Story 269: "The Lambs" by so kiss me goodbye
This novel was nominated back in September 2015 by rainatlas. It was a WIP at the time and I've been burned enough times that I'm wary of WIPs. I'm allergic to fanfic about William. Despite my reservations, I trust rainatlas's judgement. I read the two sections that had been posted and agreed it was a fic worth our time. On September 24, 2016, Lamia (so kiss me
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I liked that the author stuck to one POV. We only get to know what Liam knows and it's kind of a fresh take on M&S and other familiar characters.
I felt there was a good use of known characters - especially Gibson - and some good original ones. Liam's adoptive parents are handled well. Having Esther Nairn as Mulder "informant" was a very cool idea.
There were a couple of opportunities (or maybe red herrings) that were not completely explored, such as the "flu" that went around the compound, and a somewhat thrown away remark that people who got the virus that turned them into super-soldiers would not realize that it was anything other than the flu until it was too late. I think it might have been interesting for that to go a little farther.
How the invasion played out was pretty good, and I wasn't certain of the outcome -- though I had the sense that this author wasn't going to turn it into something too bleak, I wasn't certain who would survive.
All in all I would call it an absorbing read. I left a review on FF.net and already got a PM from the author, which was very nice. I can't PM her back yet because I just got a new account but I will respond to some of the things she said in response to my review, which were very interesting.
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Was it entirely third person limited or did she occasionally switch to omniscient? The use of similes and metaphors suggests she must be switching because no eleven-year-old boy, no matter how special, would think something like this scene from chapter three where Liam and Mulder are breaking into the house in Wamsutter:
"Like a bucket of icy lake water tipped over his head, Liam remembered where he was."
He's not just waking up--he's wide awake, standing in the threshold, and the writer wants us to think he's literally forgotten what's happening? That simile can't be in his brain, that's got to be the author, right? How can we believe for one second that any child could forget he and his parents been held at gunpoint and kidnapped. Come on. There are other scenes like that which stretch credulity past the breaking point for me. I don't understand what the purpose of this brief bout of denial is in the narrative either.
I didn't pick up on Esther being Esther Nairn, and the source of the mysterious messages, the first time around but yes, that was very cool. Did Lamia mean us to think that somehow Gibson had also been uploaded into the net, too? It wasn't clear to me. I also wondered what would happen to her consciousness if everything electrical was fried by nuclear weapons being exploded into the atmosphere the way a lot apocalyptic novels begin. But that wasn't the premise in this case, so it didn't matter.
I wondered about that flu, too. It did feel like a dropped plot thread, didn't it? I have to go back and reread that section but it does get mentioned on and off during the story.
I also wondered about the fate of the super soldiers and of the little girl who went missing from her parents.
"I will find you, Eliie, I will."
Maybe Lamia was setting up the possibility, though not the necessity, of a sequel with that somewhat ambiguous ending. If there is supposed to be a parallel being drawn between Mulder's search for his sister and Liam's future search for Ellie, I am not buying it. The emotional connection between Liam and Ellie seems much more tenuous to me. Mulder felt irrationally responsible for what happened to Samantha, but she was his younger sister, and his parents did seem to focus blame on him. Why would Liam feel responsible for Ellie? His parents wouldn't blame him nor would hers. It feels forced and artificial. Maybe more time should have been spent on Liam's connection to her. Should we know who she is? Did she and her parents already appeared in canon in season eight or nine? Or is she an OC?
I haven't left feedback on the third part yet. I need to go back and reread the entire thing first.
I agree that it was an absorbing read. I wanted to know what was going to happen next after every chapter. That cliffhanger at the end of part two where Liam gets abducted was terrific even though I kinda saw that one coming.
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I'll concede the point. I'm an emotional reader first and a critical reader second, though I do tend to notice typos and horrible grammar! I've only read it through once so far, though I expect I'll revisit it.
Did Lamia mean us to think that somehow Gibson had also been uploaded into the net, too? It wasn't clear to me.
I think so. Not sure how it was achieved via being "absorbed" into the ship, but maybe Esther somehow had a hand in it. Maybe the nanocites allowed him to be connected in some way.
I also wondered about the fate of the super soldiers and of the little girl who went missing from her parents.
"I will find you, Eliie, I will."
I don't think Ellie or her parents are from anywhere in the series. I confess I didn't like her much -- she seemed like a little bit of a vehicle for Liam to be "bad" since she was much less concerned about obeying the rules than Liam was. Maybe everyone needs permission to act out now and then. I thought maybe Lamia was gearing up for a sequel but when she PM'd me (and from her notes at the end of the story), she indicated that she was pretty much done with the fandom. I kind of hope not -- I'd like to see more of her writing.
I do wonder about the super soldiers' fates. It seems that Doggett is trying to overcome his infection and he had help with the anti-virals I guess, but it wasn't clear that the other soldiers had that benefit -- though I guess some could have been infected by the super soldier who was helping Liam on the ship?
It sounds like if Liam decided to, he could summon and command the SS that were released when he did what he did on the ship.
Speaking of, another thread is Jeremiah Smith going to the other ships and trying to free his brethren. One wonders if it would be noticeable one way or the other on Earth -- or it it matters. Since the people on Earth are now perhaps more trouble than they are worth, and the impression I have is the millenia they spent trying to "cultivate" people might be an eyeblink to them, maybe it doesn't matter to them. Easy pickings, great. If not, let's move on, shall we?
I did enjoy the very tense exchange when Gibson was trying to read Jeremiah, and Jeremiah's rather chilling description of the "little gods" and the fact that not only do they not understand people on Earth, they don't really care. I see a little bit of a parallel with Liam's musings about the farm and the "use" of animals there and the need for some of them to die for the benefit or others (or for the humans). Not a perfect parallel, but it does appear that the Grays (and maybe most aliens in most scifi stories and movies) think of Earthlings as chattel and beneath notice as sentient beings. Just resources to be used.
The idea of the grays searching for something that they've lost, and the hope that Liam can help them -- and his sympathy for that when he understands -- was also an interesting thought. I need to think more on that, though, and maybe read that passage again.
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That said, it seems like the Ellie plot line is/was ripe for further exploration. Sure seemed like they were inside that buried ship with the infectious black oil crawling all over them. Ok sure it leaves Liam alone since he is (maybe??) considered one of them, the grays, somehow, as well as the SS commander (SS? Very nazi reminiscent). BUT. Ellie had the oily goop all over her face and screamed and then went totally silent, then acted "normal." And then disappeared later. I'm highly suspicious of either implied oilien takeover or, well, just a dropped thread.
I think maybe I got a little lost or confused about the last few chapters, but overall I really was taken into the whole story and enjoyed how it unfolded. I'll admit to getting pulled out of the story more and more as it went along by UK English phrasing, and ironically I haven't found that an issue in other fics where other readers have commented. Not sure if I was just being picky or what... Maybe I just found it hard to stay in the voice of a 10/11 yr old Wyoming farm kid using British English
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