Day five: hello again!

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Hiya again, DIALJ. It is me again, all day. Muahaha. Last year, I posted a heap of multi-media zine reviews, and people liked them. So I have some more batches of reviews, and I hope to post at least some of them today. Some are multi-media, some are Pros-only, and some are crossovers. I'm having a bit of a last-minute edit of the zine ones, so here's one of the others for now: crossovers with Ladder of Swords.

Oh, I do like the film Ladder of Swords. It has a bear. How can it go wrong? (Answer: by losing the bear. Noo!) Also, it has some great female parts: honestly, I like the drunken wife, she's great. And it has Bob Peck, effortlessly stealing every scene he's in, even when certain people start doing some sort of calisthenics routine in the background. And the landscape. I spent half the time watching it going "I'm sure I know this place, where did they film that?"

Other attractions are also available.

And so when a friend lent me the zine Czardas - which crosses Pros with Ladder of Swords - I had to go away and watch Ladder of Swords again. Oh, the hardship. And I realised that I had by now read a good proportion of the Ladder of Swords crossovers. Not that there are that many, really. There are so few that it's possibly to read them in one big group. So I did. And here is some nearly-Pros stuff in the form of thoughts on the various Pros/Ladders of Swords stories I have found.

First, if you have not seen Ladder of Swords, there are sunray45's screencaps to illuminate the attraction and byslantedlight's comments to demonstrate the reaction. But I had not seen these or the film when I read my first stories, and I don't think you need to. Most of the stories make complete sense with it.

On the other hand, you probably should watch it because it does have its own attractions. And a bear. Although with what I had gleaned from the stories, I had expected the film to be much more complicated than it was. Oh, those pesky fanfic authors, adding complexities and depths and motivations to perfectly simple linear film plots. It was only when maddalia offered to watch it at exactly the same time as me and explain it as we went along simultaneously in opposite halves of the world that I did watch it.

It's actually not a complicated film. And I still have the chat log somewhere and it is full of idiotic comments about

Oooh. There is a BEAR!!
and
I like those leggings. I think I'll get some.

And after watching it, it is easy to see why people might think, "Okay, Bodie must meet Don de Marco aka Eugene Sullivan", and "This needs writing. Now." Despite the complications that ensue. And there's a few of them. An immediate problem for authors putting the two characters together is dates. Pros was made and set in 1977-1983. Ladder of Swords was made and set in 1990. So Ladder of Swords ought to happen after Pros. Which is after Bodie and Doyle have met, obviously. And, in that case, well, where is Doyle? Why is he not with Bodie already? Does he not exist? Does he exist but plays no further part? Different authors have different solutions for this. There's also the question of how lasting a relationship can be between someone on the run and someone who is supposed to be working for a law enforcement agency. And where do they meet? Why would Bodie be in Eastern Europe? Why would Don de Marco return to Britain? Different authors have different solutions for this, too. So here we go with a run-down.

Angelface, by Airelle. 1400 words. I read this on the Proslib CD in my initial plunge through it. And actually, if it had not been for the note at the top of the story, I would not have realised the connection. There is a scene in Ladder of Swords where a character shaves away Don's beard (boo!) There is a very similar scene between Bodie and Doyle in this (aww!) This is a brief and gentle story of discovery which is very sweet. I'm not quoting, but only because it's so short. Et vous pouvez lire cet histoire aussi en francais! (Please feel free to correct my French, btw... ETA: Merci to Airelle who provided so many corrections that you had better just look at the comments below - a lesson in never thinking "oh, it looks right..." if ever there was one...)

Doubt Truth To Be A Liar, by LilyK. 9,500 words. This one is also now online and on the CD, but was originally published in Secret Agent Men 11. Almost ten years after Doyle's death in an explosion, Bodie is hiking in Spain and is astonished to see a Doyle-ish gypsy... or is it a gypsy-ish Doyle? "Another quick look at the new arrival as the man started across the room, and Bodie's words died in his throat. The woman suddenly forgotten, Bodie slowly rose, barely able to breathe as the man got closer, and their eyes met. Oh, God..." Only, it can't be, because he's dead. Isn't he? Bodie has to know. This story is clever. It made sense to me even before seeing the film, and after seeing it, I had to go back and read this again, and yes, everything fits in. And then things go on from there. And there is even a bear! Well, okay. Sort of a bear.

