In which I reach the pinnacle of rare-fannish babbling by comparing two tiny Yuletide fandoms

[justice_turtle]

And now, because I just found two more assignments that weren't in the syllabus (I swear, fifteen papers for a one-credit class is TOO D**N MUCH)... something a bit more cheerful!

Specifically: why two of this year's Yuletide fandoms are surprisingly alike. Because I like doing strange comparisons, and also sophia_sol was interested when I said "Frontier

Comments

[justice_turtle]

1: I have a Plan to watch B7, yes. But it involves getting a job and buying the DVDs, so it's taking me a while to work up. *g*

2: Hm. Well, I didn't DISlike the first four as much as it probably sounds like here - especially the Lusankya one, I have a massive weakness for jailbreak stories - but I would have liked them a lot more if they'd gone for multiple POVs and focused on several different character arcs instead of just Corran's. (I could happily read Nawara Ven lawyer-ing all day long, f'rinstance.)

Also there's an odd... male-gaze-y tone to that batch, that bothers me. The way every one of the female characters is carefully described as gorgeous and sexy (except Iceheart "would be sexy if she wasn't so scary"), while the guys don't get much description at all. (I honestly had the impression till just recently that Hobbie Klivian was dark-skinned.)

But I am surprised that you didn't like the Aaron Allston ones! They are very different, so it might just be a style thing - I prefer his dialogue-heavy style to Stackpole's emphasis on narration and flashbacks - but I wouldn't describe them as "serious". I mean, Wraith Squadron starts out a bit serious with Myn Donos and all, but... TEAMY GOOFINESS. A lot of it. I mean, if I was any good at all with graphics programs, I could probably do a set of X-Wing quote icons to rival some of your B7 ones. ;-)

I quote a slightly random example (from Starfighters of Adumar, that being the library book I have on my Kindle atm):

Tomer Darpen [an obnoxious bureaucrat] was in the main room, walking in circles around the main table. Tycho stood slumped, yawning, in the doorway to his room. Hobbie was sprawled on the main room floor, immediately behind him a tipped-up chair showing how he'd come to end up prone, and was carefully aiming a comlink at Tomer and thumbing its on-off switch as though firing a blaster at the diplomat; his expression was groggy enough to suggest that's exactly what he thought he was doing. Janson emerged in his own doorway, his robe askew, and if glares were lasers Tomer would have been the victim of a dual-linked direct strike.

Tomer was speaking in a voice loud enough to awaken sleepers on the floors immediately above and below. [snipped some plotty stuff] "[T]hey'll be making an announcement on that subject this morning."

"...ths mrnng," said the cabinet beside him, its words muffled.

Tomer glanced at it. "What's this?"

"Wt's ths?" said the cabinet. [FTR, there's part of a 3PO droid in there that got broken, started repeating everything anyone said, and wouldn't shut up. Long story.]

"Cabinet," Wedge said.

"I know it's a cabinet, but it's talking."

"...ts tlkng," said the cabinet.

"Oh, that," said Janson. "It's the Cartann Minister of Crawling Into Very Small Spaces."

Tycho nodded. "He bet Wedge that he could fold himself into that cabinet, around the shelves and all."

Hobbie finally found his voice, though it was gravelly from lost sleep. "Never bet against Wedge," he said. "The minister gets to stay there until he admits that it was a stupid bet and Wedge doesn't owe him anything."

Okay, that got a bit long, but I love both of those passages. XD

3: I really have no idea. She's standard reading in the homeschool circles I grew up in? My local library has a massive collection of out-of-print stuff (they take pride in their "never get rid of our last copy of any book" policy), so I'm not really up on what's more widely popular. Or in print. *g*

I've never been on a "read all the Sutcliff" binge, so I'm pretty sure I don't know which one Dawn Wind is - I read Frontier Wolf because sophia_sol recced it to me. Other than that... just the Eagle trilogy and possibly a couple of other things. I was definitely in the twelve-to-fifteen age range when I was first reading any of her stuff, and she's got a definite knack for the creepy that put me off a bit.

(I was a very scaredy-cat pre-teen. Marcus's dream about the legionaries with no faces in Eagle still freaks me out sometimes - no thanks to Rudyard Kipling and Captains Courageous, either. *wry grin*)

[lost_spook]

1. I thought the DVDs weren't out in the US? But a Plan! Hurrah! \o/

2. I so sjouldn't have said anything (although random passages of books are always nice, thank you), because I so can't remember anything much about them. Except I liked Wedge. I was in it for Wedge. I think I liked other people, too. As far as I can remember, what stopped me was simply that the characters changed over, and I was probably at the end of my Star Wars phase (it was a short-lived one, except for always liking the original films, of course. And, you know my guilty secret, that I'll totally watch and enjoy the prequels because of Ewan). So I couldn't be bothered with new characters. Also my vague, possibly completely wrong memory is that either there was no/less Wedge, or something had changed that I disapproved of? I don't know. I just came away with a "that was fun, but I've had enough now" and "where is Mara Jade hiding in the films?" and closed the door behind me. I've never been much of a one for tie-ins - except of course, for DW, and even there, not so much as what I call 'proper' books, even though, of course, they may be no better or no worse. :-)

I like happy babble on lj about things people like, though.

3. That does explain it, though - so she was school reading material at least in some places. It's just I've noticed quite a bit about her, compared to other British children's authors of a similar era, who I might have expected to see more about. The amount of stuff around on the internet is usually related to whether or not America knows about it. I read her at about the same age, so I don't have much else to say. I think she was the writer who was ill/disabled for a long while?? I think that's why she tended to focus on disabled/otherwise outcast protagonists, which is interesting. As I said, I'm curious to reread her some time, if I can. (And, I'm out of date now, but for a long, long while I knew exactly what was and wasn't IP and OOP in Children's publishing in the UK!! I was either pretty awesome, or rather sad... :lol:) And, yes, she wasn't an easy read, I do recall that. But interesting, I think.

[justice_turtle]

1: They aren't! So I can't get my local library to buy them. But there are ways and means to hack cheap thrift-store DVD players to play Region 2 - so once I have a bit of money, buying the Brit-edition DVDs and "making" a Region 2 player to play them is A Viable Plan. :-)

2: Well, Wedge is in all the X-Wing books by both authors to some extent - I couldn't say which have the most - but (except for Wes, who is my main interest) all the other characters in the Allston books are different. So I can see that it might be a bit off-putting if you were getting tired of Star Wars anyway.

(Me, I had that whole two-year period before getting into online fandom where I had literally nothing to do but read through the local library. For some reason I latched onto the Star Wars tie-ins and read, I think, all the pre-New-Jedi-Order books that were out at the time. O_O)

'"where is Mara Jade hiding in the films?"'

*giggles* Same here! :-)

[lost_spook]

'"where is Mara Jade hiding in the films?"'

*giggles* Same here! :-)

It suddenly occurs to me that someone could probably do a very silly picspam of 'spot the Emperor's Hand'... :lol: