Hey.
First off, apologies for the upcoming walls of text. Im bad at this - feel free to skim read and go straight to the links at the bottom.
I am not sure how many of your reading this are well acquaintanced with fan fiction. For those of you that are not, then you should know that 99% of all fan fiction out there is pure garbage. Of the 1% that is left, 99% of THAT is again only mediocre, just a step above pure garbage. Of the 0.01% still left, most of it is pure gold.
I found out about this through the Westeros boards, which you will probably know of if you are into literature and visit any forums about it. Also, while i refer to this text as a book, it has not been printed onto paper as far as i know, although it is increasing in popularity, and may be the most popular fan fiction ever written.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by an author under the name 'Less Wrong', is Harry Potter fan fiction which has turned out much better then the original. It is Harry Potter, but with some very important changes. Namely, Harry's aunt decided not to marry Vernon. Instead, she married a biochemistry professor (i think it says 'biochemistry major' actually. The author is probably American, and didn't realise that you dont do 'majors' in England. Oh well) and the result was that Harry grew up with loving care, surrounded by science and science fiction books. The result is that young Harry turned into a prodigy - a child genius.
I know how this will sound to you. This is what it sounded to me when i read it - a cheap rip off of Harry Potter by having HP follow exactly the same structure of the original books, with added snarky comments every other page about how bland the characterization is and how stupid and irrational the world is. Indeed, for the first few chapters of this book, it may seem that way, but i assure you, it is not. Harry's efforts to apply rationality to the world of magic go much farther then just making snide comments about it - it really is interesting the ways in which he tries to work it out, and manages to prove and disprove his theories. Indeed, through logic and rationality he finds some pretty interesting new forms of magic, ranging from a completely useless and insanely difficult transfiguration technique to a new way of dealing with dementors. The book is simply hilarious. The book has wonderful prose and even though the tone of the book is mostly serious, it is still amusing. There are tons of little easter eggs, and nods to the original series as well. In addition, and most interesting of all, Less Wrong has done a much better job of fleshing out the magical world then JK Rowling did. It truly feels like a world, and is very interesting and complex. Little tid bits like where Mad-eye got his eye are common.
This book (it is not quite finished yet. In fact, im not sure if it WILL finish. Il explain later) is easily a book in its own right, and is alot better then the original. I am much more emotionally invested and interested in the plot and characters than i was in the original. The book very, very quickly moves on to its own agenda and has a solid plot of its own, along with numerous sideplots.
I strongly suggest you give this a try, and read to chapter 10. If you are not vaguely interested by the time you finish chapter 10, then i suggest you drop it but please give it the benefit of the doubt.
You can read chapters 1 through 63 (essentially, the first 'book') here :
http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-con...ality-1-63.pdf
And chapters 1 through 72, and all new chapters as they are released here :
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/...of_Rationality
Basically chapters 1 through 63 can be considered one book, but the story picks straight up in chapter 64 and although there is a pretty large and awesome climax to the first 'book' there is no real break between 63 and 64. At the moment, the author is releasing new chapters very slowly, but we can hope he will pick up again in the future.
Edit : Also worth noting is the characterization is amazing in this book. Characters who were virtually ignored in some books are proper characters in this - Quirrel being a prime example. Characters such as Draco and Dumbledore are no longer pure black and white. Both are in fact very interesting characters.