From: blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se Subject: blakes7-d Digest V99 #60 X-Loop: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se X-Mailing-List: archive/volume99/60 Precedence: list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/digest; boundary="----------------------------" To: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se Reply-To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se ------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blakes7-d Digest Volume 99 : Issue 60 Today's Topics: [B7L] Limmericks (NOT) Re: [B7L] The B7 radio blues Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin Re: [B7L] Fannishness Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin [B7L] The Way Back / Spacefall FS on e-bay Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin [B7L] Flat Robin 13 or so, by Arkaroo [B7L] Flat Robin 14 or so, by Penny Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin RE: [B7L] Fannishness Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin RE: [B7L] Fannishness [B7L] corgi liberator [B7L] SFX goes B7 mad [B7L] Crusade and B7 (possible spoilers) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 20:55:59 -0800 From: Pat Patera To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Limmericks (NOT) Message-ID: <36C3B45F.7CC3@geocities.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Neil wrote: re Cally I'd like for a brief time to drop all this sublime Performance and start being me. To stop quoting sayings and get on with slaying The scum in the great galax-ee. To show I'm courageous and wild and outrageous, Get squiffy or rat-arsed and stoned. But fans would attack it and viewers not hack it, And so I must suffer alone. I loved all the lyrics, but this stanza especially. Hey Vulcan! It's safe to come out in ublic with your poetry, now. *hint hint* Pat P ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 14:58:37 +0100 (BST) From: Judith Proctor To: Lysator List Subject: Re: [B7L] The B7 radio blues Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Pat Fenech said: > Looking at the credits of the various writers of episodes of 'Blakes 7' I > discovered this very interesting detail in Chris Bouchers's listing: > '... has written the radio serial 'A walk in the dark', adapted Harry > Harrison's 'The technicolour time machine' for radio...' > so... I ask myself, not for the first time, WHY was Barry letts chosen > ahead of the person who knew B7 best and who wrote some of the best > scripts for it and who has experience in writing for radio? Write to Brian Lighthill c/o Horizon and point out Chris's radio work. It probably won't do any good, but at least you can say you tried. (Be polite and friendly, because Brian struck me as a nice bloke apart from his insistance on using Barry Letts) I believe Letts had done some Dr Who radio plays and he's a friend of Brian's. I imagine those two points explain why he got the job. > My memory might be faulty but I seem to recall Brain Lighthill saying it > was because Letts had experience with radio drama, the unsaid, but > implied, at least I thought so, corollary being that others, with better > B7 credentials, did not. He may have been unaware of Chris's radio work - I was, or I'd have mentioned it to him at Deliverance. > Just makes me more annoyed at the wasted opportunity these radio plays > are! > Which reminds - does anyone know why the second one is so delayed? Is it > too bad to be released? They want to release it on CD - presumably that takes longer? Certainly they're delaying the broadcast until after the CD release. Judith -- http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7 Redemption 99 - The Blakes 7/Babylon 5 convention 26-28 February 1999, Ashford International Hotel, Kent http://www.smof.com/redemption/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 18:39:18 -0000 From: "Neil Faulkner" To: "lysator" Subject: Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin Message-ID: <003c01be578e$bed427e0$2e18ac3e@default> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jacqueline wrote: >> Where the ==== is everybody? Any more of this inertia and I'll have to >> start trolling... >> >You might consider adding something to the Flat Robin yourself. I did - for about twenty seconds. But I'm not a comitted Pratchett fan, having read only half the Discworld books and with no desperate urge to plough through the others. I prefer humour with a bit more bite. There's no bitterness in Discworld, no resentment or disillusionment. That's probably why they're so popular but I personally find it offputting. >> I had my doubts when the FR first got underway (far too fannish), >> >Huh? what do you mean by too fannish? Fannishness is a bit of a dirty word with me, because it can all too easily degenerate into an uncritical, adorational re-creation of the object of fannish interest (more simply referrable to as 'the text'). Adorational fannishness approaches the text as an inviolable canon to which nothing should be added nor anything taken away. The fannish text (eg; a piece of fanfic) then becomes a means of re-experiencing the original, oblivious to any shortcomings the original may have had. Authorship becomes an act of worship, a practice I consider distinctly dubious. Adorational authors like to think they are 'capturing' the text and its revered characters - I would say they're trying to pickle the poor buggers. A more positive approach to fannishness, IMO, is one that uses the text 'as a springboard rather than an ironing board' (as some rock journalist once ever-so-neatly put it), and is prepared to distort the text to suit the author's wider intentions. In other words, the author assumes control of