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crack_van2004-02-28 07:56 am
anglopollyanna.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2004-02-28 07:56 am
Entry tags:
The New World by Trilby (Rated G)
Fandom: HIGHLANDER
Pairing: N/A
Author on LJ: Not on LJ
Author Website: None
Why this must be read: My final rec is not a well-known story. When I first came across this one it immediately struck a chord with me, and I thought, That is what it would be like to be a new female Immortal I went back to find it for this month of recs and was pleased to see it was as realistic as I remembered.
When I started out in Highlander fandom, I used to skim through whole sections of 7th Dimension reading every story. A popular theme among the stories was a contemporary young woman becomes Immortal, and one of the characters from the series has to become her teacher. Even when the writer manages to avoid the obvious Mary Sue pitfalls, this area can become a bit clichéd.
The story I'm reccing is the second part of an unfinished series, and there are some mysteries that don't get resolved, but they don't detract from the main plot. (Also, I checked with the author and she does hope to finish it some day!) Since the two parts were posted several years apart, the second story was constructed so it could work by itself. There are some good cameos from Richie and Dawson, but the interest of the story is how someone would cope with the knowledge of becoming Immortal, or perhaps more accurately, how they don't cope.
When Rachel had walked away from the dojo and from
Immortality, she had taken immediate refuge in routine. She
established a schedule for herself and she stuck to it fanatically:
out of bed by nine, no matter how late the performance ran the
night before; walk downtown to the park for a two mile run, rain
or no rain; then a shower; and then to the theater or the church to
practice. She worked hard. She filled every waking minute with
study, with meticulous housecleaning, or exercise, or anything else
that kept her mind occupied and let her go to bed at night too
exhausted to dream. When she couldn't fall asleep right away,
she tested her memory by singing to herself softly in the dark:
sweet melodies by Puccini and Mozart and Faure, until she fell
asleep. It kept her from thinking about other things. In Rachel's
mind, it was a simple bargain of sorts with the future: if she made
every day as normal as possible, then everything would *be*
normal.
And lo and behold, it had worked.
Little by little and day by day, Rachel realized that nothing out of
the ordinary was happening to her after all. None of those awful
"Buzz" headaches ever came again. No strangers showed up
with swords offering to cut her head off. Her life was going on
just the same as it always had, just as if that awful, nightmare
evening at the dojo had never happened at all. She hardly gave a
thought anymore to the unspeakable *thing* she had become. It
seemed so unreal - so impossible - that once, just to see if
maybe she had imagined it all, she had picked up a knife and
made a small cut on her arm. Just to see if it would still happen.
That tiny, healing spark had flickered across her skin, and she had
put the knife away and put the memory away too, locked up in a
dark place that she never, ever visited if she could help it.
Something else I personally found fascinating was that the heroine is a professional singer. In an excellent example of Write what you know, Trilby uses her knowledge of singing to give us an insight into another completely different world - an opera company. As strange in its way as Immortality!
Although I'm particularly recommending
The New World
which does work standalone, it does have a precursor Advent with some good Methos lines.
Pairing: N/A
Author on LJ: Not on LJ
Author Website: None
Why this must be read: My final rec is not a well-known story. When I first came across this one it immediately struck a chord with me, and I thought, That is what it would be like to be a new female Immortal I went back to find it for this month of recs and was pleased to see it was as realistic as I remembered.
When I started out in Highlander fandom, I used to skim through whole sections of 7th Dimension reading every story. A popular theme among the stories was a contemporary young woman becomes Immortal, and one of the characters from the series has to become her teacher. Even when the writer manages to avoid the obvious Mary Sue pitfalls, this area can become a bit clichéd.
The story I'm reccing is the second part of an unfinished series, and there are some mysteries that don't get resolved, but they don't detract from the main plot. (Also, I checked with the author and she does hope to finish it some day!) Since the two parts were posted several years apart, the second story was constructed so it could work by itself. There are some good cameos from Richie and Dawson, but the interest of the story is how someone would cope with the knowledge of becoming Immortal, or perhaps more accurately, how they don't cope.
When Rachel had walked away from the dojo and from
Immortality, she had taken immediate refuge in routine. She
established a schedule for herself and she stuck to it fanatically:
out of bed by nine, no matter how late the performance ran the
night before; walk downtown to the park for a two mile run, rain
or no rain; then a shower; and then to the theater or the church to
practice. She worked hard. She filled every waking minute with
study, with meticulous housecleaning, or exercise, or anything else
that kept her mind occupied and let her go to bed at night too
exhausted to dream. When she couldn't fall asleep right away,
she tested her memory by singing to herself softly in the dark:
sweet melodies by Puccini and Mozart and Faure, until she fell
asleep. It kept her from thinking about other things. In Rachel's
mind, it was a simple bargain of sorts with the future: if she made
every day as normal as possible, then everything would *be*
normal.
And lo and behold, it had worked.
Little by little and day by day, Rachel realized that nothing out of
the ordinary was happening to her after all. None of those awful
"Buzz" headaches ever came again. No strangers showed up
with swords offering to cut her head off. Her life was going on
just the same as it always had, just as if that awful, nightmare
evening at the dojo had never happened at all. She hardly gave a
thought anymore to the unspeakable *thing* she had become. It
seemed so unreal - so impossible - that once, just to see if
maybe she had imagined it all, she had picked up a knife and
made a small cut on her arm. Just to see if it would still happen.
That tiny, healing spark had flickered across her skin, and she had
put the knife away and put the memory away too, locked up in a
dark place that she never, ever visited if she could help it.
Something else I personally found fascinating was that the heroine is a professional singer. In an excellent example of Write what you know, Trilby uses her knowledge of singing to give us an insight into another completely different world - an opera company. As strange in its way as Immortality!
Although I'm particularly recommending
The New World
which does work standalone, it does have a precursor Advent with some good Methos lines.
no subject
no subject
Alternatively searching in groups.google.com on the alt.tv.highlander.creative group for Trilby (http://tinyurl.com/yrr56) produces all the sections of 'The New World'. (I've used tinyurl for that link which shouldperform that search for you.))
Hope this helps!
no subject
(Anonymous) 2007-03-07 08:53 pm (UTC)(link)