I think I would have liked the story better if it had been gen.

Nutty is me in this. I ended up skimming the porn: I've read too much McKay/Sheppard to have any emotional attachment or response to the sex scenes. And like Nutty, I wish the story had been more ambitious, more challenging. Eh. Perhaps I'm just hard to please today. On edit: which is not to say it's not well-done; I just wanted more and different from it. Which is really my issue and not the writer's.

I also feel just a tiny bit snubbed, since the structure of telling the story through a variety of historical lenses, interspersed with straight narrative, is one I used less than two months ago, and got no more than a nod. Okay, yeah, not 55,000 words and I'm not Speranza, but it's not like the form was invented for that story...

Oooh! Linky link, 'Suela?

Fay, here: [link]

Like I said, neither epic nor slash, but it's not that unusual a format.

Eh, I sound all bitter and sour grapesy, which I don't mean to be.

I do think Cesperanza is very talented, but there is enough fannish awe that she's accumulated over time that I think fannish critical circuits get overwhelmed about her current work.

That's entirely possible.

For my part, I didn't register who the author was until I'd finished reading, and in point of fact I've heard some highly unflattering things about her conduct towards other fen which does not predispose me to fangirl her - indeed, quite the reverse. But I liked the story, and I liked the format. ymmv

I am plot's bitch, so I wanted to see more of the actual story unfolding rather than just the commentary on the action, though it was enjoyable to see the characters through others' eyes. I rarely read the sex scenes, either, I'm more interested by the emotional porn.

I've heard some highly unflattering things about her conduct towards other fen which does not predispose me to fangirl her

I honestly have no idea what this is about and I know Ces (although I won't claim to know her well), but now I'm even more paranoid about what people are saying about me -- if in fact they're even saying anything at all.

FWIW, I've never heard anything. Bad. Um, about Ces. But especially not about you.

I've never heard anything bad on a personal level, though I imagine her widespread fame in fandom would make people take the occasional venting about same more personally than they would a voiced pet peeve from some random person.

As for the story itself, I liked it in general but I think it involved unrealistically aggressive shows of force from the SGC when they've been proven willing to cut their losses with Atlantis in the hands of an actively hostile enemy. And the John Sheppard in my head wouldn't be willingly fathering a child no matter who thinks it's politically advantageous.