Fan Fiction - Page 2

Jaime_Astorga · 04-14-2010, 02:03 PM

I'm posting back in this topic to let whomever is interest know what I have just read what I now consider to be the best novel-length Harry Potter fanfic in existence; over 70,000 words long, not even close to complete, and written by famous AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky (pen name Less Wrong).

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Let me warn immediately that this fanfic is not for everyone. Unless you enjoy a large dose of heavy thinking with your fiction, you are unlikely to appreciate it. Think 1984, except that cognitive science replaces politics as the center focus of the piece.

The basic premise is that this is an alternate universe where Petunia marries an Oxford professor rather than Vernon. This results in a rather different upbringing for Harry, who becomes a wildly different, more intelligent person as a result. Rather than the hero with more guts than brains from the original novel, we get a Harry whose reaction to the seeming impossibility of magic is to try to understand it using logic and empiricism. A Harry who easily outclasses Hermoine in thinking ability, if not in memorization or actual magical ability. A Harry who can tell you with a straight face to "look in chapter two of the first book of the Feynman Lectures on Physics. There's a quote there about how philosophers say a great deal about what science absolutely requires, and it is all wrong, because the only rule in science is that the final arbiter is observation - that you just have to look at the world and report what you see."

And it is glorious. Here, let me copy an excerpt from the part where Harry is introduced to the idea of Quidditch from Ron. If this doesn't convince you to read the fic, nothing will.

Spoiler:

Guns4Hire · 04-14-2010, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by konrads

If you want decent Harry Potter fan fiction, most of what's on http://www.fanficauthors.net is pretty good. The general writing quality is a lot higher than what you generally find on fanfiction.net

Not a Harry Potter fan. But I will definitely check out the site for 'other' stuff. Thanks.

Amalthia · 04-14-2010, 04:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Amalthia's Fanfiction ebook library has a lot of great reads; everything I've read from there was excellent.

Recent Trek:
Seperis' You'll Get There in the End (It Just Takes a While) and sequel War Games are great.

Deastar's So Wise We Grow, also.

All of Mijan's Trekfic is excellent. (So is her Harry Potter fic, but as much of it is Harry/Draco non-explicit, I haven't read it all. Eclipse is wonderful.)

I just wanted to point out that those recent trek recs are hosted at the Ebook Library in mobi/epub/lrf and RTF.

Amalthia · 04-14-2010, 04:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by konrads

PS: Both Fanfic Authors and Twisting The Hellmouth offer EPUB versions of their archived stories.

You wouldn't by any chance know how they do this? I'd love to have an export to epub on my other archive.

Amalthia · 04-14-2010, 04:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

I'm posting back in this topic to let whomever is interest know what I have just read what I now consider to be the best novel-length Harry Potter fanfic in existence; over 70,000 words long, not even close to complete, and written by famous AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky (pen name Less Wrong).

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Is the story complete?

konrads · 04-14-2010, 05:58 PM

@Guns4Hire: You're welcome. Though the non-HP fan fiction is limited, it's still there.

@Amalthia: I don't know the particulars on how those particular sites implement the EPUB feature, but I do know there is a PHP class (found here) that can generate an EPUB file. You'll have to know some object orientation and PHP basics if you want to use it successfully though. I suspect it shouldn't be that difficult to implement in eFiction (which is the engine your site runs on, right?). If you'd like help doing that, I'm offering.

Jaime_Astorga · 04-14-2010, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amalthia

Is the story complete?

No; that is why I said "not even close to complete". I wanted to emphasize that, should everything continues normally (i.e. should Less Wrong continue posting chapters), any potential reader should be able to except much more story coming up and, conversely, to warn people who are big on closure and diligent updates that, as with all stories which were not finished yet, neither one was guaranteed. Mind you, Eliezer has posted 15 chapters in one and a half months, so so far his track record is excellent.

Also, the troper fanfic recommendation archive I mentioned earlier has a page for Harry Potter, too.

Amalthia · 04-14-2010, 07:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

No; that is why I said "not even close to complete". I wanted to emphasize that.

