Sam and Jack are temporarily stranded alone together on what they think is an uninhabited planet. Sam is trapped and nearly dies, and there are flashbacks to Divide and Conquer. Jack has to give her the kiss of life, then take off all her wet clothes and snuggle in a sleeping bag with her to conserve body heat. Then they find a hot spring, which – the planet being half frozen – they'll have to use to keep warm.
My brain goes AU.
They discover the native population, and are taken for husband and wife gods. They save some kids, and get to go home. When they return to the planet, they're under orders to pose as the husband and wife gods (Jack has to call Sam 'Chalchi', which made me go all warm and fuzzy inside). Things happen, and Sam thinks Jack has died, and despairs. Jack thinks Sam (and 'their' kids) have died, sinks to his knees, overwhelmed by loss and grief. More stuff happens, SG-1 win out, the end.
Summary for those avoiding the spoilers:
Sam/Jack cliché-palooza! It only needs an alien sex farm, and for Sam to be marrying some complete loser, and they'd have the full set (and I hear one of those things happens in Alliances). Is it wrong that I'm this delighted to discover that some of the Stargate novels are essentially well-written badfic? :D
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chasethestars
chasethestars
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It was the anviliciousness of the S/J-cliches, plus, the dumb!Jack. I cannot forgive dumb!Jack that feels *genuinely* dumb to me.
Yeah? There was one bit that pinged me that way (when he was talking about something he'd seen on the History Channel), and the inability to pronounce a single name got kind of irksome, but aside from that, it didn't feel to me like he was being especially dumb!Jack. He was pretty professional for most of it, I thought.
The S/J cliches were certainly many and heavy, I'll give you that. ;) I was surprised to see as much reference to the pairing as there was. It didn't bother me, because that's my OTP, but I suspected it might bug someone who didn't read the show that way.
JOOC, is it Sally Malcolm who you think brought her in? Because some of the book felt quite similar to some of Sally's fanfics, to me.
So, which novels would you recommend? The list of ones I've read is to the left somewhere, and I've ordered the rest, second-hand. Both me and
Even though J/D is my OTP now -- I'm speaking as someone who, when she got into the fandom, read gen, S/J, and J/D equally. (Indeed, read the first two before reading J/D.) I have my fav S/J writers, some of whom have become friends over the years. My position is just... that particular book took the ship farther than I was comfortable with, for a series of books of which my impression has been that 'ships more or less should be left at the door. (Please to not be trying to go farther than canon; and I felt that book was pushing it.) I was more comfortable with the level of S/J in Sally Malcolm's duology, which I liked. (But I can do without any other writers using the "Jack puts everyone else in danger" trop -- even if that is somewhat of a welcome variation on blaming it on Daniel. Ehn. That's a whole different discussion, though.)
And yeah, IIRC (always a question!), the writer of "City" thanked Sally for pulling her in, or something. (In fanfic, Sally is a S/J writer whose stories I've liked, although she's not my very-favorite.)
I liked "Sacrifice Moon" a lot, too; it's high on my list. :)
I kind of liked "Trial by Fire", but it has the World's Most Irritating OFC. That can be make or break. It makes the book hard for me to reread. (But I'll say this: she reminded me of some OFCs from the show itself. She's a classic Gateverse comic-relief OC, IMO. So my problem is: some of those, I can stand, some I can't, and some I'm just ehn on.)
"Relativity" is the other book that, with "City", I consider the worst to have been put out so far. (Or... okay, let's be fair, here. Those two are the ones that I *disliked*. "Worst" is a value judgement, and I'm not sure it can be made to stick in either case.) I'm not sure it's a coincidence that I got the sense that the guy who wrote that book wasn't necessarily a big SG-1 fan beforehand. It's hard to tell, but it's clear from the blurb that he's not a fanfic writer who submitted a proposal and was then given a contract. He's a tie-in novel writer who's written for other media properties. Now, heck, he may genuinely be an SG-1 fan *too*, but... different path.
"Siren Song" -- my most-favorite so far. That pair of writers has another book (unrelated to this one, I believe; "Hydra") coming out "soon". (Fandy's publication schedule sometimes gives me fits; they don't update reliably. They also don't respond when you complain about it. :P)
I also rather enjoyed "Roswell". I thought it was fun and twisty. (It was co-written by the "City" writer. All I can say is, it felt like she calmed-down a bit, maybe got to know the chars better, and maybe was positively influenced by her co-writer?)
I liked "Survival of the Fittest" a lot. I recall thinking "Alliances" was okay, but to be honest, it doesn't stick in my head very much. (Even reading the synopsis of it doesn't make it come back to me! That can't be a good sign...) I feel like my verdict on that one must have been, "it was okay, but not a must-reread".
And I've just been reading "Barque of Heaven"; I'm not finished it yet, but I quite like it thus far. It gets reasonably high marks from me.
I'm cautiously looking forward to "Do No Harm", even though it's by the writer of the forgettable "Alliances". I keep hoping, because I loved her fic back in the day.
Generally speaking, I've found that the fanfic reputations of the folks doing the novels have held up. The weird comedic OFC in the first novel surprised me, because that writer had never been known in her fanfic to do much with OCs, or indeed comic-relief. And already knowing the writer of "Alliances", I was therefore surprised to find my reaction to it being "ehn". The rest, I've tended to like/love more or less in proportion to my like/love for their fanfic. And... yes, the books I gave the lowest marks to were first-time efforts from non-fans (as far as I can tell), so you can tell what sort of expectations I have for the novel series in general.