Reviews - Agatha Christie

Murder at the Vicarage (Agatha Christie)

From the murky world of Philip Marlowe in Los Angeles, to a little British village. I hadn't read any of the Miss Marple books -- I began with a Poirot one -- and thought I'd start from the very beginning. Miss Marple was certainly more likeable than Poirot -- a busybody character, with her nose in everybody's business, but without Poirot's more odious eccentricities. She's kind of fun. It's interesting how, in both Agatha Christie books I've read, the narrator is at a distance from the detective who actually solves things. I thought the vicar, the narrator of this story, was sweet -- and I was actually glad about the little bits about him and his wife, and at the end. I got to like a few of the characters quite a bit, and hope that they're recurring in the later Miss Marple books.

Agatha Christie's pretty good at misdirection -- I changed my mind about who was the culprit several times -- but I imagine you get used to that, reading her work. I don't think I'll look to her work for great subtlety, but it's fun for a quick read.

The Body in the Library (Agatha Christie)

Another Miss Marple story! I really do like her more than Poirot: much less egotistical -- though I'm basing on that on only having read one Poirot book, I suppose, so maybe I didn't get the whole of Poirot's character. I liked that this one wasn't in the style of a first person narrator's account, like the other two I've read. Ultimately I think I preferred that, because a lot of the charm of the first Miss Marple book came from the character of the vicar, but it was nice to have it a bit different, too.

I didn't find the mystery very intriguing with this one, largely because I couldn't figure it out for myself. Possibly that was me being dim, and having a headache, etc, etc, but even when I got to the last few pages I wasn't perfectly sure whodunnit until it spelled it out.

Still, it was pretty fun to read -- like a snack between meals.

Recs - Final Fantasy, Good Omens, Merlin, Supernatural

Recs again! I didn't think it'd been so long, but I've got quite the list of del.icio.us bookmarks since then, so here we go.

Fandoms for the fic recs: Supernatural.
Fandoms for the art recs: Final Fantasy, Good Omens, Merlin, Supernatural.

( Fic: Supernatural )

( Art: Final Fantasy, Good Omens, Merlin, Supernatural )

Musing: Big Bangs - Here goes nothing

Some of the Big Bang comms have rant/venting communities, etc, and I might make use of those too, but last year I worked on my Big Bang fics quite quietly and I'm not sure many people even knew I was doing them. This year, I'm planning to document my work on them a bit better -- to look back on, maybe, and also to keep me accountable. Each Big Bang I'm signed up for will get a tag of its own.

Right now I'm signed up to three Big Bangs: au_bigbang, spn_j2_bigbang, and sncross_bigbang. If you know of any other Big Bangs you think I'd like to take part in, then poke me -- I'm aiming for 300,000 words this year at getyourwordsout, and Big Bangs certainly help with that.

Anyway, I have rough plans for all of them. Some rougher than others. I've got an outline for the AU Big Bang; I've got extensive notes for the SPN Crossover Big Bang; I've got light notes/a light outline for the SPN/J2 Big Bang.

AU Big Bang: Dean grows up at the roadhouse, as Dean Harvelle. He's also mute. Along comes a Castiel... Characters: Dean, Ellen, Jo, Castiel. Possibly ultimately Dean/Castiel. Target: 15k.
SPN Crossover Big Bang: Supernatural meets The Dark is Rising. Disregards season five. The angels are trying to bring about the apocalypse; Will believes that this is a violation of what he and the others won when Bran cut the silver from the tree. Characters: Sam, Dean, Castiel, Will, Bran. No pairings explicitly intended. Target: 15k.
SPN J2 Big Bang: Dean is blinded. The details depend upon what happens when I catch up with canon. Characters: Dean, Sam, Bobby, Castiel, Jimmy(?). Possibly ultimately Dean/Castiel. Target: 20k.

Mostly, at the moment, I'm working on the crossover. I have 2k words, two scenes. I haven't planned this all the way through to the end, because I'm not quite sure how exactly it's going to go. The original plan was kind of Will-ex-machina-ish, mostly focusing on Dean, but it seems like he's likely to have an emotional arc of his own. And well, can you imagine Bran sitting pretty and not doing anything?

So far: Will likes Dean more than I expected, Dean and Bran really piss each other off, and it's awfully hard figuring out how to fit Will in with Christianity (i.e. angels).

I wonder what I'll get by way of art. It must be hard to cross a book fandom with a TV fandom in art. I haven't seen many artists around for The Dark is Rising in general. I'm looking forward to pairing up with an artist, really, at least if they're anything like auroraprimavera.

I think I'm going to finish the crossover before I get to work on the AU, and I need to catch up with canon before I can do the SPN/J2 Big Bang fic. At least, that's what I'm hoping to do -- I want to tie it in with canon. I might not, though, once I've caught up.

Also, if you have access to this journal/if you're friended by it, then you can see sneaky snippets, now and then.