Comments | alixtii: Rambling about <strong class="lj-user"><a href="/read/user/yuletide">yuletide</a></strong>

alixtii

Rambling about yuletide

Oct 10, 2006 21:32

Since everyone else is doing it (at least likeadeuce and penknife), I will too. There are two things which are almost certainly on the list:

X. The novels of Robert A. Heinlein (so I can request Lapuz Lazuli Long/Lorelai Lee Long twincest, probably, although there's plenty of other interesting pairings, as the multiverse is so rich).

X. The Parent Trap (1999), ( Read more... )

nothing to see here, george bernard shaw, ender's game, meta, heinlein, ficathon/challenge, arcadia, parent trap, yuletide, detectives, meme, on writing, lit & history 1902-1950

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booster17 October 11 2006, 01:24:20 UTC

Is it a bad thing that I immediately thought of Ms Scarlet/Mr Green from Clue when trying to think up obscure things?

alixtii October 11 2006, 01:27:12 UTC

The game, the movie, or the tie-in novels?

booster17 October 11 2006, 01:30:19 UTC

*stares* I was thinking the movie, but really? Honestly? There are tie-in novels!?!?!?

alixtii October 11 2006, 01:37:17 UTC

Not really. There are, erm, collections of short stories? Short mystery-ish things, with rather over-the-top-characterizations and liberal doses of what is supposed to pass for humor, all aimed at elementary school children. The last mystery in every book deals with the death of Mr. Boddy, who in the introduction of the next book is revealed--surprise!--to not have actually died through some ludicrous sequence of events. The murder attempt is explained away through some extremely implausible explanation, and Mr. Boddy, always-forever gullible, accepts the explanation.

At a certain age, those books were addictive.

booster17 October 11 2006, 01:39:39 UTC

Considering I just re-read a Three Investigators book today for the first time in years, I certainly understand that addictiveness factor.

Thankfully, those novels appear to have not successfully crossed the Atlantic.

alixtii October 11 2006, 01:44:27 UTC

In keeping with the original game, the stories really tended to be more logic puzzles than traditional mysteries; one would have to keep track of that fact that a woman wearing gloves was in the Dining Room, and that the person in the library had the Revolver, and that Mrs. White's souffle had given two people food poisoning....

The potential for crack was through the roof, and very often the authors exploited it. . . now I honestly do have a hankering for an adult-take using those characterizations and the cracktastic style....

frogfarm October 11 2006, 01:47:04 UTC

You just made me think to bounce this off you. Who's cooler:

Encyclopedia Brown and his friends?

Or the Mad Scientist's Club?

alixtii October 11 2006, 01:49:40 UTC

I don't think I'm familiar with the Mad Scientist's Club.

And now I really, really want Encyclopedia Brown fic. (Leroy/Sally? Sally/OFC?)

frogfarm October 11 2006, 02:01:18 UTC

Oh. DUDE.

The Mad Scientist's Club of Mammoth Falls

I *so* wish I still had my copies, but they fell apart years ago. These things are the most endearing geeky testosterone romps you can imagine. I don't remember the equivalent of a Sally, for better or worse.

But, way cooler than Encyclopedia. For all his smarts, he's all theoretical, by-the-book-learnin'. The Mad Scientists were about practical, down-and-dirty, get your hands dirty and shit blows up in your face and come out on top, filthy and grinning.

(And on that note, don't even get me started on Alvin Fernald, SUPERWEASEL.)

somercet October 11 2006, 02:22:05 UTC

Dude, yer draggin' my pre-pervy childhood out onto the slashing knives of LJ.

Knock it off!

Fernald... I'm sure I read them. And Encyclopedia Brown's girl sidekick was proto-Faith.

alixtii May 10 2007, 11:11:12 UTC

I think was attracted to Leroy's theoreticality. Still am, really.

booster17 October 11 2006, 01:54:09 UTC

Logic puzzle fics are tougher to write than you think - the only time I pulled it off was hampered by the fact that I never could come up with the HTML to create the grid to help readers.

alixtii October 11 2006, 01:59:03 UTC

Oh, I'm not insulting the quality of the logic puzzles. It was the writing that was cracktastic, and usually endearingly so. (Sample plot: Mr. Boddy randomly decides he wants to be buried in a pyramid, and builds one on his front lawn. All of his treasure is inside. The guests, one by one, try to steal it, and are "killed" by the automatic defenses, which are all over the top in a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" sort of style. The narration only provides random details about the guests, so that one has to use logic to figure out who the last guest left--who of course "kills" dear old Reginald--is.)

booster17 October 11 2006, 02:26:37 UTC

Dang! Sounds like great fun to read now - and cracktastic is the only way to describe that.

You've encouraged me to jump Murder at The Watcher's Council up to the head of my reposts now. *grin*

Furthermore... alixtii October 11 2006, 01:39:15 UTC

1.) Movie!verse fic strikes me as a perfectly reasonable request.

2.) I do really wish there were thoughtful, serious, full-length, adult-marketed Clue tie-in novels. How wonderful would that be?

Re: Furthermore... booster17 October 11 2006, 01:40:15 UTC

With three endings?

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