Fairground Attraction, by Kitty Fisher, to be found in Unprofessional Conduct 2. 38 pages. Long: if another Unpro story of 35 pages and larger font is 22,000 words, then I would guess that this must be 25,000-ish. This one is set in England before both Pros and Ladder of Swords. Bodie is about to take up a job with CI5. Watching rides at a fairground, he notices the operator. "Shoulder-length dark hair that was trying to be straight was mostly pulled back into a ponytail. Tangled ends swept around a face that could almost have been called austere, but slanted eyes, full lips, and mismatched cheekbones betrayed a fascinating sensuality. Oh yes, he looked as if he could incite a lot of things, though violence would have been way down Bodie's list." One swift pick-up later, and we are off. Bodie and Eugene (it's set before the film, remember) spend a week finding out about each other before things come to an end. Copious sex, but lots of other things going on, too, which affect - and are affected by - what's going on in the bed. Gene's fear of being caged, Bodie's reactions to an England he has been away from for so long, Gene's comments on provocation and walking away, Bodie's reactions to that, all of this hit the mark for me. Yummy. Despite the lack of a bear.

Bounty, by Marlon. This is in the zine Continental B&D, the one with the Suzan Lovett cover of Bodie and Doyle draped over the bonnet of a big car. 15 pages. This story is AU in that Doyle apparently doesn't exist, and Bodie never joined CI5. When he left the paras he became a sort of bounty hunter, finding escaped criminals. I can't quite work out whether it's supposed to be 1980-ish (Bodie is 30) or 1990-ish (it's post Ladder of Swords), but it didn't matter. Bodie encounters Don de Marco in Spain, and there is sex and then there is plot, which I shall try not to wreck entirely, by saying that even if he's not in CI5, a lot of Bodie's backstory is the same and comes back to haunt him in the form of a character we know from the series, and then there are feelings of betrayal and it's not over yet. I liked this story, although I was put off by the typos. I know some people feel that you shouldn't be negative in reviewing stories, but it's not the story, it's the editing - apostrophes in possessive its and missing where they should be, and hyphens in unexpected places, and someone's skin is "lathed". Ow. Other than that, I would certainly say it's worth a read. If you can cope with no Doyle, at least. It has a lovely last line, too, which really made me go, "Awww!" If you want to know why, highlight the spoilery bit here : hooray! The last line brings hope of a BEAR!

Song of a Fair Fugitive, by Joan Enright, in No Holds Barred 2. 19 pages. This is definitely set after the events of Ladder of Swords. But... it's also definitely set before Bodie joins CI5. Um. If it's actually Bodie. The Bodie character (here called William Andrew Phillip Colby) has been in the army for years and plans to join CI5. He returns to old stamping grounds in Wales and encounters violin sounds echoing up the valley. And meets DeMarco. I didn't get into this nearly as much as some of the others. I'm not sure how much more I can fairly say. There were other things too, but I will say that it probably would have helped if I had known that Lewis Collins had played a Major Colby in another film: The Commander. As things stood, I was simply baffled by why Bodie was called Colby and not sounding like my Bodie, and I couldn't get to grips with the copious backstory given to him, but perhaps that was all from the film too. I could also have done without one of the characters in Colby-Bodie's memories having three aliases and Colby himself having two - it was bad enough with Sullivan also being de Marco! I am not a very attentive reader at times and found myself getting too confused to enjoy it. Sorry.

The Colonel and the Gypsy, by ILWB. 16,500 words. Like Song of a Fair Fugitive, this is a de Marco/other LC character crossover. Unlike that one, I figured this out straightaway and was less confused. This is set post-Ladder of Swords, and has de Marco camping on the land of Colonel Mustard of Cluedo. I haven't seen the film of Cluedo, but I have certainly played the game, and I loved the other Cluedo characters and weapons in this. It will not come as a surprise that there is a murder. There are also a number of jokes and references I think you may have to be British to get, but I am, so I liked them :)

Czardas, by Jane, a complete zine novel. I borrowed this from a friend - thank you, C! First thing is that it's really long. I did a quick word count and there's about a thousand words to a page and about 160 pages, so perhaps 160,000 words? It's set in a mid-point between the shows: it's in the late eighties, but the events of Ladder of Swords have already happened. Unlike in many of the above, Doyle is in this, although a minor character: he is straight, married, and no longer in CI5. Bodie, suffering from his unrequited love for Doyle, must get behind the Iron Curtain and locate Don De Marco for CI5, as Don may have been a witness to something CI5 needs to know more about. They meet, there is instant attraction, and the bulk of the novel is their adventures, set against the background of travelling circuses in communist Hungary and Romania, with the KGB hunting for them as they try to get close enough to the border to get back across.