the text rather than allowing her/imself to be constrained by it. Deficiencies in the original text are more likely to be acknowledged, and the springboarder fan is perhaps more likely to cite external factors (production costs, for example) as their cause rather than construct elaborate internal rationalisations. Needless to say, I'm definitely a springboarder and consequently it's the approach I prefer. But the two modes of fannishness are better regarded as the poles of a continuum, both operating together on a fannish author. Some fans are pulled more one way, some more the other, and not necessarily to the same degree in the same direction all the time. That's my theory, anyway. Neil ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 13:38:38 PST From: "Penny Dreadful" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin Message-ID: <19990213213839.11964.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-type: text/plain My brain's burnt out on Pratchett. I wrote more last night but I'm valiantly holding off posting because I feel we need a break in the text from T and S. I'm even now sending nagging mental messages o'er the aether at Arkaroo telling him to get on the ball -- his outline sounded very promising but it's all boohoo GPA whinge whinge Midterms snivel snivel Dean's Vacation blah blah blah... >Jacqueline wrote: >>You might consider adding something to the Flat Robin yourself. Neil replied: >I'm not a comitted Pratchett >fan, having read only half the Discworld books and with no desperate >urge to plough through the others. I prefer humour with a bit more >bite. There's no bitterness in Discworld, no resentment or >disillusionment. Wow -- what sort of humour do *you* enjoy? Kafka? Flannery O'Connor? I've read 12, so assuming there's 22 books I've only read one more than you. All in the past six months mind you so I suppose it's sort of like taking Further Studies In N-Dimensional Topology, or an enema...but the point is I'm only 400-odd pages more versed in the 'canon' than you. C'mon, Neil, show us the meaning of the word 'disillusionment'! >>Huh? what do you mean by too fannish? > >Fannishness is a bit of a dirty word with me... "He gazed in adoration at her tumid fannishness..." >A more positive approach to fannishness, IMO, is one that uses the >text 'as a springboard...In other words, the author assumes control >of the text rather than allowing her/imself to be constrained by it. >Deficiencies in the original text are more likely to be acknowledged, >and the springboarder fan is perhaps more likely to cite external >factors (production costs, for example) as their cause rather than >construct elaborate internal rationalisations. Well not that I've actually written anything much in the field but in my mind for instance I don't *seriously* try to justify the fact that everyone speaks not only 20th century English but with British accents and have egregious '70's haircuts and every planet is a quarry and the Spectre of the Boom Mike hangs over all -- but a Pratchettesque forum seems ideally suited to attempting such justifications. Anyhow, if we dispense with too many of the tropes both of Discworld and of B7, why not just write something entirely original which we might them have the option of attempting to peddle for cash? --Penny "It Always Comes Back To Enemas" Dreadful ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 00:17:37 -0000 From: "Neil Faulkner" To: "lysator" Subject: Re: [B7L] Fannishness Message-ID: <004f01be57af$a45b6920$2e18ac3e@default> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-7" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Twenty seconds after sending this I screamed something unrepeatable as I realised I'd sent it direct to Penny. Sorry, Penny, you'll be getting this twice. Delete a copy. Better still, delete both. Anyway... Penny wrote: +AD4-Wow -- what sort of humour do +ACo-you+ACo- enjoy? Kafka? Flannery O'Connor? Yeah, Kafka's quite amusing. And Dostoevsky's always good for a laugh. Though seriously, I like... Monty Python (obviously), Blackadder, Porridge, One Foot in the Grave, The Young Ones, Beavis and Butthead. I like the humour in films like Starship Troopers and Mars Attacks and anything by Quentin Tarantino. On-topic, I like the cynical humour Chris Boucher and Robert Holmes inject into their scripts. Most things savagely irreverent will go down well with me. Pratchett can't quite bring himself to slaughter the sacred cows he picks on. +AD4-Well not that I've actually written anything much in the field but in my +AD4-mind for instance I don't +ACo-seriously+ACo- try to justify the fact that +AD4-everyone speaks not only 20th century English but with British accents +AD4-and have egregious '70's haircuts and every planet is a quarry and the +AD4-Spectre of the Boom Mike hangs over all -- but a Pratchettesque forum +AD4-seems ideally suited to attempting such justifications. Your contributions to the FR I would definitely classify as springboarding. That's why I like 'em. +AD4-Anyhow, if we +AD4-dispense with too many of the tropes both of Discworld and of B7, why +AD4-not just write something entirely original which we might them have the +AD4-option of attempting to peddle for cash? Like I said, it's a tension that pulls both ways. The desire to remain within the confines of the canonical text has to be reconciled with the desire to be original. Without the former, then yes, we'd dispense with the fannish aspect altogether and write original fiction. Without the latter, fannish works become nothing more than a mantric reiteration of the canonical text, adding nothing to it and consequently containing nothing of artistic merit. Fannish authors differ as to what constitutes an ideal balance of the two elements. Should the canonical text be regarded primarily as a medium, or as a message? Neil ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 18:58:30 -0700 From: Helen Krummenacker To: lysator Subject: Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin Message-ID: <36C62DC6.2C2A@jps.