A Feast of Fanfic 06

A tragic computer crash, a brief memorial

service for my lost feedback, and I turn my

head away for one minute and miss a couple

million stories whizzing by like those comets

in "Armageddon." Well, armageddon caught

up now, though I had to trek deep into Deja

News land to find some things that slipped by,

and sadly let pass a few gems that just came in.

One gem I couldn't let pass was "The Chosen One,"

by Meg, at Marguerite@swbell.net.

This is an example of an X-File true to the original

spirit of the show. It recalls a terrible real life horror

worse than any reticulan nightmare takeover: the

Holocaust. Is there anything the oileans could

possibly do to the human race that we haven't done

to each other? Exterminate us, perhaps. But that

was the whole point of the German Holocaust of

World War II, the takeover and extermination of a race.

Scary parallels underscore this tale of destiny and love,

honor and loss, and all the BIG themes of human

existence. Meg has an amazing ability to capture

the mannerisms of the characters as we see them

on television:

Mulder pulled away from Scully's attempted caress.

"I'm not telling you this to get your pity," he said.

"I just wanted you to know why I was acting so

strangely a little while ago."

The story is tight and absorbing, no wasted motion

here, everything leading to a climax, and along the

way explaining things about Mulder's ethnic back-

ground, his fear of fire, and a few other things you

may have always wondered about. The flashbacks

to a concentration camp in 1944 are bone chilling,

and the "box" is as creepy as that Hellraiser thing

that shuttled demons from one world to the next.

Read it well before bedtime, with all the lights on.

Then go slap a skinhead silly.

But not MY skinhead! He's busy being parodied

in the funniest story of the week, "The Confessions

of Mary Sue."

Bored? Wondering if people give you feedback

for your name or for your work? Hop on over to

aol, get yourself a new identity to match your

story, and call yourself

marysuewho@aol.com (Marysuewho)

Of course, if you then write something as cute

and funny as "The Confessions of Mary Sue,"

all will be forgiven:

" It was as if my thoughts and actions were being

controlled by an outside force. Oh. One change

did take place - the odd odor of my sweat. Under

extreme pressure, I exuded the faint smell of

bananas. For this I paid a psychotherapist one

hundred and twenty dollars an hour, three times

a week. Can you believe it?"

I can believe it, just the way I "believe" this is

the first story from this author. There are so

many funny lines here you'll have to put

down all liquids; we know what path they tend

to take in these situations. It's almost too original

to be a true parody, but the sexual situations

--aplenty!--

are hilariously familiar. What I liked best was

the underlying fondness of the writer for her subjects;

it was teasing without being bitter or mean about it.

I agree with Red Valerian's observation on this

story: We.Must.Have.More.

More is never going to be enough with "Iolokus,"

which for some reason I was slow to start. Once

inside, I literally couldn't stop reading. The

constant stream of tropes is as dazzling as an all

day fireworks display at a 4th of July picnic;

you reel from one vivid description to another in

a kind of drunken ecstacy. (Of COURSE if the sky

was cut open it would bleed the color of Scully's

eyes. Why did I never see that before?)

Juxtaposing POVS (Scully's and Mulder's) give a

panoramic view of events freighted with enormous

meaning, like a long, long train leading from a rape

(off stage, thank you) to a moment when Scully does

something out of character but totally believable,

something that ironically saves her life. I even loved

the Mooselet, an endearment that perfectly describes

"an armful of hot heavy baby." Mulder is tough, but so

deeply in love that for the first time I am convinced

he is capable of loving something outside of himself,

and because he cares so much, we care, too.

There's not enough good things to say about

these two killer writers, Mustang Sally and Rivka T.

Suffice to say that I spent a whole afternoon devouring

everything on their site the day before the Great

Crash, utterly amazed at the consistent quality of their

writing and the maturity of their vision. Why I waited

so long to discover this, I don't know. Hopefully the

rest of you are laughing at my tardiness, but if not,

get with it. It would be criminal to miss this one.

rivkaT@aol.com awaits. (And though I didn't review

it here, those Pretty Smart Dogs also knocked my socks

off.)

A vision a bit beyond this, to the future that might yet

be, is explored further in Meredith's hard edged, razor

sharp drama: "A Show of Strength." She manages to

render her central character sympathetic at the same

time as she scares the hell out of you with her

imitation of humanity, making you wonder what's real

and what's not (and a pre-Truman story, at that!).

When I first wrote Meredith I compared this story to

losing your balance on a flight of stairs, so you're almost

falling forward, but still just in control. That's how the

action makes you feel, propelled by intriguing ideas and

a barely contained rage that energizes every paragraph.

Fall, crawl, or just scroll on over and find her at:

And then wander off to India, at least as far as Kyber

Pass, for "Heresy" by Khyber and Alanna Baker

khyberpass@geocities.com (who I am sure will

forward or otherwise share feedback with Alanna)

This one is short enough to gobble down like ice

cream, but don't think it doesn't have any

nutritive value just because it goes down so

cool and sweet:

"Minutes before, their words had slid around each

other, trying to touch while avoiding, to reach

around the fragile dark web of unspoken things

between them."

Yum! It's a Pine Bluff variant variant, if my

spellchecker will let that term pass by. The

intensity between Mulder and Scully is palpable,

and even when the characters sleep, you sense

their hearts beating a little faster for their passion.

What do our heroes really want?

"Not to prevent Armageddon, not to serve justice.

Only to share the life given back to me in this

ragged place where trees drip tears onto the

ground."

Well, you might reconsider that preventing Armageddon

thing, but it's still a beautiful line...

I see some feedback posts on the news group, but

I say give them more, more, more, to keep them

writing like this.

Moving on to the next course, I found "Five

Senses: Taste" by Susanne Barringer

(sbarringer@usa.net)

"Mulder's meatloaf is truly paranormal. I think

it is some kind of alien/ground-beef hybrid,

engineered by a mysterious cabal to

destroy the planet."

Barringer's little "five sense" series has been fun

so far, and for some reason I like this one the best

so far. It's tasty humor, easy to digest, and you

can read it between the time your boss calls you to

tell you she's coming down to talk to you about

something and the time she actually arrives. Trust

me on this. Barringer has a quirky sense of humor

and nice timing, too. After you read this one you'll

have to go back and catch the others if you've missed

them so far.

And finally, only because I'm running out of my

pre-defined space limitations and can only do one

more, an angsty little Scully piece called "Margins"

by Denise A. Agnew at writer@agnewdt.demon.co.uk.

It's just a vignette, a few hours in Scully's life when

she indulges in a little pms type introspection, but

we've all been there:

" She kicked off her shoes and heard the clunking

sound like punctuation. As if her every action needed

to be validated..."

Sound familiar? Scully's self doubts are painfully

realistic, in a world where validation is so damn hard

to find. It's not like MULDER is going to give it to her,

but the author skillfully avoids making Mulder the bad

guy in this, which I admire.

I hadn't read anything by Agnew before and was

pleasantly surprised to see that she had a nice style,

portraying Scully at a bad time, but not in a bad

way. The prose has kind of a new feel to it, as if

she's just starting out (shoot me if I'm wrong, Agnew),

but it's sweet and I liked it. I can see this writer

going places. Check it out and see if you think so, too.

*******************

Remember that in the Feasts I try not to mention

the same authors more than once, though I guess

eventually I'm going to have to, because they just

keep turning out such excellent work that private

feedback doesn't seem compensation enough. If

we want more entertainment, there's just that one

little teeny tiny

pricetag involved: gotta pay 'em in feedback and

they'll just write and write their little hearts

out. Then we can all feast to our hearts' content.

thanks for writing,

jordan