As well as reading the CD contents, I've borrowed and bought a few Jane novels, and this contains a lot of what I am coming to consider her hallmarks. Length, for a start - honestly, the zine novels are huge - way longer than what's on the CD. There's copious plot and intrigue, involving the intelligence services of multiple countries. And then the ability to tell a story set in vividly-drawn surroundings. I must confess that while I can appreciate Jane's storytelling and talent for describing worlds, she doesn't always hit the mark for me. A lot of this is personal taste, and some - like my dislike of "a bi" as a singular noun - is frankly petty on my part, and I know that. I am also a complete ignoramus about the musical references that Jane includes on almost every page. (This may be an Aussie thing, as there are other Nuthatch authors who do the same.) I expect if you know what these tunes are and where they are from, they add a lot, but they just get in the way for me. And -- and I gather I am far from the first to say this -- Jane and I do not see Doyle in the same way at all. I see him as more self-sufficient, more aggressive, more confident, more casually violent, and far far less dependent. This "needing to lean on Bodie" portrayal of Doyle normally irks me.

But not so with Czardas. Despite Bodie's constant reminders to himself about how different the two men are, I think Jane portrays de Marco almost exactly the same way she portrays Doyle. And however I regard Doyle, I thought that de Marco in Ladder of Swords was a bit of a wuss who spent all his time lamenting his woes and who only ever seemed to do anything when one of the various women kicked him into it (go them). So actually, I was quite happy with this portrayal of de Marco in Czardas, and accepted it much more willingly than I do her Doyle.

I found it dragged towards the end, but that was partly because it's set in a circus and asserts a "magic of the circus" which I just don't get, because I'm not actually a circus fan. There are pages and pages of circus background and anecdotes of circus life. According to the preface, much of this came from family connections. And in building these descriptions up, the layering can become repetitive. Examples include constant explanations of why condoms are only available on the black market in Eastern Europe, references to the magic of the circus (see above!), descriptions of the landscape and of the ancestral wanderings of the gypsies, and claims that the decline of the circus in England is due to eighties youth only being interested in video games and (variously) rock or punk - a claim with which, as a member of eighties youth, I take issue!

But if you like circuses and a nurturing Bodie - and playing hunt the zine, because you have to find it second-hand - you will definitely like this. And you will probably like it an awful lot, and you will want to keep an eye out for it.

And that's it for Ladder of Swords crossovers, I think. I had memories of another one, but it turned out that I was thinking of Kitty Fisher's Pleasure Proven in Celebrations 1. That is Bodie and a gypsy, but the gypsy is Doyle and the whole is a historical AU setting. Still, if you have got this far and decided you don't like Ladder of Swords, then I point you in the direction of this one in recompense. Because it's very nice. Mmm. Again, zine-only, but again, worth the finding (not that it's hard: I don't think I've waited more than a week ever between ordering from Gryphon and the zine thumping onto my doormat).

Reading them as a group is fun and interesting because things start standing out. It's fascinating how so many people pick up on the same points. De Marco's wandering accent is a good example: mostly Irish, but also... not. So in Fairground Attraction, it is merely noticed, not explained: "The stranger's voice was a dark, honey-filled fantasy, his accent laced with a dozen counties' intonations". In The Colonel and the Gypsy, it's Irish Liverpudlian. In 'Doubt Truth To...', de Marco has speech therapy after a head injury, and "The speech therapist was from London. The ten or twelve other residents of the care facility where I was living were from various parts of England, and the head nurse was Irish. They were all determined to help when I started to speak". In Czardas, he is born of "Irish parents, in Gateshead" (p29) and later describes himself as "Durham Irish" (p51).

