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x_losficSix Companions Whose First Novels I’d Read
and what they’d write
I'll answer these slowly, in order of ease, because this is also GRAD SCHOOL APS WEEK OMG.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aralias asked, and shall receive.
I’m going to cheat and do six, because like the Doctor, I love them all.
Berniece Summerfield has one of the most necessary characteristics of a great majority of excellent authors: a crippling substance abuse problem. Before I decided on History and English I was enamored of the University of Chicago’s Egyptology program, and even learned Middle Egyptian hieroglyphics there during high school. …while you were out getting laid and shit. Yeeeeah. Anyway, so: I’d follow her thinly-veiled self-insert archeological exploits like she was Amelia Peabody and Brax was a really, really weird Sethos.
Also, we know from First Frontier, which I’ve never actually read, that the Master loved her paper on Martian Feudalism, even though he though it was complete bullshit. Clearly a) she’s got mad skillz, and b) the Master is loveably lame, and when not out stalking likes reading up on academic archeology journals. He might also be a fan of the work of—
Evelyn Smythe. Evelyn’s certainly published before—she’s a Sheffield Hallam University professor, she’d got to have articles. In the universe where she ends up back on Earth, Evelyn would give us some well-researched Early Modern historical fiction, or, after her term in the TARDIS, Tudor!punk sci-fi.
Harry Sullivan would write a ‘Three Men in a TARDIS’ style travelogue that sounded a lot like it was the product of Bertie Wooster with a medical degree in space. Like Harry, it’d be lovely.
Sarah Jane is not only a professional writer, she’s probably the most casually snarky companion, and her chick-lit would be fierce. It’s a shame this is first novel, because Sarah Jane’s nonfiction work as a freelance journalist would be probing and well-voiced. Like Joan Didion but with less unframed indictment and dubious Barry Goldwater support. Gonzo journalism takes many forms, but Hunter S. Thompson would appreciate Sarah Jane's honest account of what went down that time she tried to impersonate her aunt. He'd want to meet her dealer, but he'd love it.
Shalka!Master--either as a bitchy move to spite the Doctor or as a complete accident (that causes him deep chagrin, but which he tries to pass off as entirely intentional), the discovery and publication of Shalka!Master’s diary (initially assumed to be an anonymous work of fiction) by Megadodo Publications of Ursa Minor would result in wealth the Master would have little use for and celebrity he’d be smugly happy to lay claim to and luxuriate in. It’d be like Bridget Jones Diary, only written by a put-upon urbane megalomaniacal genius struggling to adjust to domesticity and frustrated by the decorating difficulties presented by a Type 40 (There are only 3000 desktop themes! How can sentient beings live like this?!). The Doctor would mock him, bitch and sulk about the amount of fan mail that somehow finds them even in the Vortex, and resent the unpleasant degree of insight readers the universe over have into his sex life and various hilarious mishaps for the duration of the book’s solid millennia of popularity
Frobisher: I know from “The Maltese Penguin” that I can expect a Raymond Chandleresque dramatic-comedy romp. Beach novel? Beach novel.
Companions whose first novel I would rather re-read Ayn Rand’s Anthem than:
Charlie Pollard: I’ve done my whole ‘how I learned to stop worrying and love Charlie Pollard’ vision quest, and now that she’s found Six and consistent characterization, I do truly like her a lot. But in her first appearance we hear her expositioning her wee heart out, and her Victorian Adventuress!! Novel sounds like a Nancy Drew book traveled too close to a black hole, which sucked all the joy out of it. Also I have a feeling it’d be like Twilight, but with a tortured, mysterious alien who liked to wear a lot of velvet and couldn’t be with her because his mansome time urges were too strong or he lost interest after Scherzo or something, I don’t know, but anyway it’d be tragic and C’rizz would be Jacob and oh god why did I ever start thinking about this I’m going to stop now.
Romana: YEAH I SAID IT. So in “Zagreus” Romana appears to be writing a children's book where the Doctor is Ron to her Hermione, and even Brax, who is so in love he wants to sell his poster collection to make her president of the world of zombies and stuff, thinks this is pretty fucking funny. I think that while this book would be hilarious, it does not sound good, per se.
Special Mention:
Tom's Iris Wildthyme tell-all series: because you know they sound awesome.
Kiss Me, Kill Me: obviously this is Simm!Master’s Mary Sue-ridden, James-Bond-esque USTfest where the villain, by virtue of his NUMEROUS AND COMPLEX DISGUISES, triumphs over the British Intelligence Task Force’s dashing scientist!spy. Oh you know I’d read it. It would be like a huge platter of chili cheese fries, gross and totally worth it, beautiful terrible as the seas, etc. I would read the crap out of it. The author-read audiobook would be enshrined on my ipod. Lulz epic as Gilgamesh.
and what they’d write
I'll answer these slowly, in order of ease, because this is also GRAD SCHOOL APS WEEK OMG.
aralias asked, and shall receive. I’m going to cheat and do six, because like the Doctor, I love them all.
Berniece Summerfield has one of the most necessary characteristics of a great majority of excellent authors: a crippling substance abuse problem. Before I decided on History and English I was enamored of the University of Chicago’s Egyptology program, and even learned Middle Egyptian hieroglyphics there during high school. …while you were out getting laid and shit. Yeeeeah. Anyway, so: I’d follow her thinly-veiled self-insert archeological exploits like she was Amelia Peabody and Brax was a really, really weird Sethos.
