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FANFIC IN REVIEW 2001
When we started discussing what to do for our January/February spotlight, we decided to do a year in review - taking a look back at 2001. In many ways, 2001 was the most difficult year for us since we began this site in 1999 and so, we decided to do something different - go to the authors who have been gracious enough to allow us to recommend their stories over the year. You'll also find some bluntly honest comments from some people - both readers and authors - who requested to remain anonymous. At the bottom of this page, you'll find links to their commentaries and recommendations for 2001. We hope you enjoy their selections. You'll also find some of our thoughts on how this site will change for 2002 and beyond.
How did the Best of Trek Team feel about 2001? In a nutshell, we ran hot and cold. We were excited by the advent of ENT - we were convinced that new authors would join the Trek fandom and we were fully prepared for what we felt would be a deluge of quality stories - in fact, we took a month off from other fandoms just to figure out how we would handle ENT and to catch up on our readings there, as we decided not to find an editor for ENT alone. Our initial readings found a lot of short fanfics - we believe the longer, novel-style fanfics characteristic of other fandoms will come in time. Thanks to recommendations, we were able to add a couple stories to our ENT page; missing from the page however are some of the stories we enjoyed from authors already featured on this site in another fandom and we debated whether to add these stories, regardless of our earlier stipluation of one story/author on this site. So, while you won't find those stories on the ENT page currently, we would like to add them later on this year and we look forward to more fanfic from ENT as 2002 goes on.
We received the following comments (Name Withheld) on ENT:
"The quality of ENT fic so early in the show's run has impressed me and has attracted talented writers new to fanfic or Trek like Kay Jay and Jintian. So far we have mostly gotten short character pieces but that's to be expected I think this early in the game. Whether this promising trend continues, depends I think on how good the source material continues to be. One thing I don't think is helpful is the attitude toward ENT on ASC and ASCEM. Particularly right after the premier, I found the atmosphere on both NGs hostile to the new show. Fortunately, there are e-groups and web bulletin boards, like Djinn's "Enterprise and Beyond" among others, that are more nurturing of good ENT fic."
We also heard the following:
With the exception of one or two authors, ENT didn't seem to break through as I thought it would. It has veered towards slash - which is intriguing, considering how little development some of these characters have gotten, so I guess one pairing is as good as another. But the best ENT fics come from authors in other fandoms who briefly crossed-over for a moment like RabbleRouser, Djinn, Monkee, Penny Proctor - just to name a few. I hate to say it, but I am disappointed in what happened in terms of ENT fic. Perhaps, writers are jaded, given the glut of Star Trek we've experienced in the last 10 years or maybe it's because people simply don't want to get disappointed again in the same way Voyager disappointed its longtime fans.
For TOS, we found ourselves going back to our favorite authors over and over since again - once again running into the issue of whether we will feature an author more than once of this site; in the past, we did not want to do this because it smacks of favoritism - and our attitude to TOS reflected that favoritism blatantly this year. As a result, our focus on TOS this year were reflected not so much in the new works, but going back to quality authors such as JungleKitty (Spotlight Author February 2001) and Kathleen Dailey (Spotlight Author October 2001)
One person wrote to us to say:
In TOS, although there were some wonderful stories as good as that in any year, I don't think we had anything near the depth in quality or quantity of TOS stories in 2001 we had the year before. Only one newbie of any talent imo posted a TOS story this year on either of the NGs (last year there were several) and a lot of prolific TOS mainstays like Jungle Kitty and Wildcat have posted little this year.
On ASCEM, I noticed a disturbing trend in TOS where it seems that the only way stories distinguished themselves was in finding new ways to offend without any redeeming literary quality (or resemblance to the canon characters). Pedophilia, incest, necrophilia, deathbed fisting and snuff were just some of what was served up this year on ASCEM often to glowing feedback. I've never seen stories like that on ASCEM before this year--at least not so it was noticeable. Whatever the reasons for these trends in TOS fanfic, I find them very disturbing.
In TNG, we only added one story this year - a disappointment to the entire team and something we hope to rectify in 2002. Again, we found mostly short stories in TNG - PWPs with a heavy emphasis on P/C. With our new focus on TNG, we hope to bring you another spotlight author for 2002 as well as more quality fanfic.
The authors in DS9 may not be as prolific or visible as some of the other fandoms, but we did find that quality across the board stayed consistent as the DS9 authors offered up their regularly thoughtful fanfics. In DS9, we found the novel-length fics were still popular along with the shorter character pieces. Unlike other fandoms, "quiet" prevailed in DS9 - there were few, if any, action-adventure pieces this year and we noticed a sharp decrease in PWPS (with the exception of the G/B) pairing.
What happened in VOY fascinated the team greatly this year. We added more fanfics to VOY this year than any of the other fandoms, and two of our spotlight authors - Penny Proctor and D'Alaire - were from the VOY fandom. From a deluge of fanfics at the beginning of the year, we saw the fanfics start to trickle in after the airing of "Endgame." Some of the better known names in fanfic went to the virtual seasons to continue on VOY's story.
We received the following comment regarding the virtual seasons:
In Voyager, the Virtual Season 7.5 has been an unmitigated pleasure. Maybe because fanfic is so dominated by female writers we usually get character stories or romances and rarely get true sci-fi or action adventure. So it was wonderful to read stories so consistently well-written of substantial length with honest to goodness action-adventure plots in the spirit of Trek while paying attention to continuity and nuances of character. I'm impressed and envious of the depth of talent among Voy writers that makes such a collaborative effort possible. I can't imagine TOS authors getting together to write a series like this one.
One fan commented on the decline in Voyager fanfic following the season finale:
I think "Endgame" left a lot to be desired for a lot of writers - they saw a void and they jumped in to fill it. The efforts have been, for the most part, admirable, but the anger towards TPTB was pretty obvious, especially for C/7 - which was an unpleasant development for many people, especially the J/C fans. I think the disappointment in TPTB also brought a decline in the number of Voyager fics this year. It was almost as if people gave up on the show - even though there are probably plenty of stories left to tell. Or maybe it's the Virtual seasons that are attracting all of the attention and the writers - it's too hard to tell, but there's a whole lot less Voyager out there than in years past. I do hope this changes in the next year, but I'm not optimistic about it, especially since there is also a decline in FB on ASC. FB motivates writers so much - even a short note that says "I loved it" is perfectly acceptable and does a lot to keep a writer interested in fandom. Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case of late. A lot of stories, when posted, seem to disappear into a black void and the lack of FB could be intimidating for new writers trying out fanfic (any series) for the first time. That's another trend that I find vaguely disappointing and hope changes in the future.
In sum, 2001 was a very unusual year in terms of fanfic. The birth of a series, the end of another, while we found series which had started it all off still going strong. As promised, here are some comments from our Best of Trek authors, who were kind enough to take time out to reflect on 2001 from their point of view:
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