Turning him into a "proper" gypsy is quite popular too. I'm not sure what he's meant to be in the film. He doesn't say, beyond saying that Atherton doesn't like him because "he hates gypsies", and to be honest, I don't think people like Atherton really care whether there's a distinction between gypsies, Irish travellers, local hired hands on fairgrounds and/or New Age Travellers (all terms I hope are reasonably acceptable - they are the polite ones I remember from the period). Jane provides a lot of background detail on Romanian and Hungarian prejudice in Czardas, which certainly sounds similar to attitudes today, and one of the supporting characters in Czardas refers to being in a concentration camp due to his gypsy background. De Marco, though, is more "show folk", so to speak, although Bodie describes him to Cowley as a gypsy who will die if confined between walls. Song of a Fair Fugitive goes for similarly romantic elements of gypsy-ness (gypsy-dom?): in that one, de Marco is Irish, has a fellow-traveller called Esmerelda, plays gypsy violin, and has the Sight.

Denise, de Marco's wife, is a great shrewish wife in the film, but she is even more unpleasant in various stories (and that's hard - remember we are talking about a woman who doesn't like bears, so clearly a bad lot from the start!) She has abandoned de Marco in Fairground Attraction because the robbery didn't come off, she started off okay and has turned into a drunk in 'Song of a Fair Fugitive', and she is portrayed as a sort of circus groupie in Czardas, who "always wanted to be the centre of attention" and effectively blackmailed de Marco into marriage, before turning to the bottle.

Whether de Marco deserved to have been in jail is a point of contention. A couple of stories assert that it was all a terrible mistake, with Atherton fingered as the villain more than once. In 'Song of a Fair Fugitive', he is arrested because he is Irish, and denied counsel because Atherton is determined to get him; in Czardas he was a reluctant planner of the thing, and it is only down to him that no-one was hurt. In both Song of a Fair Fugitive and Czardas, Cowley is involved in the righting of this wrong by calling the Home Secretary's attention to the injustice.

And finally, I am clearly not the only one to go aww! about a certain character in the film, so I shall finish with my favourite contrast out of the lot of them. In 'Doubt Truth...', mention is made of a dog, well, a puppy, called Bear, and in Czardas, there is a bear-cub called Laika, which is the name of a dog :) (Or is it "doggy-like" or something?) Which strikes me as perfect symmetry, and a lovely tidy way to finish up. Because there are BEARS!

So there.

Comments

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

What a great round-up review - thank you!

I loved the bear ridiculously, and the combination of bear and MS snuggled up together in the film... awww! He was incredibly beautiful in Ladder of Swords - MS, not the bear, I mean. Though the bear was gorgeous too *g*

I didn't realise there were so many crossovers written - I've only come across a couple of them, so I must go a-hunting now. Great to have a hobby :D

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

You are very welcome. And it is not ridiculous to love the bear: he is very lovable!

As to "so many", I am almost surprised that there are not more. I must say, there are more than a few pieces of artwork in zines which owe a great deal to Ladder of Swords, even if they are ostensibly Pros zines...

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

I was trying to remember which artwork was so LoS - I'm quite positive my brain pops out for a sarnie break on its own! Harlequin Airs (of course *slaps self*) - Suzan Lovett's artwork. And the tiger is beautiful too *g*

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Do you know, I had entirely forgotten Harlequin Airs, and yes, of course, it is the example par excellence. Thanks! There is probably some fun to be had comparing Harlequin Airs and Czardas, now I think of it: both so circus-based, both with heaps of circus characters, and yet I think of them as entirely different.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

And yet the illos of Doyle-in-disguise for Harlequin Airs are so Don DeMarco! *g*

[airelle1.livejournal.com]

As you asked for it, okay, here's a small correction to your French:
you wrote
"Et vous pouvez lire cet histoire aussi en francais!"
You should have written:
"Et vous pouvez aussi lire cette histoire en français !"
just the place of "aussi" (a matter of the construction of French sentences), "cette" because "histoire" is a feminine word in French, and you need to put a space before the exclamation mark in French.
And I wouldn't call that story a crossover with LoS, not even a fusion story. I simply lifted the shaving scene from LoS (the character shaving Don is actually his girlfriend, Alice) practically verbatim, only adding the characters' emotions in it. The story is pure Pros, and, yes, could totally be read and understood without having seen hide nor hair of LoS. Maybe we should create a new category for this kind of stories?
But, as I used that scene extensively, down to the dialog, I thought fair to tell people I was inspired by LoS, in which, IMOH, Martin was absolutely gorgeous!
And I liked the bear, too, and shed a tear or several at its demise.
And thanks for the kind words about my story!
Airelle

