Imperium page to have a look at a deleted scene (last red line in writing meme), timeline/chapter summary and background or just watch some videos. If it isn't, then you can bemoan my lack of writing time for fanfic of the non-Desert Fox variety.

Underworld: Most of my Underworld fic is on near-permanent hiatus. I'm struggling to cope with a canon whose protagonists are my anti-OTP and until I get beyond this the future chapters I have written won't make any sense. The only story I intend to continue is the Viktor/Selene challenge about the aftermath of the war.

Thursday Next: I have a few short stories in mind, more anecdotes to provide backstory to canon than anything else. I'm also slowly forming a convoluted fic about what might have happened if generics had been in Jane Eyre at the time Acheron and Thursday inhabited it. Yes, the Aornis-centric fic fladge requested is on its way.

Harry Potter: I am currently writing a sreis of Tom/Minerva vignettes, which will be posted when I finish the cycle of 13. I have two possible scenarios on how Voldemort might have met Bellatrix in the works. I write HP as a physicist: you won't see any magic in my fics that I can't explain without breaking relativity or quantum mechanics -- but I can stretch them a very, very long way. I suppose this is far more Ian Irvine fantasy than JKR's style, but I'm just not keen on suddenly deciding that Muggles and wizards live in the same universe, but with different physical laws.

Future possible works: I became quite annoyed at the miserable ending of Ocean's 12 so I intend to write a follow-up to it which ignores the unwritten heist rule that the main team must always win no matter how good the competition, simply because they are cliched and American and everyone else isn't.

Favourite Writers:

If you read one series of novels in your life, this should be it: Masters of Rome. Other writers whom I adore are: Ian Irvine (Three Worlds, not Runcible Jones); Jasper Fforde, whose truly amazing debut "The Eyre Affair" made Bronte and Dickens bearable; Timothy Zahn, an sf writer who manages to avoid contrived plots involving the words "warp space"; Marcus Tullius Cicero (he's a pompus git, but his speeches are extraordinary) and Erwin Rommel, the only write whose textbook I couldn't put down.

My shamelessly nerdy historical OTPs:

Aeneas/Dido: There are several inscriptions from early Roman times about "Lar Aeineas" which is the Greek spelling but whether Dido was factual is anyone's guess.

Caesar/Servilia: Gaius Julius of veni vidi vici fame and Brutus' mother.

Augustus/Livia: Truly, truly awesome political know-how in that family. Pity about Titus.

Nero/Agrippina: Go and read Suetonius and Tacitus - you'll see what I mean. Assasination by collapsing ceilings and self-capsizing boats are the perfect way to off one's lover and political rival.

Richard III/Anne Neville: Sharon Penman's novel The Sunne in Splendour got me hooked on this one - it's a fabulous book about the Wars of the Roses.

Erwin Rommel/Lucie Rommel: I suspect this has more to do with the amazing Wüstenfuchs than his wife, yet it still astounds me that they had such a(n apparently) blissful existence amidst such political turmoil.

Fandom pairings which I will write and beta-read: Some are canonical, others are just odd.

Harry Potter: Sirius/Bellatrix; Tom/Ginny (rather unrequited on Tom's side I think); Tom/Minerva and Voldemort/Bellatrix (their love child is the only thing that would have redeemed the "crapilogue" in DH).

I differentiate between the "Tom Riddle" personality and the "Lord Voldemort" one, since I'm convinced that he is a Narcissist (i.e. suffers from NPD). Quite frankly I couldn't care less about the trio's romantic life, excluding Harry's Oedipal leanings.

Star Wars: Tarkin/Leia (!) Why can't I find a single fic concerning this pairing? There is such opportunity for Stockholme Syndrome, manipulation, ethical dilemmas, yet no-one seems to have written a thing! Thrawn/Ar'alani which is totally (perhaps not quite, depending on how much Chiss canon stuff you swallow) unrealistic, but let's face it, they are the best tacticians in the Unknowns. Corran/Tavira (It only happens in I Jedi but I'm a sucker for Stockholme Syndrome pairings.)

Thursday Next: Acheron/Thursday Lethe/Cocytus (Although they are only mentioned in the books, this one is entirely the fault of luckilyotto. The Thursday Next section of ff.n has only 3 stories in it, 2 of which are mine: there is a greater number and variety at the FoS Archive Thursday Next

Underworld: Viktor/Selene (!) Look at the "I love you...like a daughter" scene before you attack me with an axe. Amelia/Marcus to explain Marcus' Coven-destroying hissy fit in Evolution and Amelia/Malachi from thecardinalsin66 's stories (does that count?)

My grammatical rant! If I review youe fic and it has bad grammar, I will be happy to fix it.

There is such a mood of verb as the subjuctive and it is used in contrary to known fact (impossible) clauses and future less vivid/hypothetical ones like:

If I were Amelia, I would have murdered Kraven the moment I set eyes upon him. (but I'm not Ameilia -- contrary to known fact -- subjunctive.)

If Erika were to meet Phedre no Delaunay from "Kushiel's Dart" they would get on like a house on fire. (Unlikely but possible -- hypothetical -- subjuctive.)

On the other hand, if Lucien is shot using lots of silver bullets, he will die. ("cause and event" clause -- conditional indicative clause -- indicative (that's normal verb forms.)

Right. If you're still here you will note the moral of this diatribe, namely don't get the Latin tutor started.

If you've read all of this, you deserve a hot bath and a large martini!

To summarise (with apologies to Minerva Mctabby here and over at Livejournal):

My review is probably longer than your fic and it almost certainly has better grammar.