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Rec: A Boy Less Ordinary by Eildon Rhymer
May. 23rd, 2011 12:52 amLook what I found while trawling through the DWJ archives on ff.net!
A Boy Less Ordinary
This is an old story--from 2005, in fact, before Pinhoe Egg if I'm not mistaken--so I apologize if everyone who might be interested has already read it. But in case you haven't--go, read, you won't regret it. It's 17,000 words long, but so worth it.
The summary, I have to admit, is less than inspiring,and it was that combined with the length which stopped me from looking at it on earlier passes through the archive:
Thomas Brown is an unusual boy, trapped in an entirely normal family. Then, one day, Tom intones an innocent little word: "Chrestomanci." Normality is about to get very, very strange.
It sounds kind of boring, right? And in fact, I got through most of the first chapter on the strength of the solid writing and the excellent Christopher, despite being mildly annoyed by the premise. I totally did not see the twist at the end of the first chapter coming. (Your mileage may vary depending on how much of a twist-guessing sort of reader you are. I almost never solve the mystery before the detective, I'm sad to say.) After that it was pure gold.
Here is what makes this fic so great:
I mentioned excellent Christopher, right? Seriously one of the best I've read, outside the books themselves.
Specifically, here we see Christopher establishing his habit of making the people who ask him for help at least participate in solving their own damn problems. Which is love.
And--I don't want to give too much away, and I'm not sure what the author's intention was, especially since this was written pre-Pinhoe Egg--but I think this story contains a very satisfactory origin for an important background character in the Chrestomanci books.
So, yeah. Read this.
A Boy Less Ordinary
This is an old story--from 2005, in fact, before Pinhoe Egg if I'm not mistaken--so I apologize if everyone who might be interested has already read it. But in case you haven't--go, read, you won't regret it. It's 17,000 words long, but so worth it.
The summary, I have to admit, is less than inspiring,and it was that combined with the length which stopped me from looking at it on earlier passes through the archive:
Thomas Brown is an unusual boy, trapped in an entirely normal family. Then, one day, Tom intones an innocent little word: "Chrestomanci." Normality is about to get very, very strange.
It sounds kind of boring, right? And in fact, I got through most of the first chapter on the strength of the solid writing and the excellent Christopher, despite being mildly annoyed by the premise. I totally did not see the twist at the end of the first chapter coming. (Your mileage may vary depending on how much of a twist-guessing sort of reader you are. I almost never solve the mystery before the detective, I'm sad to say.) After that it was pure gold.
Here is what makes this fic so great:
I mentioned excellent Christopher, right? Seriously one of the best I've read, outside the books themselves.
Specifically, here we see Christopher establishing his habit of making the people who ask him for help at least participate in solving their own damn problems. Which is love.
And--I don't want to give too much away, and I'm not sure what the author's intention was, especially since this was written pre-Pinhoe Egg--but I think this story contains a very satisfactory origin for an important background character in the Chrestomanci books.
So, yeah. Read this.
