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roginI came across the book, while surfing on a fangirl wave of devotion for Buffy the Vampire slayer and preordered it the instant it met my eye. A Book about internet fandom, for print, in real. I had to have it!
And I wasn´t disappointed. The author Allyson Beatrice describes life as a fangirl and the twisted ways of the web in a funny and very eloquent way.
The stories evolve mainly around Buffy and other whedonesque fandoms, but the main focus is on the personalities the author came across in her fandom. I´ve not socialized so much on the web with online Buffy fandom so far but so many of the personae and situations she describes go for every fan related message board, i´ve ever visited. The kerkuffles, where everybody calls everybody a fascist in the end, people who create fake personae to crave attention, family, who can barely e-mail. All this was so familiar, I would have hugged Allyson over the book, if that had been possible.
That also goes for her stories about the various ways, she describes friendships and social bonding in the web. At times the book was just funny and snarky but some parts were outright touching. I had to check on all my favorite message boards and online friends, right after finishing it.
It might be, because I´m into the same fandoms, as the author and also seem to have read the same books, but I really liked it. It´s not a book, I´d recommend to everyone, but for people, that spend quite some time online in discussions and fandom, it`s a great read. Besides it´s the first and only book on the topic I ever saw.
I really hope, she´ll write more, I´ll buy her books for sure.
And I wasn´t disappointed. The author Allyson Beatrice describes life as a fangirl and the twisted ways of the web in a funny and very eloquent way.
The stories evolve mainly around Buffy and other whedonesque fandoms, but the main focus is on the personalities the author came across in her fandom. I´ve not socialized so much on the web with online Buffy fandom so far but so many of the personae and situations she describes go for every fan related message board, i´ve ever visited. The kerkuffles, where everybody calls everybody a fascist in the end, people who create fake personae to crave attention, family, who can barely e-mail. All this was so familiar, I would have hugged Allyson over the book, if that had been possible.
That also goes for her stories about the various ways, she describes friendships and social bonding in the web. At times the book was just funny and snarky but some parts were outright touching. I had to check on all my favorite message boards and online friends, right after finishing it.
It might be, because I´m into the same fandoms, as the author and also seem to have read the same books, but I really liked it. It´s not a book, I´d recommend to everyone, but for people, that spend quite some time online in discussions and fandom, it`s a great read. Besides it´s the first and only book on the topic I ever saw.
I really hope, she´ll write more, I´ll buy her books for sure.
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Date: 2007-07-31 03:33 pm (UTC)I received my calling to Buffy quite late (amen) and am so far not into message boards, so I wouldn´t know anything about it.
She mentions fanfiction only very briefly (and no particular authors).
There is however one woman with the Nick "Penlind", that comes off quite deranged.
I think she tried to write the whole book so, that even someone who has never heard of Buffy, could read it (I doubt it would be very entertaining though), so it doesn´t get very specific.
Hm, despised Spuffy...knew there had to be some major character flaw somewhere! :)
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Date: 2007-07-31 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 09:13 pm (UTC)What were the more agreeable shippers then, by Furys (or Allysons) standards?
It´s like war stories, when someone is telling about the old days of fandom, when the show was still running and every ship had a mighty army at its command :)
To me it seems kind of strange, that the shippers are so divided, or that fanfiction is so shippy at all. Always thought the plot was more important then the pairings anyhow.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 03:41 am (UTC)Oh, man.
Back in those days, Spike/Buffy was HUGELY controversial, among the fans and the show's writers both. (Joss seems never to have stepped in and said, "OK, guys, this is the character's motivation. Like it or lump it.") Some of the controversy was simply shipping wars. B/A fans saw Spike as a bigger threat to their ship than Riley had been. (And they were right.) But there were some fans who simply thought that S/B was wrong - that Spike was evil, period, and Buffy being attracted to him would make her a bad person. Anyone who thought Spike might be changing for the better was simply deluded.
David Fury was of this camp. He actually got into arguments with fans about it on a couple of occasions. He really believed that it was wrong to ship S/B, and he also thought that it would be a terrible mistake to make Spike into a good guy, because if Spike could be good without a soul, then that cheapened Angel's struggle. Of course, knowing that some of the writers were 'on their side' encouraged the anti-redemptionist, anti-S/B fans to bash harder.
S/B fans weren't innocent lambs by any means - they may not have started the fight, but they gave as good as they got once it started. And, unfortunately, some of them behaved just as badly towards shippers they saw as threats as the B/A fans had once behaved towards them. (Ex-S/B fans who had become Fred/Spike shippers once Spike moved to AtS got badly trashed on some S/B boards, for example.)
Once Spike got a soul, Fury gradually and grudgingly came around to the idea of Spike-as-hero, and actually seems to have been the writer to stand up for the character most on AtS. But that took years. The Redemption Wars got really, really nasty at times, but it was one of the most exciting fannish experiences I've had, because for once, huge numbers of people were arguing about more than just who should sleep with who - they were arguing about the nature of good and evil, and the meaning of redemption, and what does a soul mean in the Buffyverse anyway. Which was pretty cool.
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Date: 2007-08-01 06:32 pm (UTC)omg, the war even has a name :)
Sounds like real fun, though. Part of me wishes, I had known the series back then (still don´t know, how I managed to ignore it for so long...deluded stupid me).
I thought about the whole soul, no soul, good evil issue more than was probably healthy on my own. Must have been great to discuss it, while the show was still running and every outcome was possible.
I remember not liking the idea of souled Spike too much, when it came up. It somehow seemed to render the things Spike had done for love, denying his evil nature, less special. But then it was nice, how little he changed, compared to Angelus/Angel, turning up a lot of other questions, about their nature.
So the soul thing sure has its appeals, but fic-wise I still prefer sans soul redemtionist.
Still interesting, that the shippers were that hostile with each other. Explains why there are (comparatively) few longer S/B/A fics around, though.
Pity, that the whole thing is pretty much dead in canon. Seems unlikely that either of the two will transcend publishers for more than a brief crossover.
I just had to check my DVDs to find out, which episodes from the later seasons were written by David Fury. Funny in this context, that it was him, who wrote Destiny in Season 5.