[MerelyMortal]

If you like Harry Potter, and you're a regular reader of HN, I highly recommend Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (HPMOR).

I'm not a "fan fiction" person, but after seeing it recommended so many times, I gave it a try. It is very good.

[kej]

As a counterpoint, I found HPMOR to be incredibly disappointing. It felt like a brilliant idea squandered on author-insertion proselytizing. This review sums it up better than I can, and I think I enjoyed reading the review more than HPMOR itself: https://danluu.com/su3su2u1/hpmor/

[aerovistae]

This reviewer and I had similar reactions - a quick page search for "Ender" shows he too finds the fanfic repeatedly imitating that story.

[aerovistae]

I actually did check this out about a year ago. It started off beyond hilarious, I thought it was the greatest thing ever. The beginning is worth reading by any measure.

Then it started trying to heavily incorporate elements of the plot of Ender's Game and went a bit off the rails. The poor quality of writing combined with the tediously pointless plot tangents lost my interest. The idea it was getting at was fascinating - finding the source of magic - and I've been meaning to try reading it again by skimming past the Ender's Game nonsense and back to where the plot hopefully gets back on track.

[MerelyMortal]

Having read Ender's Game half a dozen times as a kid, I never got that vibe from the story. I've only read HPMOR once (it's super long), but if there's bad writing, I didn't notice it because I was so engrossed in the story.

[aerovistae]

I'm referring to the subplot where Harry and Malfoy start organizing the other students into armies and having them battle on the grounds outside the castle.