I'm sorry, I was speed reading through your post and completely missed that line. I'll probably hear about this story more when it's done so I'll read it then.

It sounds quite fascinating.

Amalthia · 04-14-2010, 07:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by konrads

@Amalthia: I don't know the particulars on how those particular sites implement the EPUB feature, but I do know there is a PHP class (found here) that can generate an EPUB file. You'll have to know some object orientation and PHP basics if you want to use it successfully though. I suspect it shouldn't be that difficult to implement in eFiction (which is the engine your site runs on, right?). If you'd like help doing that, I'm offering.

I'm currently running efiction 3.5.2? it's the most up-to-date version.

If I'm reading the php classes page correctly it looks like efiction would have to support zip files to make this work. I think I saw a module for that at one point? I think since efiction supports modules we'd have to do something like that to add epub support.

I'd love help to get this set up because honestly I don't even know where to start beyond the modules, my knowledge of PHP is also limited, though I'm also willing to learn. I am familar with css and html coding and I have looked at the PHP coding for the site since I modified the skins.

my personal email is amalthia at gmail.com if you want to take this off forum. (though I'm not going to lie this is the last month of the semester for my grad school and everything is due, so time is limited.) So I'm not sure how much help I'd be until the semester is over.

Kosst Amojan · 04-14-2010, 10:36 PM

I love most sci-fi fiction but on a standalone basis Star Trek takes the cake. However for web stories, I read mostly sci-fi crossovers. Fanfiction.net of course but also Spacebattles.com are my two largest sources for those types of stories.

Some of my favorite crossovers are nBSG/Stargate and Star Trek/B5.

ficbot · 04-14-2010, 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Thanks for suggesting. What an odd little story. The author is very clever and there were some lines that were spot-on and delightful. Harry was rather unsympathetic in places though and seems almost sociopathic at times. I wish the author had made this an original novel with a non-Harry Potter theme (e.g. an OC character like his version of Harry who discovers a 'magic' world). I think his Harry was too OOC even given the AU aspect and I think his writing is good enough that he could have had a real publisher with an original story.

I'd be interested in more recs for good novel-length Harry Potter fic, though---non-slash, non-romance, the sort of fic that is like reading an extra novel in the series. No legit Potter ebooks, and I am too lazy to find darknet ones and render than readable

Plus I have read them already in paper

So, any good 'this could be a novel in the series' type recs that are not overtly shippy?

cbarnett · 04-15-2010, 09:10 PM

Barb Purdom's "Psychic Serpent" trilogy are fine, fine alternate Harry Potter fanfics. Full sized books, they replace books 5, 6 and 7 of the original series. There's no slash in them, though the characters do act their ages as they get older (think, they're all hormonal teenagers!) so there is some fooling around (I wouldn't let younger readers at them).

Book 5 is Harry Potter and the Psychic Serpent
Book 6 is Harry Potter and the Time of Good Intentions
Book 7 is Harry Potter and the Triangle Prophecy

In my opinion, these books are better than JKR's. Book 6 especially, is so different and amazing. If you like these, Barb also did a "prequel" novel that features the older characters (and Harry's parents) in their younger years called The Lost Generation.

You can Google them and find them easily on the fanfic sites or in PDF format; I've also got them in zipped HTML files myself. They really are worth reading.

Edit - Stopped being lazy and did some googling myself:

http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/barb/
And the pdf's are here:
http://home.arcor.de/mark.halpaap/

2nd Edit - Found Barb's Yahoo groups, where she has many formats, including lit which should convert nicely in calibre to epub.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Psychic_Serpent/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Psychic_Serpent2/

bbusybookworm · 04-16-2010, 02:40 AM

Well, lets see now, Of the Fanfic I read, I'm quiet fond of a lot of stories though I usually follow a few good writers regularly.

I'll Recommend pretty much everything by Tim Joy / Jeconais. While He's not posting much new stuff right now, he has promised to finish most of his outstanding stories and is on his way to do so. His Completed stories like "This Means War", "White Knight, Grey Queen", "Hope", etc are some of the best and longest I've read. The best part is that He's recently Added downloadable ebook versions of all his stories in all the major formats so its very easy to download and transfer to the reader of your choice.