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Neil Faulkner wrote: > > Jacqueline wrote: > >You might consider adding something to the Flat Robin yourself. > > I did - for about twenty seconds. But I'm not a comitted Pratchett fan, > having read only half the Discworld books and with no desperate urge to > plough through the others. I prefer humour with a bit more bite. There's > no bitterness in Discworld, no resentment or disillusionment. That's > probably why they're so popular but I personally find it offputting. Rincewind definitely is bitter about his lot in life. Esme Weatherwax was very bitter about her sister becoming a fairy-godmother who fed people to stories, and therefor ending up having to be 'the good one'. Agnes Nitt becomes horriblly disillusioned when all of her musical talent gets her nowhere because she's fat, so a no-talent beautiful blonde becomes the face she's supposed to be voice for. Verence the Fool is bitter about the hoorors of the Fools Guild. Om, the Small God, is bitter because no one much believes in him. Besides which, despite people being generally 'happy with the way things are', the way things are include muggings, political turmoil, assassination, slavery, insanity, monsters, war... Pratchett holds up a mirror to our own world's history and contemporary follies. By sticking a happy face on top of it, but showing how deep the problems run, he leads us to consider why we accept things as they are. It's true his work has, overall, a more optomistic feel, which makes working the Blake's 7 characters with it an intriguing challenge. But it isn't a happy-ending world, when all is said and done. "You can't make happy endings. You can only make things end. The only way you can have a marriage and a happy ending is if you cut off both their heads after they say 'I do'." ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 18:03:00 PST From: "Penny Dreadful" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin Message-ID: <19990214020301.5283.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-type: text/plain Avona said: >It's true [Pratchett's] >work has, overall, a more optomistic feel, which makes working the >Blake's 7 characters with it an intriguing challenge. I see less optimism than disengagement. The existence of an Afterlife is made explicit, so death is neither here nor there. I personally have never been worried about the fate of a character in a Discworld novel any more than I bite my nails when I see Bugs Bunny stalked by Elmer Fudd. I read them as *entirely* satirical/allegorical. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 20:02:22 -0700 From: Helen Krummenacker To: lysator Subject: Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin Message-ID: <36C63CBE.158@jps.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Penny Dreadful wrote: > > Avona said: > > >It's true [Pratchett's] > >work has, overall, a more optomistic feel, which makes working the > >Blake's 7 characters with it an intriguing challenge. > > I see less optimism than disengagement. The existence of an Afterlife is > made explicit, so death is neither here nor there. I personally have > never been worried about the fate of a character in a Discworld novel > any more than I bite my nails when I see Bugs Bunny stalked by Elmer > Fudd. I read them as *entirely* satirical/allegorical. But Discworld is optomistic in that individuals can have a prfound effect on their environment, and against major opposing forces. In B7, the victories were brief and soemtimes illusory. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 19:05:19 PST From: "Kryten ." To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] The Way Back / Spacefall FS on e-bay Message-ID: <19990214030520.22135.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-type: text/plain Hi all, Just wanted to let you know, for those of you who are interested, I have a store bought copy of Blake's 7 Vol 1: The Way Back & Spacefall for sale on e-bay. http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=66351329 Thanks, kry ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 04:03:22 -0000 From: "Neil Faulkner" To: "lysator" Subject: Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin Message-ID: <010b01be57cf$47b5dbe0$2e18ac3e@default> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Helen wrote: >Rincewind definitely is bitter about his lot in life. Esme Weatherwax >was very bitter ... >Agnes Nitt becomes horriblly disillusioned ... Verence the Fool >is bitter about the hoorors of the Fools Guild. Om, the Small God, is >bitter ... Maybe, but all of this comes from the characters, when I meant the author. And in response to Penny: >But Discworld is optomistic in that individuals can have a prfound >effect on their environment, and against major opposing forces. In B7, >the victories were brief and soemtimes illusory. Which might be why I prefer B7. But just hang on a mo, I don't have a complete downer on Pratchett. I thoroughly enjoyed Mort, and Moving Pictures, and Guards Guards, and rather liked most of the others I've read. But I do feel I have a right to be critical - no writer is perfect, and especially not after twenty-odd forays into the same territory. The last one I read - Faust/Eric - was distinctly unimpressive, and left me feeling that Pratchett might be falling victim to his own success. Or maybe it was just a one-off blip of duffness, or maybe I just don't have the right frame of mind to appreciate its excellence (not unlikely, actually). I do, however, believe that when writers - or any other artists - set out to provide what the audience demands, their work almost inevitably suffers. Look at Led Zeppelin, to quote the first example that springs to mind. It's what SF critic Peter Nicholls called 'the monster of fulfilled promise', if my memory serves me right. There's a difference between giving the people what they want, and giving them what _you_ want in a way that _they_ are prepared to accept. Neil ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 21:57:36 PST From: "Penny Dreadful" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Cc: arkaroo@hotmail.com, egomoo@geocities.com Subject: [B7L] Flat Robin 13 or so, by Arkaroo Message-ID: <19990214055738.29094.