~~subjective perfection. golden-standard hp recs.

so. i will spend today doing my duty to man, god, and betaness.
i pledge allegiance to my chair, and to the desk it is next to, and promise complete attention to my screen, undivided, with liberty and full ability to possibly get a cup of tea meanwhile. ahem.

i've been being sort of full of myself, i think. especially with the whole reccing thing. i get so excited about stories. i gush and i crave and i act like we're all geniuses or something. whereas some of my favorite published writers, i can nitpick to death and say, yeah, the style is great, but she really doesn't deliver on the clear plot and characterization sometimes. i -adore- patricia mckillip, but really, she has her strong points and her weak points. i can't say she's any kind of gold standard except in terms of lyricism. and even then, she's not alone. there are other writers equally lyrical, but not as unique overall. so maybe i don't even know what i'm looking for, always.

even neil gaiman, my fiction god. he's only a god with `sandman'. with `stardust' and his short stories and other things, he's only really really good. so maybe it was just the fortuitous combination of theme, visuals, and overall execution, combined with his particular genius for the particular tihngs explored in the sandman-- dialogue, mythic structure, quirky characterization, humor.

i worship and adore amalin's writing, for example. but she has her weak points. i'm just a -really- big sucker for emotion and lyricism. were i to be objective, i'd take off points for things like narrative/plot & characterization.

i am writing a list of recs, based on all the stuff i've recced here so far. i'm including pretty much anything that i find "good". and thinking back on it-- i wonder if any of it is -really- good. a gold standard. something i have no reservations about. something complete and shining and-- well-- perfect.

at the time, i'd gushed and bounced about almost -all- of them. and now i find-- looking soberly-- are most of them worth my true seal of approval? my saying, "this is so good, so good, this is better than most things published". not perfect, but close enough. something blindingly complete and strong on all counts. ok fine, i'm inevitably subjective. but even so, i can't think of much of anything that would truly stand up to my toughest scrutiny.

well, that's not true. this vaccilates. actually, audrey's `brief interval' popped to mind immediately. i dunno why. i think it's the memory of crying, having finished it. it was so good i couldn't even believe it. it was just-- perfect. i'm afraid of looking over it again, testing this theory. if it's not like i remember it, i don't think i want to know. the other things that jump out at me are amalin's ghost!draco, aja's 9-11 fic, and penguin's `falling'. and then the rest come rushing in. so of course, i made a link-list.

i've noticed that most of the things i have no reservations about are written in short form, snippets, short stories, non-narrative-based pieces, and so on. anything novel-like, it's easier to spot inconsistencies and flaws. i mean, i can name a number of amazing works, but they're all under 20 pages. i dunno what this says, really. maybe nothing is that good, and if it's really short, it's more condensed and not as glaring? you rush past it? or maybe the length makes one write tighter, like a poet. hmm.
    anyway. as close to perfect as it gets:

( the closest i could come up with to `without reservation', at any rate... )

and now, to play catch-up.....