I enjoyed it, but I must confess that I was a wee bit frustrated. If my first reaction to the 'lens of heaven' being described as a big lens that swivels was to think 'Hmmm...burny death', then surely Rodney and John could have worked it out pretty damned sharpish. Especially if Rodney was FIXING THE DAMNED THING. And if all the locals were going 'Ooooh, no, not the Fire of Heaven!'

t /critical bitch

That aside, though, it was a lot of fun, and the saucy bits were jolly saucy.

Yeah, I thought that, too, Fay. But the writing was so lovely I didn't really mind. I also liked that the locals didn't much care about the Atlantis folks--they just hated how they screwed with their local political structure.

I'm all for adrenalin making John and Rodney clinch passionately once the danger has passed or paused, but unless those bracelets subtracted about 90 IQ points from each of them, I don't think the urge to have sex would hit halfway down a secret escape tunnel that they're desperately fleeing through to safety.

I felt kind of like the second half dragged on. I need to reread it, because torch is usually so good that there may very well be levels to it that I'm missing.

Plus, still better than most of the fic out there.

Generally I have to put my common sense on hold when I read romance or slash. Because most sane people I know don't end up having sex in crack-addled circumstances; they're too busy trying not to die, or being miserable.

Huh, that didn't really do it for me. For one thing, and leaving aside the crack-addled circumstances, I really didn't see any build-up to the sex - and with the bracelet thingy, certainly there was room for it. And it really did seem to lag for me as well by the second half, so that I was really skimming for a good bit of it. (The story notes seem to indicated it was a long time in the making - maybe it wasn't really flowing for torch eitehr?)

If you'll recall, torch does have a habit of "Wait, we're at the 3/4 mark and these people obviously need to have sex; that [INSERT SERIOUS INJURY HERE] wasn't actually that bad." The fact that the obvious need is well-demonstrated doesn't obviate the fact that sometimes her characters do it while recovering from life-threatening illnesses, wrenched backs, thorough beatings -- kind of a Known Issue.

Great prose, and great plotting, but in most of her longer works I tend to think, specifically about the romance, "This would be an even better story if somebody went through it with a reality-meter."

Yeah. While I assume fictional characters in action-adventure shows are going to be a little tougher than me, it took the best sex of my life to make me ignore getting scrapes on the backs of my knees. I think dislocated joints or a puncture wound would be dealbreakers.

Dana, btw, I passed your Press post on to my sister, who works at the Milwaukee Symphony and is pretty connected in the Milwaukee classical/choral music scene. I hope they do fabulously well.

That's wonderful, brenda. Thank you so much.