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-type: text/plain Let this be a lesson to us all: _It pays to browbeat Arkaroo!_ *** The Andromedan Captain had always enjoyed his job. Travelling about the cosmos on the Government's dime with somewhat ambiguous five year missions was, in his eyes, about the best job one could have, short of being quality-control officer in a Federation Officer's brothel (even piles of intelligent goo have certain needs, after all). He was able to turn in reports filled with whatever falsehoods he could come up with on the spur of moment (which, the Captain being quite unimaginative, explained why every planet in the Milky Way was classified as being "rather wet, not at all hospitable, overrun by whip-wielding rodent warlords") and be assured no-one in the Government would notice. There was no better means of entertainment than being Captain of an Andromedan space-vehicle: you'd appear as a Messiah to a few desert-dwellers here, probe a few indigenous life forms (those with anuses, that is) there, and just generally muck about in spaceships. He'd had a few close encounters with danger, true, but they were generally of the sort where, if you were willing to sacrifice several members of the crew and a spare weather balloon, everything worked itself out in the end. Never before, however, had he found himself crouched beneath a mass of brambles, the remains of his mighty vessel imbedded in the surrounding foliage like so much metallic shelf-fungus, his prized Weaponry sitting on the bottom of a pit of acidic dirt, watching the members of his crew not quick enough to hide in the bushes being eaten by a pair of limbed degenerates. All in all, he thought to himself, it could have been much, much worse. They could have been preparing to eat *him*. One of the ambling limbed creatures (the one who wasn't gibbering to himself) had collected together all of the Andromedans that hadn't already been eaten while still raw into a badly rusted cauldron, which now simmered over a smouldering peat fire. At intervals he added a pinch of salt, which caused the cauldron to emit a steady stream of Andromedan curses (which, translated into the Morporkian tongue, consisted mainly of variations on "Your hat resembles nothing more than the solid excretions of an animal whose diet consists of nothing but paraffin, you great big tosser"). After the curses had settled down into a low rumble of discontent, he poured the greenish goo into two bowls, which the two derelicts dug into with great relish. "It's damnably good, whatever it is," said Todd, picking a lump of chapeau from his bowl. "Much tastier than that Cream-of-Bramble soup we've been subsisting on since the University stopped dumping their excess Daemons in the Bog." "Buggerit," muttered Foul Young Ron through a mouthful of Andromedan. Deep in the brambles, the Assistant Bo'sun stared on in horror. "Captain, they've just eaten the Bo'sun!" "I thought that was the First Mate," said the Captain, prodding half-heartedly at the muck adhering to his cap. "No, the First Mate's the one adhering to that lunatic's bramble codpiece. He'll be safe for now." "Bully for him. Rather a sticky thicket he's in, ey wot? Ha!" "Quite so, sir. Meanwhile, we've got to find some means of transport. This terrain is much too... adhesive for our present forms to travel very quickly." "I'm quite sure we'll think of something. By the way, do you have a toothbrush? This sap is stuck to the brim really firmly." "No, sir, I don't have a toothbrush. I don't have what one could call teeth." "Oh, yes. Carry on." Outside the bramble hideaway, Foul Young Ron emitted a concussive belch. Todd Nipples looked at him closely. "I say, Ron, you look a bit peaked. Did you swallow your cortex again?" Foul Young Ron stared at Todd frantically, his eyes bulging out most disconcertingly. With a rasping croak, he began to speak : "Bugge... how does this thing steer, any... rit, millenium hand and... way, Wow, I wonder what happens when I press this thi... shrimmmmmmmmmmmmpuh! There! Finalllly goooott itgoingwhoopsIseemedtobehavingdifficultywithspe-spe-spe-speech center. Oh, I see, counterclockwise. There we go!" Foul Young Ron lurched towards the bramble patch where the Captain was hiding. "Sir! Sir!" he cried, "I'm not dead! I've been able to take control of this creature!" "What on Andromeda is he talking about?" asked the Captain, balefully staring at the staggering figure. "I believe the Bo'sun has taken control of the creature's central nervous system. Could be very useful, phenotypically, in digging our Weapon out of that Bog," said the Assistant Bo'sun, gesturing to the smoldering area behind him. "In through the mouth, eh? Never considered *that* avenue of entrance into these sorts of creatures, but desperate times call for desperate measures and all that," mused the Captain. "Still, looks