I'm balking a bit at dismissing this sewing-together as self-congratulatory timewasting.

Well, I didn't say that. I think that a certain amount of sewing-together is necessary. But for a lot of readers, I think, it's not the point of the crossover: the point is the characters banging into each other (errrm, yes, that way too).

When I've written crossovers I haven't spent a lot of time moving people around, frankly, but then having space ships allows one to insert a bit of handwavium: "This is very far away from where she had been before, and the people are funny." And then the story starts.

By which I mean, I start with the assumption it's the same universe, and work from there to resolve the geography/chronological issues.

I know you didn't say that, 'Suela - but I felt that Am Chau rather did:

My theory is that people waste time on setup because that's the part the makes them feel clever.

If I'm misunderstanding, Am Chau, then I apologise.

I've got no quibbles with what you said about preferring to get on to the collision of characters, and I'm certainly not suggesting you need to justify your writerly or readerly preferences. Like I said - yay for there being myriad different beautiful cakes.

I may well be in a minority, and I'm good with that - but I have read crossovers where the handwavium prevented me from enjoying the story.* And since that readerly POV hadn't been represented in the discussion, this was why I spoke up - not in order to say "Hey, your priorities are wrong!" but just to say "Okay, but there's no need to diss people with different priorities."

God, I sound like a pedantic dickhead. Really not trying to bitchslap anyone here, I swear, but I seem to be coming across that way. Sorry.

* Plenty of times you don't even NEED to provide any explanation, because the 'verses dovetail neatly - but in the Harry Potter/Star Trek example Am Chau gave, you kind of DO, at least for me to enjoy the story. So I don't think that it's extraneous. (AJ Hall's Harry Potter/Vorkosigan crossovers don't really work for me for precisely this reason - I'm enjoying the characters' interactions, but I'm also frantically going "...but, but wtf? how? why? what? how?" and that gets in the way of enjoying the stories.) Clearly, though, YMMV. Which is really all I was trying to say.

I haven't read a lot of fiction but my biggest complaint has been that things I've read were too short. My most favorite story so far was I think 75% told before we met any of the characters from the original work.

There's quite a lot of novel-length fic out there too, Laga - if you tell us what fandoms you favour, I bet people could rec you some longer stuff.

Oh, yeah, Laga, there's good, juicy long stuff out there. I'm a size queen when it comes to fic.

Drat. I don't so much mind opening blatant bad!fic and making a hasty retreat into sweet, sweet traumatic amnesia, but I hate it when someone pulls me in with what seems at first to be interesting concept, good characterization and realistic dialogue and then hits me with a slot machine eyeroll-y basic premise or trope after I've already gotten immersed in the story. In this case, the author saved the Every Male Character You've Ever Seen Has Been Gay All Along and Paired Up Two by Two reveal until several pages in.

I have a very favorite Novel length fic in H:LOTS. "Adena 1950" One of the finest bits of fanfic ever written.

I can't figure out what H:LOTS is.

I've so barely scratched the surface of fic. I think I'd enjoy a wide variety of fandom. My favorite piece was Watership Down. I'd like to read marauders-era Hogwarts stories, I can't decide if I enjoy porny or non-porny better but guy/guy can be fun. I love crossovers- I enjoyed a Buffy crossover I read even though I was unfamiliar with the fic they crossed over to. Quantum Leap & Harry Potter was pretty entertaining too.

Homicide: Life on the Streets. It's sad though, that the story was written before my time and the writer didn't leave updated contact info. So, Scott, wherever you are, your story rocks.

Laga, a good place to start for just about any fandom is Polyamorous Recs, run by our very own Shrift and Dana. They recommend hundreds of stories in dozens of fandoms, sorted by fandom & genre.

Another option is the LJ community crack_van, which is somewhat less reliable than Shrift and Dana, but still can have some great stuff.

I find a lot of good recs on Delicious, as well.