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Oct. 9th, 2010 07:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kip_w.
I'm not a big fanfic sort of person. It exists, but time does not expand sufficiently for me to do a lot about it. In this case, though, I have abused time, put off important activities, and done that thing where I say I'll just read one more chapter and then end up recalculating how long I'd have for all my important obligations if I make that just three more chapters.
So here is my enthusiastic endorsement of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, a fictional fiction wherein Petunia Evans [*] met and wisely married someone with an inquiring, rational mind, and they lovingly raised Harry as their son before the day he got the summons from Hogwarts.
Harry is shaken by the discovery of magic, but does not let that turn him aside from reason and scientific method. This leads him in directions unimaginable in the original series. He has to work things out, make decisions, form alliances, and get to the bottom of who can be trusted, who to believe, and what actually happened in the past. So far there are 49 chapters. The next should be along in about a week. The line-by-line writing is delightful. The plotting is inspired. The underlying lessons (yes, kids: lessons!) on scientific method are fascinating and enlightening.
The author, "Less Wrong," has given me hours of delight. Recently, this person has expressed a sentiment along the lines of if you enjoyed this, please tell your friends, and darned if that's not the very least I could do, under the circumstances.
The author page has some material that may or may not be introductory. There's a brief statement that a concensus says the story started to find its momentum at chapter five. It grabbed me sooner than that. This is wonderful stuff.
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I'm not a big fanfic sort of person. It exists, but time does not expand sufficiently for me to do a lot about it. In this case, though, I have abused time, put off important activities, and done that thing where I say I'll just read one more chapter and then end up recalculating how long I'd have for all my important obligations if I make that just three more chapters.
So here is my enthusiastic endorsement of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, a fictional fiction wherein Petunia Evans [*] met and wisely married someone with an inquiring, rational mind, and they lovingly raised Harry as their son before the day he got the summons from Hogwarts.
Harry is shaken by the discovery of magic, but does not let that turn him aside from reason and scientific method. This leads him in directions unimaginable in the original series. He has to work things out, make decisions, form alliances, and get to the bottom of who can be trusted, who to believe, and what actually happened in the past. So far there are 49 chapters. The next should be along in about a week. The line-by-line writing is delightful. The plotting is inspired. The underlying lessons (yes, kids: lessons!) on scientific method are fascinating and enlightening.
The author, "Less Wrong," has given me hours of delight. Recently, this person has expressed a sentiment along the lines of if you enjoyed this, please tell your friends, and darned if that's not the very least I could do, under the circumstances.
The author page has some material that may or may not be introductory. There's a brief statement that a concensus says the story started to find its momentum at chapter five. It grabbed me sooner than that. This is wonderful stuff.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-10 03:40 am (UTC)I think sometimes the plot is subordinate to the underlying lessons (as the story progresses), but I'm still enjoying it greatly. (I, on the other hand, spend a great deal too much time reading fanfic -- mostly Harry Potter these days.)
Lust Over Pendle (plus sequels and associated stories) is the one other HP fanfic I recommend to people who don't usually read fanfic. It's a post-Recent Events (i.e., the war ending in the death of Voldemort) comedy of manners.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-10 04:54 am (UTC)I'll try, for a time, to resist your recommendation.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-10 04:36 am (UTC)For me, around chapter 4 I think is where I started to say "this is getting repetitive". I do think I finished reading it all, but I wouldn't promise. If I stopped early, the parts I read were still stone freaking brilliant, and a must-read.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-10 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-10 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-10 04:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-10 09:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-11 11:51 pm (UTC)One nitpick: Petunia Evans, not Petunia Potter. (She and her sister are the "Evans" in "Potter-Evans-Verres".)
no subject
Date: 2010-10-11 11:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-14 02:05 am (UTC)So what they need (and what I'm waiting for) is fanfic of Harry Potter attending a nice Fundamentalist Christian Theological Seminary.
Well, that and someone who untangles it as well as Slactivist does the Left Behind series.