Makoyi's Fanfic Recs and Other Stuff

Title:  Observations on Sentinels and Guides in Victorian London
Author: RyuuzaKochou 
Fandom:  Sherlock Holmes, Sentinel fandom
Genre:  Fusion!fic, Romance
Pairings: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Length: Short (Words: 89,181)

Author's Summary:
A Victorian era AU where Sentinels and Guides are members of everyday society. Starring Sentinel! Holmes and Guide! Watson.

Review:
This has the potential to be a fantastic story.  It's good enough it deserves a read and a rec. 

Unfortunately, there are some fairly serious flaws.  For one, it hasn't been proofread.  For another, the treatment of the antagonists --- ranging from the temporary, minor ones at the start to the actual ones who don't appear until later --- is shallow in that the characters themselves are poorly developed and then their use in the story is also poorly crafted.  This stands out the most with the Matchmaker who seems to be portrayed as simply evil, as an unpleasant person going about political aspirations in despicable ways rather than, say, considering how an upper class woman in the Victorian era might legitimately perceive her role in matching pairs by class as defending valuable traditions.  Her early set up as Watson's main antagonist is also completely at odds with the rest of the story since she has nothing at all to do with the actual plot and just takes up emotional rising action that could have gone to that plot.  It would have helped a lot in preventing the actual problem from broadsiding the story later on.  While they are still only described to the level of half-developed background scenery, they suddenly come quite close to killing the main characters and that is not the way story structure is supposed to work (on a related note, Narrative Theory in the social sciences has some really fascinating ideas about why common story structure is so important... google if you're interested).  The problem with the writing here is not even the usual (for Holmes fandom) problem of the Holmes brothers' simply making leaps of logic that mere mortals like us readers can't follow, it's just the writing that can't seem to get the story on track soon enough. 

Don't get me wrong - I think this is a really good story.  The concept and the plot, both character and case, are something out of a blockbuster and there are hints of world-building well done.  It's only because it is so great that the flaws I mention are so irritating - It could be so amazing and instead, it's merely good.  But even "good", this fic is still better than most fics so despite my criticism, I still strongly suggest it.

Observations on Sentinels and Guides in Victorian London (on AO3)