I'm a teacher, academic, and published literary critic -- British, male, middle-aged, and tall, with too many cats. (The one looking at you from my userpic is the original of ImpSec, by the way.)

And in every case, the characters and settings used belong to the authors of canon, and are used without permission, for fun, not for profit.

The Peaceful Vorkosiverse

Comprising Forward Momentum, The Christening Tour, Not Place but People, The Two Ivans, Tug-of-Vor, Vor and Peace, Uncle?, The Peace Memorial, & The Propaganda Cycle -- preferably in that order.

The whole thing was also an experiment, as the summary says. LMB has that rule-of-thumb about when in doubt having the worst thing happen, and my father used to say that if you wanted to test a proposition, try turning it round -- so I wound up with the idea of having good things happen instead, which made me think hard about what spilt milk Miles would want to unspill if he could, and off I went. Several hundred thousand words later ...

Risking a plug, for those as might be interested I've written about Bujold and some of the Vorkosiverse fanfic, including my own AU, in a couple of essays collected in a volume called Of Sex and Faerie: Further Essays on Genre Fiction (Humanities-Ebooks, 2010, and available as a PDF from HEB's site, from Troubador in pbk, and through Amazon's Kindle stores; the PDF is recommended for tablets or anything else with a larger screen). In part, Forward Momentum was an alternative and a companion-piece to the straight Vorkosiverse essay in that volume, called 'Of Marriage and Mutations: LMB and the Several Lives of Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan'; the other stories in the Peaceful Vorkosiverse were left-over plot-bunnies that did what plot-bunnies do, and their children. And the process of writing both non-fic and fic as a response to Bujold's remarkable work led to the second essay, called 'Of Criticism and Continuities: A Personal Account of Serial Reading in the Age of the Web', which includes a brief historical account of fic that has some C19 and earlier C20 material I haven't seen cited elsewhere.

The complete AU is also posted both at LiveJournal and AO3 (I'm Bracketyjack in both places). Both sites present long material rather more readably than FFN, and allow proper section-breaks. AO3 also allows downloads in a variety of formats, for those who'd like to read on a mobile device.

I try to reply to all comments, but it's impossible here on FFN unless the commenter is a member. If you're not, but would like to discuss something, PM me with an eddress (which you will have to spell out using DOT and AT, or it will automatically be removed by FFN's nannyware) and I'll try to get back to you ASAP.

I also edit writing on genre fiction for Humanities-Ebooks, so if anyone is interested in writing non-fictionally about their favourite genre work -- whether crime, SF&F, YA and children's lit, romance, or whatever -- do please get in touch by PM'ing me. You don't have to be an experienced writer for publication, but there does need to be something you'd like to say about a book or series that matters to you. And while the rules about quoting fanfiction in print are kinda murky, there is nothing to stop anyone writing about fanfiction for publication -- and such work would be very welcome. God knows there's enough stuff out there that deserves serious comment : just think of it as properly courteous reviewing writ large ...

B'Jack

October 2011

Five Scenes in the Life of Elizabeth III

This reverse-angle fic (not my usual thing) came into existence as the overlong prologue of a novel to be called Honor Among Thieves, in which Honor was decisively to short-circuit David Weber's increasingly glacial timeline, whack High Ridge and his vile cronies until their eyes lurched, and feed all Detweilers to a passel of vengeful treecats. With BBQ sauce. But alas, it stalled at about 70,000 words, I haven't revisited it in a while now, and I can't see that changing any time soon ; so as this bit can stand alone ...

The "Teen and Up" rating is purely for the deaths of Denver Summervale, Pavel Young and Steadholder Burdette.

Dead fics tend to distress or annoy me, so I don't intend to post the unfinished novel, unless I should happen to be bombarded with requests for it. But if you'd like another 50,000 words or so, you're welcome to drop me a PM with an eddress and I'll fire it along.

B'Jack

January 2012

Lady Knight Volant

This long novel is canon compliant with events before Rathhausak, but overwrites the last chapter and epilogue of Lady Knight and shifts the dates of various weddings. Most but not all later canonical and extracanonical facts are adopted. The rating is a strong T, borderline M, for tauros rape and battle violence.

There are two continuity problems in Protector of the Small—the missing year in Squire, and the fate of Sergeant Connac. I assume Connac went with Sir Merric and the adult refugees, and lived. I also assume the scale of the map in Lady Knight is correct, not the various distances implied in the text, though I invent topography in the Greenwoods valley to suit myself. The missing year, notionally 457–8 or 458–9 HE, is trickier, and while I assume it was without major incident I adjust canonical dates, so Kel underwent her Ordeal aged 18 at Midwinter 460 (not 459, as in canon). I also posit that Kalasin’s canonically undated marriage to Kaddar took place, and (though it doesn’t fit politically or with regard to Daine’s children) the undated events of ‘The Dragon’s Tale’—so Skysong can talk to humans, and the opal dragon Kawit is sometimes seen in Tortall.

There are many fic continuations of Lady Knight, some excellent—but none quite did everything I wanted and I make no apology for writing another that does. One purpose was to continue the quartet’s novel-by-novel curve into greater length and more serious concerns, and the rating is for violence, sexuality, and tauroses; I have little interest in being graphic for its own sake, but readers will not be left doubting what has happened. A second grew from the way TP keeps her Tortallan series as distinct as they are interconnected, and my curiosity as to whether, say, Diamondflame ever visited Kitten in Tortall or how the sociopolitical experiment at Dunlath fared during the Scanran war. An infusion from The Immortals gave Kel her knowing animals, so that aspect needed to be projected too. This does mean that Kel and others are growing and changing, and I don’t believe she could survive events at Rathhausak and after without effects that run deep.

I also owe two impersonal acknowledgements -- to ConfusedKnight, for her remarkable Fallen, now nearing epic completion, from which I take some Scanran names and history (including Somalkt and the Bloody Plains), and which first made me ponder the plot value of tauroses; and to Sarramaks, for her splendid Festival Sequence, for the idea of using the old quarter-day and cross-quarter-day holidays as a structural principle. And two personal ones, to Matthew and to Scott, for beta-reading.

In the language of heraldry a bird 'volant' is shown in flight.

For those who like visual aids, I've posted my working-plan of New Hope and a cross-section of palisades, glacis, and moat at my LiveJournal account -- use the tag 'map'.

And for what it's worth, I have published on Pierce -- an essay, 'Of Stormwings and Valiant Women', in my collection Of Modern Dragons, and a little guide to 'The Immortals'. A guide to 'Protector of the Small' with annotations, an essay, and a note on PotS fanfic will be out in a few months.

B'Jack

September 2012

And, just in, Tonnocal has done some fanart of New Hope, very pretty and pleasing. It's back-to-front (or top-to-bottom) from my p-o-v, but a delight, and Tonnocal has my warm thanks. You can see it here, on deviantart.

For those who like their barding, the Metropolitan Museum has just (wonderfully) made available online their entire out-of-print back catalogue, including The Armored Horse in Europe, 1480-1620 (2005). The PDF takes a while to load but is well worth it.

And if you want a rather disturbing glimpse of what a spidren might be like, try this short video.

Captain Vorpatril's Plotbunnies

The result of an attack by a half-squad of those plotbunnies, suffered while reading Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, and given what I hope is slightly more shape than just a sequence. My thanks to Scott for beta-reading.

B'Jack

February 2013