Duty by Pat Jacquerie (NC-17)

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

Fandom: BLAKE'S 7
Pairing:  Avon/Tarrant
Author on LJ: not applicable
Author Website: Pat's Place (memorial site)
Why this must be read:


I was very surprised when I didn't find this story in the B7 recs Memories; it's such a gem that I was sure it had been recced here before:).

Pat Jacquerie's "Duty" is an epic tale of Avon and Tarrant coming to terms with each other and the culture of Fargone, an agricultural planet where (you guessed it) homosexuality between men under fifty is the norm. Having said that, this is quite different from the usual "Our Heroes On A Gay Planet" story, in that we get to see the culture of the planet in depth, get to know its people and their joys and sorrows. I don't usually care much for long and winding plots and OCs, but here they work quite well--it isn't just a story of two guys, but of more complex interactions between them and the people of Fargone.

Avon and Tarrant are clearly recogniseable and believeable. Avon's dry wit and Tarrant's youthful impetuousness are both here in evidence, and the relationship between them is just as difficult as you could imagine. Good Tarrant stories are hard to find, and here, I think, we have Tufty characterisation at its best. I can see the twinkle of the blue eyes when I read what he's saying and doing here. Conflicting emotions, thoughts and actions, sizzlingly hot and desperate sex (and lovemaking), then denial and conflict again... the boys go through a lot during the course of this story and it's all good. The only minus (IMHO) is the revelation about Fargone's rulers at the end (cringe), but thankfully that is at the very end and doesn't spoil the main thread of the A/Tness.

Lovely stuff.

Duty

Comments

[jekesta]

Long live Sex-Planet Slash, yay!

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

And it's the best kind, too!:)

[hafren.livejournal.com]

The only minus (IMHO) is the revelation about Fargone's rulers at the end (cringe)

SPOILER WARNING: don't read on if you don't want 'em....






But the reason you cringe, m'dear, is surely the same reason I did - Fargone's rulers are you, the reader and her, the writer. Who else has been invisible but secretly empowered, observing, recording and ultimately directing the action throughout? (And fairly early in the unfinished sequel, there's a casual remark that makes it clear that said observers were cheating; visitors from off-planet were not subject to the rules). I'd say that ending was one of the most subtle authorial interventions in fanfic: the ultimate but completely subverted Mary-Sue.

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

Yeah, of *course* I realised that when I read it, but it just provoked a big "arrrgh" reaction from me. It was something that I really didn't need in a story, because I know we're the voyeurs, thankyouverymuch, dear ficcer. It just came across as trying to be terribly clever (and being bleeding obvious instead). Authorial self-insertion (hurk) with oh-so-deep metatextual "points" (double hurk) is *not* what I want to read in a fanfic.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Authorial self-insertion (hurk) with oh-so-deep metatextual "points" (double hurk) is *not* what I want to read in a fanfic.

You must have to pass over an awful lot then, because one thing I've been really interested by is the maount of authorial self-insertion that goes on in this genre.

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

Wish-fullfilment lends itself well to Mary Sues, yes. Personally I prefer to read fic about the canon characters, not the writer...

[hafren.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean accidental Mary Sues so much as conscious author-intervention, which can be quite interesting. Authors talking to characters can be fun in litfic ir fanfic, IMO.