Heck I'll recommend trying most if not all the authors he's hosted on his site FanFicAuthors.net. He's got some of the Best, most consistent writers hosted there including Bobmin, Crys, Tenhawk, Istar, Draco664, Ruskybyte and a few more.

Others whose works I enjoy include Disobedience Writer, whose stories like "The Horror, The Horror" I find hilarious and other stories worth thinking about.

I'll Definitely suggest checking out Calum Wallance / DogheadThorteen / Wolfman's works, though I'll warn you while he often throws canon out of the window, all his work is a great read and very entertaining. Check out his Ongoing Harry Johnson Saga as well as The book of Dobby. The universe he's built for the stories is so big and has so many crossovers and influences its hell of a ride. Each of his stories tend to be quiet meaty so is always worth the wait though he is pretty regular about posting updates.

Speaking of regular Writing Machines, Rorschach's Blot is one of the best and regular writers around with works like Make a Wish, Larceny, Lechery, and Luna Lovegood, Old Soldiers Never Die and Lord of Caer Azkaban to his credit. All these and more are great stories and well forth a read. He also has a very active Yahoo group where a lot of authors publish works in progress to get feedback before posting to FF.net.

Others in the HP fandom I'll suggests having a look at include The-Cattiff, Perfect Lionheart, Nonjon, CrazyDan, Clell65619, Chris Hill, The-Dreamer4, Enterprise1701-d & Daily Prophet Reporting

Of Non HP fandom, I'll heartily suggest Checking out Chris Dee's Cat Tales. Its a wonderful look at a DC alternative universe, especially if you don't enjoy the modern gritter universe. Even if your not a long time DC fan and just have basic knowledge of the verse (as I did when I Started it) its a very worthwhile read and is currently on its fifth book so there is a lot to read.

Other then that I mainly Follow BtVS, Ranma and a few other fandoms, so if interested I can post a suggestions for there.

konrads · 04-16-2010, 10:34 AM

Hmm... Read most of the Methods of Rationality. It's okay, for the most part, but it gets... boring after a while. It's like reading a lecture disguised as a fanfic: it's a showcase of ideas and concepts, lacking that tiny bit of emotional depth that convinces me I'm reading a story.

Now then, to make my own recommendation: Louis IX. He isn't as active as I'd like, but he's got the talent to weave a bigger picture that fits. I'm thinking, in particular, of Mastermind Hunting and Voldemort's Last Spell.

