Pros in a crossover zine: Revolution
Dec. 31st, 2013 07:55 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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discoveredinaljRevolution is a zine novel by Madelein Lee. It is a four-way crossover between Star Trek, S&H, Pros and a fandom known as Tris and Alex: Tris and Alex are two rock gods with a remarkable resemblance to Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, a resemblance I know about because the covers have very lush art by Suzan Lovett :)
I borrowed this zine off a friend some time ago, and when I saw a copy for sale on zinelist, I jumped for it. It's got 191 pages and just under 500 words to a page, so it's 90,000 or more words. Whee!
I watched Star Trek but am not fannish about it; I just grew up with it, so to speak. I never watched S&H. Pros we know about :) And ooh, I like Led Zep, and have seen Robert Plant live a few times. I have read quite a bit of Madelein Lee's Pros fic (list and links here) and particularly enjoyed the Carnal Interests sequence and Dancing in the Dark, which are CI5-based and very grim. So that's what I knew when starting out.
This story starts after the events of the Star Trek episode known to me as That One Where They're In An Alternative Universe With Evil Kirk And Spock Which I Saw Once When I Was About Nine (which apparently is called Mirror, Mirror). I have pretty much no recollection of the events in that episode beyond that, though!
And given my complete lack of knowledge on it, I really enjoyed this. Kirk-from-the-evil-universe has returned back to it after being in our happy good one, and Kirk is turning into a good Kirk and realising how bad his universe is and how bad the Federation in it is. There is on-board intrigue and power-games, some of which I think is to do with dealing with events in the episode (there's a planet to wipe out - or not - and McCoy is on drugs, and Kirk apparently killed Pike, and so on) and eventually Kirk and Spock have to make a break for it. There is no relationship between them at this stage.
Early on in the story, they encounter two aliens who can do some weird form of bonding and merging of bodies, an ability that becomes important in the plot later. I would not have realised without the aid of the cover art, but these two aliens - under different names - are an AU Starsky and Hutch. They fade out very fast, so I can imagine people who bought this for the S&H might have felt slighted.
Subsequently Kirk decides the universe needs a revolution and that that he needs to make contact with gun-runners and revolutionaries, and sets off to find the only ones he knows of: a band who perform 'rimrock', a band composed of Tris, Alyx, Bodi and Doyl. (Yes, spellings slightly different.) Then he has to persuade them he's serious. This is all complicated by the fact that he wants the emotional closeness he's seen in other people (particularly the Starsky and Hutch characters) and that Tris and Alyx and Bodie and Doyl are couples, although not at all exclusive. They're also not human, and there is a continual issue to do with the ability of the Antosians to meld both bodies and minds, which requires very high levels of trust. Because Bodi has to do this with Kirk, Kirk realises Bodi might be interested in him (Kirk), and both Spock and Doyl spot this, and react very badly, for reasons of their own (Doyl has his own fears and Spock is angry and possessive) and they're on a very small space vessel when all of this happens, and then it all gets even more complicated. Oh, and there is that revolution to set up, too!
I really really enjoyed this story. I don't read much in Star Trek at all, and only barely more in S&H. I would love to read more Tris and Alex - so far I have a grand total of one other story about them. And despite that, I really got into all the different characters and their different points of view. None of the couples act as units (ie, 'we think this'); they all have differences and disagreements and concerns. As I write this I realise you could say it's three different ways of dealing with problems.
There is a heap of space 'dialect' - the band play 'tars, not guitars, and are occasionally frade and refer to other people as taja and other things - t'hy'la crops up, too, and I know that one (*looks proud*) so perhaps all the others are Trek terms too?
One element I haven't mentioned yet is that Doyl's green eyes are actually a plot point: Antosians with green eyes lack the ability to do some of the bonding and 'oneing' that is characteristic, and Doyl is extremely conscious of this and there is more angst about this too. While S&H fall out of the plot early on, there is certainly plenty of B/D and Tris/Alex to go along with the main Kirk/Spock relationship.
AU, space, three fandoms I don't know, songfic (the lyrics to various songs are used as the revolutionary medium)... this is everything I reckon to dislike.
I love it :)
I borrowed this zine off a friend some time ago, and when I saw a copy for sale on zinelist, I jumped for it. It's got 191 pages and just under 500 words to a page, so it's 90,000 or more words. Whee!
I watched Star Trek but am not fannish about it; I just grew up with it, so to speak. I never watched S&H. Pros we know about :) And ooh, I like Led Zep, and have seen Robert Plant live a few times. I have read quite a bit of Madelein Lee's Pros fic (list and links here) and particularly enjoyed the Carnal Interests sequence and Dancing in the Dark, which are CI5-based and very grim. So that's what I knew when starting out.
This story starts after the events of the Star Trek episode known to me as That One Where They're In An Alternative Universe With Evil Kirk And Spock Which I Saw Once When I Was About Nine (which apparently is called Mirror, Mirror). I have pretty much no recollection of the events in that episode beyond that, though!
