Arctic Light

I've been going through my books, trying to unload the ones I'll never read again and read some of the enormous to-read pile that I've acquired over the years from library book sales and used bookstores and whatnot. There are books in this pile I've had for a decade without reading them. I think it's safe to say I don't need to keep them anymore.

I decided to read one of them tonight, and I'm not sure if a book in recent memory has made me go "WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK" quite so many times in the first few chapters (until I gave up).

The book is Ember From the Sun by Mark Canter, and it is ... well ... it's a book. That was published. By Bantam-Doubleday, even!

The general premise of the book sounded promising. A scientist manages to implant a surrogate mother with a Neanderthal embryo, so basically it's Jurassic Park with Neanderthals. But why, oh why are all thrillers involving Neanderthals so mind-bogglingly terrible? The last one I tried to read was this one, which ticked off every last item in your basic terrible-Crichton-ripoff plot outline. Such as, for example, the characters finding the camp of the research team that disappeared before them, discovering the journal that explains what happened to the other team, and deciding to read it in linear order to preserve the suspense of the ending, while something is attempting to pick them off one by one. It is difficult to appreciate their plight when I just want to scream, "Read the last page first, you morons!" at them every 3 pages or so.)

Anyway. Ember From the Sun. The cut isn't really for spoilers - although yes, there are extensive spoilers, but seriously, are any of you actually going to read this book? Mostly it's just cut to keep you from having to wade through all this if you don't care.

( Ember From the Sun, or, Neanderthals + a whole world of WTF )

ETA: Heaven help us all, the author seems to have recovered the rights and brought it back into print via self-publishing. I would like to point out that the cover is actually a remarkably accurate visual rendition of the content of the book: incoherent, weird, New Agey, and full of elements that don't quite work together.

Er, I went and committed extremely self-indulgent White Collar post-Countdown fic. Dammit. *g*

I should warn you right up front that this is (fairly dark) catharsis fic for me. It's not meant as a stab at anyone's fic tastes, it's not meant to imply that anyone is wrong for liking certain tropes; what it is, though, is a Neal character study which happens to be me working through my own issues with the way that certain Season 3 themes are often handled in fic. For me, it's total emotional PWP. Don't go in here expecting a thoughtful and nuanced look at the aftermath of Countdown, is all I'm saying. This was written because I needed to get it out of my head, and I figured I'd go ahead and post it because it turned out 4500 words long, but ... heed the warning, and don't expect my usual characterizations to apply when it comes to how Peter, in particular, is handled.

~ Gen, 4500 words, Countdown spoilers.

( untitled White Collar post-Countdown fic )

If this story is too depressing to bear, there is now a cheerful, cracky OT3 follow-up/alternate ending.