a bit silly, though, doesn't it? All that skin, no nice slime ducts. That prickly underwear looks a bit painful as well, I'd wager. What's on Andromeda is the Bo'sun doing now?" Outside the bramble bush, Foul Young Ron, under the eager control of the Bo'sun, was hopping in place and flapping his arms. "I say, this is fun! Having limbs is *quite* the treat! These brambles hurt like the Dickens, though," he said, looking at his nethers with a degree of concern. Todd grabbed Foul Young Ron around the waist from behind. "Deary me, looks like you've swallowed some manner of intelligent goo creature, Ron. Think happy thoughts." Forcing his bunched fists into Ron's diaphragm, Todd tightened his grip suddenly, lifting Ron off the ground. With an expulsive noise not unlike a weasel encountering a vacuum cleaner, Ron heaved a copious amount of Bo'sun into the bramble bushes. Todd smiled beatifically. "There you go, good as new. I always find that I need to get acquainted to new foods. A little Worcestershire sauce doesn't hurt, either. Feeling better?" "Bug..bug..buggerit." "That's my boy," said Todd, returning to his bowl. The Bo'sun dripped down through the brambles to where the Captain and First Mate crouched, finally collecting in a small pool between the two. "That... really... hurt," he whispered. The Captain turned around thoughtfully. "You know, this could be just the ticket we need to infiltrate these creature's society and get some proper help. These two, though," he said, gesturing towards Todd and Foul Young Ron, seem a little too capable." He turned to his officers. "Go free the rest of the crew from that pot, pry the First Mate off of that bloke's crotch, and let's find us some nice corporeal forms. Chop-chop!" *** ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 22:04:52 PST From: "Penny Dreadful" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Cc: arkaroo@hotmail.com, egomoo@geocities.com Subject: [B7L] Flat Robin 14 or so, by Penny Message-ID: <19990214060456.509.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-type: text/plain Kudos to my father for the Star Trek interlude. ------ *** Many miles above the Discworld, the mighty starship 'Enterprise' dropped out of hyperspace and screeched to a halt. Mr. Spock stood on the bridge, staring at the viewscreen, searching for the proper words to accurately express his reaction to what he was observing. Finally he spoke. "It is...not logical, Captain." "You're right, Mr. Spock," Kirk responded without a moment's hesitation. "Mr. Sulu -- Warp Six!" "Aye-aye, sir." Many miles above the Discworld, the mighty starship 'Enterprise' disappeared again. *** Meanwhile, Servalan was living, as always, in interesting times[1]. Asking directions to the Mended Drum from likely-looking examples of the local populace had yielded an incredulous stare in the first instance, and raucous laughter in the second. The third time, she had taken great pains to phrase her question in proper local parlance: "Excuse me," she had said to an individual who looked as though he ought to know, "but that knife you're about to have stuck in your kidney belongs to me. Would you mind escorting me to the place they call 'The Mended Drum'?" The man had led her right up to the front door, uncomplaining, which assured her that she had indeed gained command of the colloquial dialect; but when she had lowered the blade, he had paused before fleeing and turned and looked at her, and said, "You know, The Mended Drum is really no place for a nice young lady like yourself." "Oh, you don't think so?" she asked him, smiling sweetly. "No, I think the place *you're* looking for is across the street and down the block a--" YOU AND YOUR BIG MOUTH, said a voice beside him. "I suppose you'll be going in too," the man's shade said to Death, watching her enter the tavern. WOULDN'T MISS IT FOR ALL THE LEAD IN CHINA. "Well I'll find my own way then, don't worry about me. But I still stand by my advice," said the fading shade of Brevis the Expendable, and discorporated presently with the sigh of the terminally unheeded. Servalan strolled boldly into The Mended Drum, where no dress quite so white had gone before. And sighed. All that build-up had led her to hope for something *much* more spectacularly bacchanalian. But anyone who had ever attended even a single Federation Space Academy Sock-Hop would concur this joint was frankly nothing to write home about. The weapons in evidence were of a much lower calibre, and the psychotic rage flashing in the eyes of the majority of the clientele was of a natural, organic sort. And as for the fact that a sizeable percentage of the patronage was visibly non-human, well that again made it all the less terrifying, in the opinion of the only woman ever to have been FSA Prom Queen on more than one occasion. She moved between tables full of dwarves looking bleary-eyed daggers at tables full of trolls looking like daggers were the least of their concerns, tables full of boneless drooling entities in pointy red hats that jerked briefly upright as she passed, and tables full of people wearing naught but a leather codpiece and a scowl (speaking of Prom Night), over a treacherous slick of banana-peels and blood, and up to the bar. "Adrenaline and Soma, my good man," she said to the bartender's sternum. "Easy on the Soma. I've got work to do." The bartender nodded, and poured her a pint of Ankh-Morpork Chunky Brown Ale. "Thank you," she said, and quaffed half the mug at a go. The bartender looked impressed. Then his attention was momentarily diverted by the sound that occurs when a creature made of stone tries to swing from a chandelier made of iron, and when he looked back at her the mug was empty, and she