Make a rec list of fanworks!

For Challenge No. 9, I talked about Capt. W.E. Johns' Biggles series, which I've recently got into. As my interest was piqued by fanfic, it seems reasonable to rec some of that here. The only problem is which, since I've pretty well vacuumed up everything available on line!

One of the books that has particularly been prompting fans to write fic is Biggles Buries a Hatchet. As it was published in 1958, it's one of the later books (though the author kept writing the series right up to his death a decade later). It's also a major turning point, at least with respect to one character in particular: Erich von Stalhein. He was originally introduced in one of the World War I stories, Biggles Flies East, as a German spy operating in Palestine—a sort of Lawrence of Arabia figure, but on the other side. During the 1930s, he becomes a recurrent antagonist in the years leading up to World War II; and, in the post-war books, he works for the Soviets. Biggles clearly respects him, considers him an "honourable enemy" type of figure, and keeps trying to persuade him to defect. In Biggles Buries a Hatchet, von Stalhein's nephew turns up in London to warn Biggles that his uncle has been sent to Siberia for refusing to assassinate him. Naturally, Biggles and his team go and rescue him. At which point, von Stalhein does indeed finally change sides.

Typically of Johns' books, there is a long lead-in to the main action, but the story is tied up very quickly at the end. Inevitably, the result has been fanfic. Here are a few, which I've put in more or less chronological order in terms of their relation to the action of the story.

"First Light" by philomytha is set in East Germany and sets up the events of the book: von Stalhein's arrest and the decision to send Fritz to Biggles.

After the rescue, they spend a secret night moored in their sea plane before taking off. In philomytha's "Ordinary Kindness", the man on watch, Biggles' closest friend Algy, wakes von Stalhein from a nightmare.

Their first stop is at an American air force base in Japan. There are several worthy stories filling in details of their brief stay there, but particularly notable is sholio's "A Touch of Kindness", in which Biggles brings food and medication to von Stalhein, who is under guard.

After that, they journey in stages back to England. In philomytha's "a piece of the continent", a stop-off in Singapore clarifies that von Stalhein is far from recovered from his ordeal in Siberia.

As for subsequent events in London, here are two rather different possibilities. In Akseel's "An Invitation to Dinner", von Stalhein is wary when Biggles' boss, Air Commodore Raymond, appears to accede to the pilot's wish that he not be constrained after his defection. In sholio's "Lightning in a Jar", on the other hand, he is subjected to mandatory electronic monitoring (indeed, forced to wear a shock collar), to Biggles' fury.