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

That is more than a small correction! You are very kind, and I am covered with embarrassment. Thanks very much. I blame the friend I asked to proof-read it, who learned her French in Belgium. Ahem :) Perhaps I should now revisit my comments on the proof-reading of a zine story set in France, which I was just about to post.

I absolutely didn't understand the reference to Ladder of Swords when first I read your story on the CD, because I hadn't seen the film and, as you say, it makes perfect sense without knowing the film. And you are welcome -- it is high time I got around to telling you I liked it!

*sniffs sadly for bear*

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

That was great fun! I am a huge LOS and Don fan. I'm tickled you enjoyed my story also. It was (and is) part of a series of stories where I was working to get "Doyle" back with Bodie no matter what character Doyle was hiding out in. :)

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

*tickles you some more*

Honestly, I thought it was really clever. I have subsequently realised that it's far from the first where you have taken episodes and added whole layers around them. And - well - even if disguised as puppies: bears!

Glad you enjoyed the rest, too!

[lillianorchid.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this! I never knew there were all those LOS/Pros Crossovers. I've only read one or two, of which 'Doubt Truth To Be A Liar' is my favourite. :D Looks like I may have to do some Zine searching as there are a few there I would love to read. :D

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! It's funny, people get so excited about Ladder of Swords that I expected there to be more of them. (And if there are, lead me to them!) But in fact, there's not so many. I think there are more based around Facelift, to be honest.

The vast majority of those zines are still in print: definitely the Gryphon (Unpros) ones and the No Holds Barred one (I bought this new this year), and I believe that Continental is available from AWS (just checked the website). Your big problem is Czardas, I think.

[lillianorchid.livejournal.com]

I think there are more based around Facelift, to be honest. Facelift? I never heard of that before, myself. :)

Oh thank you. :) I'll have to go have a look and see what's available. :D

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

Inspired by the thought of bears, or a bear, I went in search of the film but LoveFilm hadn't heard of it. Any suggestions?

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Oh bog, has it vanished again? Sorry about that. Ho hum, shall investigate.

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

Found on Amazon but not on LoveFilm. Yes, I know we just emailed about it but I thought other people might want to know.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Drop me an email, if you like... *g*

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

This is such a good idea, different as well, so thank you very much for giving me lots of recs to discover, read and mull over. And I'm glad you mentioned the wonderful Bob Peck whose early death was a real loss. (Did you know he was married to the female actress who starred in Hijack? I think her name is Jill Baker. All roads lead to Pros.....)

Thanks for this interesting post.

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

Sorry, P.S.

Also, it has some great female parts: honestly, I like the drunken wife, she's great

She was good, wasn't she? And another Pros connection because she played the part of the Ci5 agent Julie, the librarian at the beginning of Fugitive.

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

She was brill! And I had forgotten that she was Julie, although maddalia did point this out to me.

And she got to snuggle up to bears and dubious fairground hands, and to lurch drunkenly through abandoned fairgrounds, and to squawk in outrage and tumble down steps, and this is terrible, because I don't think you're supposed to like her, but I do!

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Oh, you are very welcome. I thought most of these would be quite well-known!

Bob Peck -- oh god yes, great actor, stage and screen. Edge of Darkness was one of those things that shaped my teenage worldview. And oh, hee, I had no idea about the Pros connection!

[maddalia.livejournal.com]

So glad you posted these. It's good to have a digest of a small section of the fandom, and there are some great recs here for stories I wasn't aware of before.

I love Ladder of Swords, and I love its hairy paragons of beauty. Daley, of course, is the star. But Don's pretty awesome too. :D

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad people are enjoying these - and thank you for babysitting me through the film and saying "No, that is a different policeman..." at intervals as I demonstrated my inability to tell one character from another. Also, for making me giggle about leggings.