had extracted from somewhere on her person a collection of grainy black-and-white photographs. "Have you seen any of these people?" she asked, batting her eyelashes and leaning over the counter to pass the pictures to him. He squinted at them. They certainly weren't up to the standards of Discworld picture-boxes, but then photochemical reactions rarely take the same pride in workmanship that demons do. Then he peered down at her again. She seemed entirely untrustworthy. That at least was in her favour. "They went thataway," the bartender said. "Thank you *so* much," Servalan beamed, and spun round to face the room, secreting the photographs about her as she did so in a remarkable feat of prestidigitation. "All right," she shouted, "Who wants to make a quick buck?" You could have heard a pin drop. But given that the clientele of The Mended Drum tended to have little use for pins, the sound you heard was more likely chain-mail rattling softly over hearts all a-flutter with drunken avarice. "I do!" said a voice. Hearing such a voice, you would be terribly confused as to its origin in that split-second it took you to realize that in fact the entire population of The Mended Drum had spoken the same words, at the same time, with the exact same slightly slurred degree of greedy glee. "Well then, follow me!" she cried, and strode toward the entrance. And they did. They were mere paces behind her as she flung open the outer door. They were practically treading on her heels as she walked straight into a hooded figure, holding high an ornate hourglass, in which even now the last grain of sand was falling through the hole. *** Just slightly prior to meanwhile, high above the Discworld, a sleek custom-built Personal Interstellar Luxury Sedan slid swiftly Star One-ward. "That was *too* close," its occupant intoned, and refilled the champagne flute with a hand that might have trembled if he'd thought about it, the better to indicate the trauma he had just been through. The driver merely rolled his eyes and swerved sharply to avoid a plummeting starship of unknown make and singular hideousness. "We're lucky to have escaped with our lives and a few of the more portable objets d'art," the vehicle's lone passenger continued, downing the last of the vintage Ange du Frais (imported from Earth itself at *great* expense) and swooning back in his red-velvet-upholstered bucket seat. "Ruined! Our happening upon that Fool on the planet Goth (where we stopped briefly to stock up on grapes while fleeing the destruction of Freedom City at the hands of the Federation), and subsequent improbable acquisition of the location of Star One, does not even *begin* to make up for the loss of almost my entire wardrobe! Does it, Toise?" "No, Krantor," the driver responded. "That *was* an admirably subtle insertion of back-story into the text, though, I must say." "It *was*, wasn't it?" Krantor beamed. It wasn't that he was oblivious to sarcasm, merely impervious to it. "I can just *imagine* the look on that conniving creature's overpainted face when she finds she's been outmanoeuvred." "I think I've seen the look you're talking about," Toise murmured, and executed a sharp high-speed turn to avoid the small Discworld sun. "I *say*, Toise, look at *that*!" Krantor exclaimed, managing to dislodge the weight of the world from his epaulettes long enough to sit up straight and peer out the window. They were passing quite low over the campus of Unseen University, and the bright afternoon sun, filtered through the carcinogenic but mellow miasma that hung over Ankh-Morpork, gave the gleaming spires of said academy a distinctly Xanaduvian aspect, assuming old Kubla Khan's tastes had been anything like Krantor's (and I think that's a fairly safe assumption). "It's *gorgeous*! It reminds me of...Freedom..." His poached-egg eyes grew moist. Toise took pity and circled around for a closer look. "It does bear a certain similarity, Krantor," Toise said. "Would you like to stop and have a look around? No doubt Servalan is still back on Goth, getting her bit o' rough trade to pick the locals' brains." "Literally, no doubt," Krantor murmured. "My, she and I *did* make a lovely couple..." Toise banked the vehicle sharply for no discernible reason. "You're right, I think we can afford to drop in for a few hours -- where are you taking us?" The vehicle was now speeding toward the outskirts of the Ankh-Morpork. "I saw a couple of spaceships parked in a bog just outside the city," Toise explained. "I presume that's the parking lot for oversized vehicles." "A *bog*!" Krantor exclaimed, gazing down at his gleaming black boots, which fitted with nary a wrinkle. So many shoes had been left to burn, that these might be saved... "Don't worry, Krantor, I've found us a spot that's totally dry." Toise gestured at the slightly elevated patch of filth which was now directly underneath them. "Marvelous!" Krantor exclaimed. "Toise, you truly are worth your weight in gilded plaster!" Toise allowed himself a superior smirk at this rare acknowledgement of his worth, and began to lower the vehicle down carefully onto the roof of 'The Pullet and Whippet'. *** The hooded figure grinned broadly. It was a sight which would have made any less self-confident mortal's blood run cold. Even Servalan looked somewhat taken aback. "Travis!" she gasped. "Where did you get that perfectly ghastly robe?" "I mugged a monk," the Thug Formerly Known As Rainforest said smugly, tucking the ornate hourglass back into the folds of his voluminous new apparel. "You could at least have whacked a wizard, now *they've* got an eye for fashion -- that thing is *hideous*." "True," Travis shrugged, "but look, it's got lots and lots of pockets!" To demonstrate he