Rejoice!

[kerravonsen]

Yes, the stories are here! Actually, they aren't here, they're here.

As I said before, I'm keeping the authorship secret for about a week (well, I'll probably do the changeover on the weekend) and then reveal the authors.

And now, you should comment here on them. I have started threads for each story, so you should be able to comment separately on separate stories -- see below.

Comments

Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interludes

[kerravonsen]

Comment here about this story.

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

I've not ever watched Blake's 7, so I what I know about plot and character has been strictly picked-up-by-the-wayside...but I liked this. The format, with tiny thoughtful interludes between scholarly dissection, worked very well. And I found a great deal of sympathy for Avon, particularly in the last line.

*ponders getting ahold of Blake's 7 tapes*

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[kerravonsen]

Of course, now you've had the ending of the series spoiled... still worth watching, though.
Now that the DVDs are out for the first two seasons, you might even manage to inherit someones tapes -- though I guess that would be less likely in the US.

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Like kerravonsen says, definitely worth watching. Even if it takes some effort to hunt up the tapes. :)

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Any thoughts about lists or sites where I could try looking for tapes?

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Well, I know Amazon has the tapes, and if you can play R2 discs -- I'm not sure where you are -- the first two seasons are out on DVD. If that's out of your price range and you are in North America, I've been know to be persuaded to make copies for people. :)

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

oooo. I checked Amazon for DVDs (I'm in California) and came up empty, but did not check for tapes. Will do so now!

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[kerravonsen]

For the DVDs, you would have to (a) be sure that you had a multi-region DVD player and (b) probably buy them directly from the UK, somewhere like sendit.com

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Or http://www.play.com - who are very cheap and I think will despatch to the US.

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Hey, I guess I'm allowed to admit to writing this thing now. :)

Anyway, I'm glad you liked it. I'm actually very surprised (but not at all displeased) to know that it works even for someone who's not really familiar with the show. Given that I was writing for snowgrouse, who I know is a huge fan, I didn't make much of an attempt to make it widely accessible.

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

well...anything academic or pretending to be instantly grabs my interest (and I tend to assume that historians don't know a lot, so you told me much by what was not said). :-)

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I confess that I avoiding reading it, on the grounds that it was (1) about a fandom that I'm not very familiar with, (2) longish, and (3) looked rather spoilerful. Maybe I should go back and read it now.

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Well, it still is all three. :)

(At least, by my standards it's longish, anyway...)

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I love the style of this.

Gina

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[lady-smith.livejournal.com]

I haven't had the oppertunity to watch any Blakes7 in almost a decade and a half, as such I usually never read fic for it. But the title grabbed my attention, and I'm glad it did.

To be fair I'm a sucker for the "how history and legend views events" school of fic (and canon, since B5 and Dune both did it). This is sheer genius. It's comforting to know that years after the fact, "Blake's rebels" are significant enough to have copious amounts of commentary on them. Though you perhaps wonder if this authour and the colleges they mention aren't part of some very tiny insular academic circles endlessly debating what really doesn't get much attention outside those circles - rather like another Blake whose works I'm enamoured of, really. :D

The truly striking thing about this fic is the intercuts between it and Avon's POV, and how the questions never really get answered, perhaps because Avon himself doesn't know them. This leaves a great deal to the reader's interpretation, and I am always impressed by authours who are both brave enough to do that and skillful enough to pull it off.

As a side note, the concept of the "Rastel diaries" tickled me pink. I want to read those!!

Well done. Just... well done.

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Now that I have to admit to writing it... :)

I find "how history will view things" as a really interesting topic, too, and I'd had the idea of doing something like that for B7 in the back -- OK, the very back -- of my mind for a long time. I really wasn't at all sure whether this would work or not, but it seemed like an opportunity to actually do something with the idea.

Sadly, I think the comfort in knowing that the B7 gang will be remembered in the future is rather offset by the fact that it's a Federation future, and they're remembered as failures. Still, I guess it's all in one's perspective. :)

I don't have the Restal Diaries, but have you read vilakins's version of Vila's e-mails? Fun stuff!

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[lady-smith.livejournal.com]

You have intregued me! Do please point me in the direction of said Vila-fic, please!

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Go to her fiction page (http://www.farsight.net.nz/fiction/index.htm) and scroll down to "Humour," you'll find the links to 'em there. (There's one set of e-mails for each season.) Her other fic is well worth reading, too. She does a wonderful Vila.

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[lady-smith.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU!!!!!!!

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective"

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I love the structure of this, and the interleaving of the historical text with Avon's decline into insanity.

And I shall take comfort in Vila's survival; if he put Avon's comment that 'winning is the only safety' in his diary, it must have been after the last ep as there wasn't much chance before that. Well, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it! :-D

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

Pure crack:). I loved it. Thank you *so* much, whoever wrote it.

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

*laughs* It's beautifully-constructed, nicely dry like an actual text. And the interwoven excerpts work very well.

Re: Blake's 7: Excerpts from Chapter 23 of "Blake's Rebels: A Historical Perspective", with Interlud

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it! It really was a perfect song for S4 of B7, and I'm not entirely sure I've done it justice.