And I admire your taste. Lovely Daley. But yes, yummy Don. You can't fault Bodie's taste in these stories!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I got halfway through thinking about this yesterday, before I was rudely interrupted by work! Now, where was I...? *g*

After Pros Ladder of Swords is my favourite MS-thing ever - I love the character he plays in it, someone who's not a paragon of justice/morals/confidence/heroism, but just a rather ordinary bloke who happens to live in what most of us would think of as a romantic, extraordinary world... I love that he can't deal with Denise, or with the death of Denise (a la Macbeth, I always think, and wonder if that was purposeful, right down to the washing of hands and so on under the tap by the seaside...). The down side of adoring LoS is that I tend to be very careful of the fic I read that's based on it - I know some authors have styles that just don't work for me, and quite a few of them come up in your list...

That said - I read Czardas first, years ago, and loved it. It was before I'd been lectured by Jane just once too often, and she came crashing down from my readable-author list, and so I've been a bit nervous of re-reading this one, because I rather like having the memory of having enjoyed it. That said, I didn't like that she separated our Pros lads - it really is Bodie/Doyle I want together, and when they're in a cross-over/AU I see them as kind of reincarnated souls of the same characters, which totally works for me. Having Doyle still alive and not wanting Bodie is just so wrong and uncomfortable to me...

Kitty Fisher is one of my bullet-proof solid authors, and as expected I loved Fairground Attraction. Bodie/Doyle have yet to meet, so it doesn't mess with them that Bodie happens to meet Don DeMarco first, and shows his terribly good taste in men... *g*

Ladder of Swords is one of the very few non-Pros stories that I've been tempted to write for, and I have a scribbled plot and bits and bobs of a story on my computer, where it's waited for years and years. It is actually a Pros story though, and one reason it's still sitting there is that LilyK gazzumped parts of my plot in her Doubt Truth to be a Liar! Well - enough for me to think that they shouldn't come out too closely together, if at all! Ah, amnesia... *g*

Interesting summary of reactions, too... Though I must admit that I didn't necessarily think that Denise left Don because the robbery was bungled - my impression was that they'd been together a long time, and she'd been with him through that period, and it was part of a slide into desperation that probably broke them both... but it's all interpretation, isn't it, I'm not sure it's explained that clearly in the film itself.

And Daley the bear... I like him well enough, and I love that Don loved him, but I'm afraid it's more the people in the stories I'm interested in... *g* Denise is tragic and brilliant, I can only see Alice coming to a bad end in some way, and oh, Don - too tragic to bear (not a pun... *g*) and just why I adore him... And heee for Atherton's colleagues in the police department, even! They all deserve to be in a story really...

I might have to go and watch this again as soon as I can... and re-read Harlequin Airs, which is very Don DeMarco, even though it's Doyle, and I thought was an intriguing way to cross the two together (right down to the setting), without even mentioning LoS!

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

Wow, what a lot to reply to!

Ah, you like the circus and show side of it - that "romantic, extraordinary world". I am afraid I just like the pretties :) Having said that, without trying to load it down with great significance, it's not a bad film at all. There's a whole bunch of little UK films from the eighties that I spot on the television and will happily settle down with, because they are just good. And when you look at the cast list for this one, you can see why. And the locations: nothing fancy, but a part of the country that's - to my eye - beautiful, and rarely on the screen.

I saw the frantic hand-washing as deliberate, too! - although I didn't think of Shakespeare. But your suggestion makes me feel less bad about my idle speculations about Facelift and Macbeth (! - all to do with Bruce's constant quoting, and then the whole business about blank faces at the end, and I thought of Duncan and "to find the mind's construction in the face" and then I thought "nah, time to shut up now"...)

Denise leaving Dom because the robbery was bungled: oh, that's only from the Kitty Fisher one, I don't think it's suggested in the film itself.

Alice coming to a bad way? How's that, then? General tenor of the film, or something else?

And yeah, I am really thinking that I should have included Harlequin Airs in this round-up now. That's another story I read fairly early, and pretty much skipped over the descriptions, and then saw Ladder of Swords, and later re-read Harlequin Airs, and went "Ohhhhh....". The descriptions are pure Ladder of Swords. Damn. And there was me being all inclusive of everything I could think of!