began digging into the depths of the garment, bringing to light several sausages, no less than three daggers of assorted shapes and sizes, a live snake, an extremely dangerous-looking rosary, and a small steel flask, curiously corroded. "You can give me *that* old time religion," said Servalan thoughtfully. "Where have you been, Travis?" The mob at her heels waited patiently. "Washing dishes for the dead, if you must know." "Oh, Travis, I thought maybe you'd got *over* whatever was ailing you." "I have, Supreme Commander, I have! I was caught short in a restaurant, and Miss Hel, the proprietor, said I'd have to work off my debt the old fashioned way." Servalan arched an eyebrow at the narrator, who nevertheless nobly declined to take the joke any further than that. "By washing dishes, naturally," she said to Travis. "Naturally, Supreme Commander. And I was amenable in my addled state. I don't know what happened, I imagine I must have been drugged. But the pain from the short circuit I suffered when the soapy water managed to penetrate my laseron destructor (tm) cleared my head, and I cut a bloody swath out of Hel's kitchen." With great fortitude, Servalan restrained herself from pursuing this line of inquiry. "Good, good, good," she said. "To recap: We've got the location of the Liberator, a good lead as to the probable location of Blake and his crew, and a small army of able-bodied young lunatics to assist us in raising the former and sinking the latter. I think we should leave the mutoids to direct Project Bog, while *we*..." She stopped and looked around. "Travis, where are the mutoids?" "Wonder what's in the flask?" Travis said. *** [1] You make your bed, you lie in it. You hack your bed to pieces with a machete and machine-gun the mattress, you lie in a swirling chaos of kapok and shrapnel. So it is said. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 23:26:44 PST From: "Penny Dreadful" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin Message-ID: <19990214072645.3407.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-type: text/plain Rockin' Neil said: >Look at Led Zeppelin, to quote the first example >that springs to mind. Yeah! Way to work Led Zeppelin into a completely unlikely forum! [Bang head, bang head, flick Bic, flick Bic] --Penny "Plastercaster" Dreadful ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 08:56:01 +0100 From: Jacqueline Thijsen To: lysator Subject: RE: [B7L] Fannishness Message-ID: <39DCDDFD014ED21185C300104BB3F99F10FB0C@NL-ARN-MAIL01> Content-Type: text/plain Neil wrote: > Fannish authors differ as to what constitutes an ideal > balance of the two elements. Should the canonical text be regarded > primarily as a medium, or as a message? > Whoa, you're taking this way too seriously. I don't know about Penny and Avona, but I was just having fun mixing up the people from two series that I really love. And if someone else enjoyed reading it, so much the better. But that wasn't really my first concern. And neither was being canonical. I just love those little winks to canon, like what Avona did when she gave that explanation about why they always land in rock quarries. You have to admit, it's more fun that way than saying something about the way B7 was produced. Unfortunately, I now have a major case of writers block, otherwise known as a temporary but complete lack of imagination, or I'd still be contributing to this thing (or trying to). Guess I'll just have to sit back for a while and read what Penny and Arkaroo have been cooking up. Ah, the horrors we put ourselves through..... ;-). Jacqueline ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 00:51:12 +0000 From: Julia Jones To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: re [B7L] Flat Robin Message-ID: In message <003c01be578e$bed427e0$2e18ac3e@default>, Neil Faulkner writes >I did - for about twenty seconds. But I'm not a comitted Pratchett fan, >having read only half the Discworld books and with no desperate urge to >plough through the others. I prefer humour with a bit more bite. There's >no bitterness in Discworld, no resentment or disillusionment. Did you abandon them before getting to Small Gods? _That_ had bite... one of the most lucid dissections of the problem with organised religion that I've seen. The more recent ones have certainly had a dark undertone to them. I really must read the full text of Carpe Jugulem - the bit Pterry read out at the con certainly had bite. -- Julia Jones "Don't philosophise with me, you electronic moron!" The Turing test - as interpreted by Kerr Avon. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 05:31:45 PST From: "Penny Dreadful" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: RE: [B7L] Fannishness Message-ID: <19990214133145.4256.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-type: text/plain Jacqueline said: >Whoa, you're taking this way too seriously. I don't know about Penny and >Avona, but I was just having fun mixing up the people from two series that I >really love. I don't know about Avona and Arkaroo, but *I* was trying to make a deep satirophilosophical comment on the plight of mankind in our materialistic and spiritually-deprived society. Any grammatical, spelling, and above all canonical errors are intended to accentuate the random purposelessness of the universe, and the limited understanding each of us has of it. --Penny "In Your Face, Voltaire!" Dreadful ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 14:05:50 +0000 From: Steve Rogerson To: Lysator Subject: [B7L] corgi liberator Message-ID: <36C6D83D.6ACCE144@mcr1.poptel.org.