Also, we know from First Frontier, which I’ve never actually read, that the Master loved her paper on Martian Feudalism, even though he though it was complete bullshit. Clearly a) she’s got mad skillz, and b) the Master is loveably lame, and when not out stalking likes reading up on academic archeology journals. He might also be a fan of the work of—
Evelyn Smythe. Evelyn’s certainly published before—she’s a Sheffield Hallam University professor, she’d got to have articles. In the universe where she ends up back on Earth, Evelyn would give us some well-researched Early Modern historical fiction, or, after her term in the TARDIS, Tudor!punk sci-fi.
Harry Sullivan would write a ‘Three Men in a TARDIS’ style travelogue that sounded a lot like it was the product of Bertie Wooster with a medical degree in space. Like Harry, it’d be lovely.
Sarah Jane is not only a professional writer, she’s probably the most casually snarky companion, and her chick-lit would be fierce. It’s a shame this is first novel, because Sarah Jane’s nonfiction work as a freelance journalist would be probing and well-voiced. Like Joan Didion but with less unframed indictment and dubious Barry Goldwater support. Gonzo journalism takes many forms, but Hunter S. Thompson would appreciate Sarah Jane's honest account of what went down that time she tried to impersonate her aunt. He'd want to meet her dealer, but he'd love it.
Shalka!Master--either as a bitchy move to spite the Doctor or as a complete accident (that causes him deep chagrin, but which he tries to pass off as entirely intentional), the discovery and publication of Shalka!Master’s diary (initially assumed to be an anonymous work of fiction) by Megadodo Publications of Ursa Minor would result in wealth the Master would have little use for and celebrity he’d be smugly happy to lay claim to and luxuriate in. It’d be like Bridget Jones Diary, only written by a put-upon urbane megalomaniacal genius struggling to adjust to domesticity and frustrated by the decorating difficulties presented by a Type 40 (There are only 3000 desktop themes! How can sentient beings live like this?!). The Doctor would mock him, bitch and sulk about the amount of fan mail that somehow finds them even in the Vortex, and resent the unpleasant degree of insight readers the universe over have into his sex life and various hilarious mishaps for the duration of the book’s solid millennia of popularity
Frobisher: I know from “The Maltese Penguin” that I can expect a Raymond Chandleresque dramatic-comedy romp. Beach novel? Beach novel.
Companions whose first novel I would rather re-read Ayn Rand’s Anthem than:
Charlie Pollard: I’ve done my whole ‘how I learned to stop worrying and love Charlie Pollard’ vision quest, and now that she’s found Six and consistent characterization, I do truly like her a lot. But in her first appearance we hear her expositioning her wee heart out, and her Victorian Adventuress!! Novel sounds like a Nancy Drew book traveled too close to a black hole, which sucked all the joy out of it. Also I have a feeling it’d be like Twilight, but with a tortured, mysterious alien who liked to wear a lot of velvet and couldn’t be with her because his mansome time urges were too strong or he lost interest after Scherzo or something, I don’t know, but anyway it’d be tragic and C’rizz would be Jacob and oh god why did I ever start thinking about this I’m going to stop now.
Romana: YEAH I SAID IT. So in “Zagreus” Romana appears to be writing a children's book where the Doctor is Ron to her Hermione, and even Brax, who is so in love he wants to sell his poster collection to make her president of the world of zombies and stuff, thinks this is pretty fucking funny. I think that while this book would be hilarious, it does not sound good, per se.
Special Mention:
Tom's Iris Wildthyme tell-all series: because you know they sound awesome.
Kiss Me, Kill Me: obviously this is Simm!Master’s Mary Sue-ridden, James-Bond-esque USTfest where the villain, by virtue of his NUMEROUS AND COMPLEX DISGUISES, triumphs over the British Intelligence Task Force’s dashing scientist!spy. Oh you know I’d read it. It would be like a huge platter of chili cheese fries, gross and totally worth it, beautiful terrible as the seas, etc. I would read the crap out of it. The author-read audiobook would be enshrined on my ipod. Lulz epic as Gilgamesh.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-11 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-11 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-11 03:41 am (UTC)...You are totally right about Charley. *snicker* And one day, someone needs to write the rest of Romana's fanfic.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-11 05:23 am (UTC)Also word to Romana's novel--fandom, take up the call! Surely someone out there can write Romana's Mary Sue?!
no subject
Date: 2009-08-11 04:28 am (UTC)Though this might be because I tend to over analyze his relationship with Lucy leik woah. I'm convinced that "My Angel Put the Devil in Me" means that he got her pregnant. All the other songs have secret meanings and it bothers me that this one gets left out of the fun!
no subject
Date: 2009-08-11 05:27 am (UTC)"IF ONLY YOU'D APPLIED FREUDIAN LITERARY CRITICISM TO MY BEAUTIFUL NOVEL, DOCTOR, YOU'D HAVE KNOWN I WAS GOING TO TRY AND ASSASSINATE YOU IN PRAGUE WITH A TRAINED PANDA. WHY DO YOU NEVER ADEQUATELY APPRECIATE MY CREATIVE EFFORTS?! THIS IS JUST LIKE THAT TIME WITH CASTROVALVA! DID YOU EVEN /LOOK/ AT MY TAPESTRIES?!"
no subject
Date: 2009-08-11 08:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-11 02:24 pm (UTC)I think I may be lying about not wanting to read it. I don't care if it's bad, because it's also going to be amazing.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-11 05:10 pm (UTC)Barbara might also write sweet historical romance in space (somehow I picture it not unlike Lois McMaster Bujold's stuff, only a tad less feminist and not so preoccupied with reproduction technology). And maybe Victoria wrote very sensitive gothic novels about the horrors she encountered during her travels, but I'm not sure they'd be any good.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-11 11:46 pm (UTC)Victoria /did/. Her favorite meme is 'Five Times I Had the Vapors.' And Barbara could be v.g., you're right!
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-17 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 09:18 am (UTC)