Sunday, August 22, 2010

A Valentine for the Family by Kamouraskan

If you follow the news on The Academy of Bards you’ll know that a few new writers were recently elected to The Academy’s “Hall of Fame”. If you have faith in your fellow readers and like a little guidance sorting through the thousands of (fan) fic’s available, you might want to look up the list of writers included in The Academy’s Hall of Fame. A number of the writers on the list have even had some of their stories reviewed at this site!

As some of these new HoF writers were unknown to me I thought that I ought to check out their writing - you never know where you might find a new favourite story! So I’ve spend a few hours browsing through the stories posted by Kamouraskan. Well if I really wanted to test the talent of this writer a few hours of browsing wouldn’t do, but as you’ve probably guessed by now, I don’t do the classics, which is to say that my little test reading has been restricted to Kamouraskan's uberish or original stories. As most of Kamouraskan fic’s are classic Xena stories the task of test reading wasn’t all that daunting.

The stories that I came across by Kamouraskan are not the highly emotional romantic fic’s of new love that are among my favourite on-line stories, but I found a refreshing edge in a few of the fics and an above average writing style.

“A Valentine for the Family” was the most catching and also the most disturbing of the fic’s. This fic relates the story of a long partnership between Joan and Sam and of the value of the family they build together in the face of being estranged by their close blood relatives. The story is set on the back drop of a society refusing to recognise that a same-sex partnership is just as committed and valuable as a marriage. If you want a little look into the possible wickedness of blood relatives go look up this story, but please be aware that it’s not for the faint of heart as it allures to sexual abuse.

I Can't Do This Alone” follow the trend set by “A Valentine for the Family” - a committed partnership being challenged by blood relatives refusing to accept the value of a same-sex relationship. It’s a rather short and sad story, but it do end on a positive note.

Finally I thought I would mention “The Colours of 1946” its different from both of the above mentioned stories in writing style and in the fact that it’s about the time it takes for a woman to recognise the nature of her feelings for her long time friend. It’s a short story and not at all disturbing, so if you want to end your little trip around Kamouraskan’s original / uber fic’s on a happy note, you could give this story a few minutes of your time.

All in all I think Kamouraskan has an imaginative mind and the ability to set up a coherent and entertaining storyline – so if you want to test out this writer I think that you’ll be safe with one of the above mentioned stories, even if neither the writer nor the stories will make it into my own private Hall of Fame.

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