04-14-2010, 02:03 PM	#16
Jaime_Astorga Member Retired Posts: 274 Karma: 4446 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Florida Device: PRS-350-SC: Sony Reader Pocket Edition	I'm posting back in this topic to let whomever is interest know what I have just read what I now consider to be the best novel-length Harry Potter fanfic in existence; over 70,000 words long, not even close to complete, and written by famous AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky (pen name Less Wrong). Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality Let me warn immediately that this fanfic is not for everyone. Unless you enjoy a large dose of heavy thinking with your fiction, you are unlikely to appreciate it. Think 1984, except that cognitive science replaces politics as the center focus of the piece. The basic premise is that this is an alternate universe where Petunia marries an Oxford professor rather than Vernon. This results in a rather different upbringing for Harry, who becomes a wildly different, more intelligent person as a result. Rather than the hero with more guts than brains from the original novel, we get a Harry whose reaction to the seeming impossibility of magic is to try to understand it using logic and empiricism. A Harry who easily outclasses Hermoine in thinking ability, if not in memorization or actual magical ability. A Harry who can tell you with a straight face to "look in chapter two of the first book of the Feynman Lectures on Physics. There's a quote there about how philosophers say a great deal about what science absolutely requires, and it is all wrong, because the only rule in science is that the final arbiter is observation - that you just have to look at the world and report what you see." And it is glorious. Here, let me copy an excerpt from the part where Harry is introduced to the idea of Quidditch from Ron. If this doesn't convince you to read the fic, nothing will. Spoiler: "What's Quidditch?" Asking this was also a mistake. "So let me get this straight," Harry said as it seemed that Ron's explanation (with associated hand gestures) was winding down. "Catching the Snitch is worth one hundred and fifty points?" "Yeah -" "How many ten-point goals does one side usually score not counting the Snitch?" "Um, maybe fifteen or twenty in professional games -" "That's just wrong. That violates every possible rule of game design. Look, the rest of this game sounds like it might make sense, sort of, for a sport I mean, but you're basically saying that catching the Snitch overwhelms almost any ordinary point spread. The two Seekers are up there flying around looking for the Snitch and usually not interacting with anyone else, spotting the Snitch first is going to be mostly luck -" "It's not luck!" protested Ron. "You've got to keep your eyes moving in the right pattern -" "That's not interactive, there's no back-and-forth with the other player and how much fun is it to watch someone incredibly good at moving their eyes? And then whichever Seeker gets lucky swoops in and grabs the Snitch and makes everyone else's work moot. It's like someone took a real game and grafted on this pointless extra position just so that you could be the Most Important Player without needing to really get involved or learn the rest of it. Who was the first Seeker, the King's idiot son who wanted to play Quidditch but couldn't understand the rules?" Actually, now that Harry thought about it, that seemed like a surprisingly good hypothesis. Put him on a broomstick and tell him to catch the shiny thing... Ron's face pulled into a scowl. "If you don't like Quidditch, you don't have to make fun of it!" "If you can't criticize, you can't optimize. I'm suggesting how to improve the game. And it's very simple. Get rid of the Snitch." "They won't change the game just 'cause you say so!" "I am the Boy-Who-Lived, you know. People will listen to me. And maybe if I can persuade them to change the game at Hogwarts, the innovation will spread." A look of absolute horror was spreading over Ron's face. "But, but, but if you get rid of the Snitch, how will anyone know when the game ends?" "Buy... a... clock. It would be a lot fairer than having the game sometimes end after ten minutes and sometimes not end for hours, and the schedule would be a lot more predictable for the spectators, too." Harry sighed. "Oh, stop giving me that look of absolute horror, I probably won't actually take the time to destroy this pathetic excuse for a national sport and remake it stronger and smarter in my own image. I've got way, way, way more important stuff to worry about." Harry looked thoughtful. "Then again, it wouldn't take much time to write up the Ninety-Five Theses of the Snitchless Reformation and nail it to a church door -" Last edited by Jaime_Astorga; 04-15-2010 at 04:47 AM.

04-15-2010, 09:10 PM	#27
cbarnett MR prodigal son Posts: 1,085 Karma: 1083739 Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura H2O	Barb Purdom's "Psychic Serpent" trilogy are fine, fine alternate Harry Potter fanfics. Full sized books, they replace books 5, 6 and 7 of the original series. There's no slash in them, though the characters do act their ages as they get older (think, they're all hormonal teenagers!) so there is some fooling around (I wouldn't let younger readers at them). Book 5 is Harry Potter and the Psychic Serpent Book 6 is Harry Potter and the Time of Good Intentions Book 7 is Harry Potter and the Triangle Prophecy In my opinion, these books are better than JKR's. Book 6 especially, is so different and amazing. If you like these, Barb also did a "prequel" novel that features the older characters (and Harry's parents) in their younger years called The Lost Generation. You can Google them and find them easily on the fanfic sites or in PDF format; I've also got them in zipped HTML files myself. They really are worth reading. Edit - Stopped being lazy and did some googling myself: http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/barb/ And the pdf's are here: http://home.arcor.de/mark.halpaap/ 2nd Edit - Found Barb's Yahoo groups, where she has many formats, including lit which should convert nicely in calibre to epub. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Psychic_Serpent/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Psychic_Serpent2/ Last edited by cbarnett; 04-15-2010 at 09:47 PM.

