CC: Feather Roads Series By Mad-Hamlet

["The Watcher" <thewatcherau@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Feather Roads Series
by Mad-Hamlet

http://www3.mb.sympatico.ca/~shadow27/madhamlet.htm

Water
City
Subterfuge
Talking the Talk
Risqué
Revelry


What do Rack, Spike and Mad-Hamlet have in common??

No, not that, apart from their years of service to the forces of
darkness....

Well??

In the immortal words of Spike "I'm in your system now you're gonna crave
me, like I crave blood"

And just as the loveable Buffy and Willow each have their "addictions" to
feed so do we. But anyone who's been there knows each high needs to be
bigger and better than the last. It needs to take us to places we've never
been and hold us there in it's firm grasp as we feed off the energy and
drink of it's essence. It needs to show us new worlds, new vistas, new
senses and to enhance the experience 100 fold.

Basically in short it needs to be bigger, better and not just a rehash of
the same old shit.

Is it?

Yes and No.

How's that for an emphatic answer :-)

Hamlet achieved something with Prisms and Forge that many people have tried
and failed at, he made "dark" palatable to the masses. He's taken a subject
that many abhor and shy away from at the first chance and made it, not warm
and fluffy, but certainly nowhere near as cold and harsh as one might
expect. Not only that but he's open some people's eyes up to the fact there
is far more than ONE aspect to a relationship. Something which many
fanficcers would happily ignore. Life's not a box of roses every day, it has
it's ups and downs and those highs can be ecstatically high and the lows,
abysmally low. And as much as it abhors me to make the comparison this is
"Reality Fic" (and I say that in the nicest possible way I assure you).

>From the depth of dark despair that we encountered in Prisms a bond was
formed and welded and strengthened in the Forge. Finally Hamlet has emerged
from the dark with our heroines and is now letting them have the fun that
they fully deserve.

We'll look at each of the parts then see how it fits in overall...

Water in and of itself could probably be dismissed as a PWP piece serving no
other purpose than to show how much in love Buffy and Willow are.
Fortunately this is what we need to get us out of the dark. We need to see
that they have moved on from the dark times (coz knowing these two there's
sure to be more just around the corner). Using his trademark Wandering
POV(tm) he basically plays, dragging them away from the depths of previous
stories and what better way to do it than water, sunshine and bikinis.
Xander and Anya make an appearance and both are well done, Anya for the most
part was good and this is unusual as she is a difficult character to write
something that is evident even at times on the show itself. A couple of
comments and actions seemed off but nothing that I'd hold against anyone.
The bright start to the series is VERY un-Hamlet and in being that is
wonderful in two regards. It's always nice to see a writer trying (and
succeeding) at a different aspect of fiction and secondly it was what was
needed for the first install of Feather Roads.

One thing people like about Angel (the series) and Buffy (the series) is
the way that they both frequently refer to events that happen in the other.
I loved the phone call during the pilot of Angel. Just something small but
poignant nonetheless. It's in this regard that City is so good. It takes
our favourite dark slayer and remembers her. Doesn't discard her as some
convenient plot device for the previous series of stories. There's
"development" there and through a very simple one line at the end a
connection is made and in many ways all is explained. As Hamlet himself
would say a wonderful example of "Show, don't Tell"

For our next instalment Subterfuge a wonderful thing happened, it came
alive. I don't know about many of you but when I read stories (ESPECIALLY
fanfic) I visualise what's happening, read what's on the page and play it
out before my mind's eye, SEEING what I'm reading happening right in front
of me. Sometimes I fill in my own details and "fill in the blanks" the
writer may have left or that may not have been clear. I get my own
perception in my head of how things are happening. In this way I find it
VERY interesting to go back and read over something very slowly and
carefully and see if what was actually written was what I played out in my
head or if I was forced to "edit as I go" due to deficiencies in the writing
or various other reasons. But occasionally (and it happens more often with
fanfic as the characters are already "there" and real) everything fits in
perfectly and you can just SEE the scene playing out like you were there
watching it happen, there writer describes ALL the reactions all the
actions and they are EXACTLY what you expect because you KNOW these
characters. The characters come ALIVE in your mind. I could SEE every face
Willow made, SEE her blush, SEE the wikkid grins Buffy made and all the
rest. When you finish something like that it's amazing. You haven't just
READ a story you've almost LIVED it, and THAT is why I read so much. Looking
for those rare instances when the words come alive.

Well all know and love Buffy as a great show and many people like it for a
number of different reasons but two pretty much stand out amongst them as
being almost universally regarded. One is the writing, the fact Buffy hasn't
won a writing emmy is a FUCKING travesty and not something I'll get into
here. The second is the comedy. The show is FUNNY, even when it's being
serious it's funny (Xander's hand through the wall in The Body). Something
that contributes in a VERY big way to both of these being successful is the
dialogue, the words they speak, the language (or slanguage as I've seen it
called). It's fast it's crisp it's right on the money.. They are Talking the
Talk and Hamlet gets it SPOT ON here. There are VERY few writers who I've
seen that are able to match the show's writers for dialogue. Hamlet has done
so here. This is THE BEST indication of how well a person (a writer in
particularly) knows the character they are writing about. Hamlet is a
self-avowed huge Willow fan and this is VERY evident in this part.. He has
her dead to rights. Include the babble mode. What actually surprised me
about this part was how well Hamlet had Joyce pegged. her reactions and
words seemed very RIGHT. You KNOW you've read some HIGH QUALITY fic when you
find yourself thinking. Jesus this must be a transcript from the show.
Personally I'd love to grab a camera, the three actresses and film this
section RIGHT NOW.

Well Risqué, probably doesn't quite live up to it's name in terms of, as
Pre-Outing Larry might say, "some of that Buffy/Willow action" but it's pure
Buffy/Willow and pure joy for shippers everywhere, it rings so true. Hamlet
seems to have his finger directly on the B/W pulse. And in this instalment
you can see it beating away furiously.. :-)

As much as our previous effort was pure Buffy/Willow Revelry is pure Spike.
Yes our fav neutered Vamp is back and this time Hamlet shows that with a
little lateral thinking and the right circumstance that even a chipped Spike
can still be the Spike of old. THE BIG BAD's back and that's why we love him
(as long as he's not loving Buffy :-) )


So there we go. How does that compare to the previous efforts? Good? Bad?
Indifferent? On the whole I'd say good. But what I'd mostly say is Apples
and Oranges. In no way does Feather Roads compete with Prisms or Forge it
acts more as counterbalance but in the same way he definitely hasn't
rehashed previous material and served it up again, this is something
completely different and in that way is VERY good. My only complaint.. too
short. Through a series of snippets from their lives Hamlet has shown us the
other side of the moon, he started on the dark side but now he's given our
group their moment(s) in the sun (even Spike in a metaphorical way) he's
shown that darkness doesn't exist on it's own it's just the absence of
light. And without one the other can't exist, and by highlighting one you
show just how powerful the other can be.

Ever been in a dark room and had a flashlight shined in your eyes, then you
know that there is somewhere where you can see LESS than even when it's
pitch black. The sudden presence of light shows you that there is in fact
always somewhere darker, no matter how dark it gets. So by abandoning his
roots maybe, just maybe, Hamlet has actually shown us how deeps his roots
may go.

Until Next Time

-TW


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