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I bought the normal looking white Corgi Liberator a couple of years ago. Today, however, I picked up another one for a fiver at an SF fair. This, however, is mostly silver with yellow plastic for the prongs and the bit around the green ball. Does anyone know anything about this variation? -- cheers Steve Rogerson Redemption 99: The Blakes 7 and Babylon 5 convention 26-28 February 1999, Ashford International Hotel, Ashford, Kent http://www.smof.com/redemption/ "Get in there you big furry oaf, I don't care what you smell" Star Wars ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 14:06:43 +0000 From: Steve Rogerson To: Lysator , Space City Subject: [B7L] SFX goes B7 mad Message-ID: <36C6D872.7D933519@mcr1.poptel.org.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Despite not a mention of B7 on the cover on the March issue (49) of SFX that hit UK streets today, there is an absolute fest of B7 stuff inside. Page 6 is a full age ad for the latest vids followed immediately by a three page feature in the mag's "Isn't it about time you gave...another chance" series. The subject is Blake-less B7 and it is a prosecution v defence article on how good or bad seasons three and four were. Onto page 29 and a one page look at the relative sizes of various SF spaceships. I never realised the Liberator was so much bigger than the Enterprise. The Liberator is almost as big as Deep Space Nine. Scorpio's a titch though - about the same size as Thunderbird 3 and the Millennium Falcon. The next mention is on page 64 in a boxout in a feature on Lexx, which has just changed actresses for one of the main characters. The boxout looks at similar incidences in other SF shows starting with Travis. More follows in a special lookback feature on 1977, which includes B7 in a boxout. There is also a mock page from what SFX would have looked like if it had been around then and includes a little story about the forthcoming space opera B7. If that isn't enough, the couch potato feature celebrates Valentine's Day with a look at romance in SF and includes a review of Rumours of Death. The normal reviews section covers vol 14 (Aftermath and Powerplay) and 15 (Volcano and Dawn of the Gods) of the new vid releases. And that's your lot (apart from a certain convention in two weeks time reaching the top of the listings) :-) -- cheers Steve Rogerson Redemption 99: The Blakes 7 and Babylon 5 convention 26-28 February 1999, Ashford International Hotel, Ashford, Kent http://www.smof.com/redemption/ "Get in there you big furry oaf, I don't care what you smell" Star Wars ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 10:25:44 EST From: Bizarro7@aol.com To: Lysator , Space City Subject: [B7L] Crusade and B7 (possible spoilers) Message-ID: <5d73058c.36c6eaf8@aol.com> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit There's an awful lot of talk among those in the know in fandom about the startling similarities between the Excalibur (on the upcoming BABYLON 5 spin- off, CRUSADE) and the LIBERATOR. It was, of course, deliberate by JMS, whom I suspect wanted to do his own version of a remake of B7 for some time. Although I've only seen the pilot movie for the series, CALL TO ARMS, so far, I can say with complete conviction that it's meant as homage and comes across as homage. There are strong similarities between the characters of both series. Dureena is an alien, the last surviving resident of her planet. She's a out to play avenger against the baddies. She's a fighter, good at hand-to-hand combat. Interestingly, JMS seems to have merged the Vila character into her, making her an active member of the Thieves Guild. What happened to the telepathy? It was moved over to another character, Lt. John Matheson, who is a human and 2nd in command (You'll recall telepaths, alien and human, are a significant presence in the B5 universe). What happened to the Cally function as nurturing medical function on the ship? It was delegated to another character, Dr. Susan Chambers. Galen is a techno-mage, which is basically another way of saying 'computer wizard'. He has many of the same mannerisms as Avon, particularly his speech. He's very good looking, but I think they ought to have him break the rule of the Techno-Mage society and grow hair. But the priorities of the Techno-Mages are more spiritually arcane and focused toward the perpetuation of their own agenda. What happened to Avon's capitalistic and mercenary philosophy? Well that gets split off and relegated to another character, Max Eilerson, a xenoarcheologist and representative of the IPX Corporation who is along for the ride. In the words of JMS: "[They] certainly mourn the situation in which Earth finds herself, but life goes on, business goes on, and listen, while you're out there on the edge of what's known, if you happen to find anything we could turn to our own profit, you know what to do)..." I understand that Gary Cole's character, Captain Gideon, is a "troubled idealist". In the words of the press releases, he "carries the terrible responsibility of saving the billions of people on earth and trying not to show how it's affecting him. jms stated that he also carries a very strange secret with him, which could be the mysterious Pandora box he mentions. " So far, there don't appear to be any equivalent Gan or Jenna characters, but knowing JMS, give it time. All kinds of parallels will show up, and I would be surprised if he didn't eventually put in a Servalan and/or Travis type. Maybe a Tarrant, Soolin or Dayna too, eventually. I would strongly recommend any B7 fan follow this show from the start. It won't be B7, but it might be very satisfying to fill the gap, and JMS can be counted on to do an adequate job. Leah -------------------------------- End of blakes7-d Digest V99 Issue #60 *************************************