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04-14-2010, 05:58 PM	#21
konrads Member Posts: 15 Karma: 34 Join Date: Mar 2010 Device: BeBook Mini	@Guns4Hire: You're welcome. Though the non-HP fan fiction is limited, it's still there. @Amalthia: I don't know the particulars on how those particular sites implement the EPUB feature, but I do know there is a PHP class (found here) that can generate an EPUB file. You'll have to know some object orientation and PHP basics if you want to use it successfully though. I suspect it shouldn't be that difficult to implement in eFiction (which is the engine your site runs on, right?). If you'd like help doing that, I'm offering.

04-14-2010, 10:36 PM	#25
Kosst Amojan Addict Posts: 207 Karma: 19597 Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Northern Virginia Device: Nook Glowlight Plus	I love most sci-fi fiction but on a standalone basis Star Trek takes the cake. However for web stories, I read mostly sci-fi crossovers. Fanfiction.net of course but also Spacebattles.com are my two largest sources for those types of stories. Some of my favorite crossovers are nBSG/Stargate and Star Trek/B5.

04-16-2010, 02:40 AM	#28
bbusybookworm Tech Junkie Posts: 1,027 Karma: 10080 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Earth Device: iPad, MotoXStyle, OnePlusOne	Well, lets see now, Of the Fanfic I read, I'm quiet fond of a lot of stories though I usually follow a few good writers regularly. I'll Recommend pretty much everything by Tim Joy / Jeconais. While He's not posting much new stuff right now, he has promised to finish most of his outstanding stories and is on his way to do so. His Completed stories like "This Means War", "White Knight, Grey Queen", "Hope", etc are some of the best and longest I've read. The best part is that He's recently Added downloadable ebook versions of all his stories in all the major formats so its very easy to download and transfer to the reader of your choice. Heck I'll recommend trying most if not all the authors he's hosted on his site FanFicAuthors.net. He's got some of the Best, most consistent writers hosted there including Bobmin, Crys, Tenhawk, Istar, Draco664, Ruskybyte and a few more. Others whose works I enjoy include Disobedience Writer, whose stories like "The Horror, The Horror" I find hilarious and other stories worth thinking about. I'll Definitely suggest checking out Calum Wallance / DogheadThorteen / Wolfman's works, though I'll warn you while he often throws canon out of the window, all his work is a great read and very entertaining. Check out his Ongoing Harry Johnson Saga as well as The book of Dobby. The universe he's built for the stories is so big and has so many crossovers and influences its hell of a ride. Each of his stories tend to be quiet meaty so is always worth the wait though he is pretty regular about posting updates. Speaking of regular Writing Machines, Rorschach's Blot is one of the best and regular writers around with works like Make a Wish, Larceny, Lechery, and Luna Lovegood, Old Soldiers Never Die and Lord of Caer Azkaban to his credit. All these and more are great stories and well forth a read. He also has a very active Yahoo group where a lot of authors publish works in progress to get feedback before posting to FF.net. Others in the HP fandom I'll suggests having a look at include The-Cattiff, Perfect Lionheart, Nonjon, CrazyDan, Clell65619, Chris Hill, The-Dreamer4, Enterprise1701-d & Daily Prophet Reporting Of Non HP fandom, I'll heartily suggest Checking out Chris Dee's Cat Tales. Its a wonderful look at a DC alternative universe, especially if you don't enjoy the modern gritter universe. Even if your not a long time DC fan and just have basic knowledge of the verse (as I did when I Started it) its a very worthwhile read and is currently on its fifth book so there is a lot to read. Other then that I mainly Follow BtVS, Ranma and a few other fandoms, so if interested I can post a suggestions for there.

04-16-2010, 10:34 AM	#29
konrads Member Posts: 15 Karma: 34 Join Date: Mar 2010 Device: BeBook Mini	Hmm... Read most of the Methods of Rationality. It's okay, for the most part, but it gets... boring after a while. It's like reading a lecture disguised as a fanfic: it's a showcase of ideas and concepts, lacking that tiny bit of emotional depth that convinces me I'm reading a story. Now then, to make my own recommendation: Louis IX. He isn't as active as I'd like, but he's got the talent to weave a bigger picture that fits. I'm thinking, in particular, of Mastermind Hunting and Voldemort's Last Spell.

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