With Never a Backward Glance of Regret....

Finished reading: "Ships in the Night", by smk

If you haven't guessed, I've taken a break from "Apocalyptic Daria". There is a lot of interesting fan fiction out there, and I don't know if I want to spend an entire month -- well, not a consecutive month, anyway -- on "Apocalyptic Daria". So in honor of one of my beta-readers, I took a pick at "Ships in the Night", a short fic by relative newcomer smk.

The story begins at the wedding of Stacy Rowe and Ted Dewitt-Clinton, and we hear voice over commentary from one of the attendees. The attendee isn't as attractive as the multiple attendees -- most of whom attended the same two years at Lawndale High School -- and resigns herself to being alone.

However, it turns out another young man is at the party. It's awkward enough that two of his ex-girlfriends are at the party, but in order to escape from Sandi Griffin, the two take to the dance floor. The guy is really nice, but her shoes are killing her and the band is almost ready to play another song....

(* * *)

I'll start out with the minuses and then the plusses. I had a hard time following the fic. There's a line where italics are used to represent the thoughts of the mystery man for example, and all other italics belong to the narrator. Bumping into sentences like that can throw the reader: was he speaking, or was she? Most likely, keeping the entire fic either first person or third person would have been a better idea -- an idea the author acknowledges at the beginning.

The other minus was that some of the humor depends on in-jokes and fan conventions. I didn't get Jane's "Australian boyfriend" until it was explained or any of the other fannish residences until they were explained in the comments. Unless you've read a lot of fanfic -- and I'm only now getting back into it -- the references go over one's head. All that happened was that I wondered how our narrator knew so much about the attendees if she wasn't particularly friendly with them.

The final line was also a bit corny. There. I said it.

However, the fic is a lot better after the first read and after you've deciphered who the players are. Furthermore, the parts of the fic that are third person -- where our female narrator is thinking -- have incredible energy to them which is sadly dissipated by the time she gets up to dance.

In conclusion: I hope the author gives fanfiction another shot. After all, I've read a beta-read of my own by this author and it was right on target; probably one of the best beta reads I've ever received. So why read someone else's fic when it could also be put to use creating fan fiction? I'd certainly give another read to smk's work.

(as for me...back to the saltmine....)