And given my complete lack of knowledge on it, I really enjoyed this. Kirk-from-the-evil-universe has returned back to it after being in our happy good one, and Kirk is turning into a good Kirk and realising how bad his universe is and how bad the Federation in it is. There is on-board intrigue and power-games, some of which I think is to do with dealing with events in the episode (there's a planet to wipe out - or not - and McCoy is on drugs, and Kirk apparently killed Pike, and so on) and eventually Kirk and Spock have to make a break for it. There is no relationship between them at this stage.
Early on in the story, they encounter two aliens who can do some weird form of bonding and merging of bodies, an ability that becomes important in the plot later. I would not have realised without the aid of the cover art, but these two aliens - under different names - are an AU Starsky and Hutch. They fade out very fast, so I can imagine people who bought this for the S&H might have felt slighted.
Subsequently Kirk decides the universe needs a revolution and that that he needs to make contact with gun-runners and revolutionaries, and sets off to find the only ones he knows of: a band who perform 'rimrock', a band composed of Tris, Alyx, Bodi and Doyl. (Yes, spellings slightly different.) Then he has to persuade them he's serious. This is all complicated by the fact that he wants the emotional closeness he's seen in other people (particularly the Starsky and Hutch characters) and that Tris and Alyx and Bodie and Doyl are couples, although not at all exclusive. They're also not human, and there is a continual issue to do with the ability of the Antosians to meld both bodies and minds, which requires very high levels of trust. Because Bodi has to do this with Kirk, Kirk realises Bodi might be interested in him (Kirk), and both Spock and Doyl spot this, and react very badly, for reasons of their own (Doyl has his own fears and Spock is angry and possessive) and they're on a very small space vessel when all of this happens, and then it all gets even more complicated. Oh, and there is that revolution to set up, too!
I really really enjoyed this story. I don't read much in Star Trek at all, and only barely more in S&H. I would love to read more Tris and Alex - so far I have a grand total of one other story about them. And despite that, I really got into all the different characters and their different points of view. None of the couples act as units (ie, 'we think this'); they all have differences and disagreements and concerns. As I write this I realise you could say it's three different ways of dealing with problems.
There is a heap of space 'dialect' - the band play 'tars, not guitars, and are occasionally frade and refer to other people as taja and other things - t'hy'la crops up, too, and I know that one (*looks proud*) so perhaps all the others are Trek terms too?
One element I haven't mentioned yet is that Doyl's green eyes are actually a plot point: Antosians with green eyes lack the ability to do some of the bonding and 'oneing' that is characteristic, and Doyl is extremely conscious of this and there is more angst about this too. While S&H fall out of the plot early on, there is certainly plenty of B/D and Tris/Alex to go along with the main Kirk/Spock relationship.
AU, space, three fandoms I don't know, songfic (the lyrics to various songs are used as the revolutionary medium)... this is everything I reckon to dislike.
I love it :)
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Date: 2013-12-31 08:36 pm (UTC)Thanks again.
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Date: 2014-01-01 01:52 pm (UTC)You're in the UK, aren't you? If you ever want to borrow any of these, let me know.
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Date: 2014-01-01 03:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-01 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-01 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-01 10:34 am (UTC)Isn't it funny, though, how you can read something in a genre that you usually hate, and end up loving it to bits. I don't like AU but this does sound interesting - and one of my favourite Pros fics - Harlequin Airs - just happens to be an AU! Go figure.
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Date: 2014-01-01 01:57 pm (UTC)If you were in the UK, I'd cheerfully sling it in the post, but I seem to remember you're not. We can talk about it, but I suspect postage will be a monster.
Also, I don't generally read the Trek listings on zinelist etc but I imagine that it's a bigger fandom and there are likely to be more copies of specific zines floating around than there are for Pros, so you may be in luck?
(ETA: Just spotted your icon - heh!)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-02 11:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-01 11:41 am (UTC)As far as the zine itself, it's been awhile, but I think I remember enjoying it. Mirror stories can be dicey, as the characters are often portrayed as extremely violent, especially Kirk. To the point that you wonder how Kirk manages the discipline needed to be a starship captain. Anyway, I'll have to pull it out and reread it. Thanks for bringing it to mind. :-)
Oh, and the other terms aren't exactly Trek. But there is a tendency in K/S to "futurize" or "alienize" words, so that's what is going on with that. :-)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-01 02:03 pm (UTC)One of the Concupiscence zines has a Tris/Alyx story and I really enjoyed it, but did wonder, if I had bought this zine back then, would I have known who they were meant to be? Then I thought, well, probably, if I had bought it when it came out, then I would have had to be involved in slash circles even to know about its existence, so probably I'd have heard about them via that.
I didn't know that about other mirror stories. Interesting. I think this is very different, then: the author goes to some pains to justify the thing with Pike, and a lot of the story is Kirk discovering new feelings within himself.
Thanks for the explanation about the futurizing: that fits in very well.
I hope that if you do re-read it, you will come back and add comments, or post something yourself? It would be nice to hear how it works for someone who actually knows the fandom!
no subject
Date: 2014-01-02 12:42 am (UTC)And the icon did seem appropriate given your comment. *g*