This is one of the best Blake's 7 fan fictions that I have ever read

March 21, 2024 6:20 PM

This is one of the best Blake's 7 fan fictions that I have ever read. Avon and Blake both survive Gauda Prime - but can Blake ever trust Avon again? and can they win the war against the Federation? In the Bleak Midwinter by x_los.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (19 comments total)

Thank you for the reading assignment.
posted by Well I never at 7:44 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Went right in my AO3 TBR list, thanks.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 8:28 PM on March 21 [3 favorites]

So the people who clicked on this might be the sort who would know -- if I was trying to track down a Blake's Seven fixit that had been printed as a fanzine or booklet and would have been early enough to be sold at the 1983 Worldcon in Baltimore, where would I look to find out the name and author? (I doubt the work itself would be online.) It was described to me as the shootout being a faked setup to make Avon think he had killed Blake and then I guess the rest was him having to be convinced of the truth or something? I've always been curious, because that conversation at the dealer table was the first time I had run into the idea of fanfic.
posted by tavella at 9:47 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]

Tavella, might be kind of hard to track down but fanlore.org and hermit.org are places to start.
posted by mochi_cat at 12:11 AM on March 22

Tavella, there's a list of Blake's 7 fanzines here.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 3:02 AM on March 22

I still love the circular way in which one of the Big Finish audios framed up what really happened on Gauda Prime.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:11 AM on March 22

Thank you for the reading assignment.

Increase reading speed to standard by seven.
posted by DreamerFi at 3:12 AM on March 22 [6 favorites]

What happened on Gauda Prime - the final bonus season of Blakes Seven, itself following a bleak episode that supposed to end the show, was pretty mediocre but the end went all out.
posted by Artw at 8:20 AM on March 22

Also Andor is just Blakes Seven fanfic, tell me I’m wrong.
posted by Artw at 8:21 AM on March 22 [2 favorites]

I'll take a look through the list of fanzines , though I suspect if it was classed as a fanzine, it would have been only because the idea of self-published works was translated through that universe at the time. I don't think it had anything else in the book(let) but the fic, though 40 years on I could be remembering it wrong.
posted by tavella at 10:47 AM on March 22

tavella, I have totally seen fanzines that consist of a single story. So it's not impossible that's what it was.
posted by suelac at 11:01 AM on March 22

Tavella, this author is a friend of mine, and she/her partner believe they know the fic you mean — it’s called “The Mind of a Man is a Double-Edged Sword.” Here is a link! If this isn’t it, let me know — they also had other theories.
posted by thesmallmachine at 12:24 PM on March 22 [1 favorite]

Ooh, that does sound right, thesmallmachine! The brainwashed thing definitely rings a bell, and the date is right since Constellation was in September 1983. Thank you so much!
posted by tavella at 2:03 PM on March 22 [2 favorites]

What happened on Gauda Prime

Still gives me chills to see that all these years later.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 2:42 PM on March 22 [1 favorite]

British TV really, really loves grim series endings and that’s one of the best of them.
posted by Artw at 2:44 PM on March 22

Well, it turn out there was one copy of it for sale out on the net, and I could not resist, and so it is now winging its way to me. I shall report back if I get it and read it before the thread closes.
posted by tavella at 9:35 PM on March 22 [3 favorites]

British TV really, really loves grim series endings and that’s one of the best of them.

It starts pretty grim too! I refreshed my memory of the series since I was going to read the fanfic, and it begins with Blake's comrades, family, and even lawyers all getting murdered and him mindwiped, induced to confess, and then being successfully framed as a child rapist. And there's only sporadic success in the middle before ending up with him being shot to death by a friend and most of his surviving comrades murdered (probably) by the Federation.

I think Farscape has a lot of Blake's 7 in its DNA, from the start where a bunch of disparate prisoners end up controlling a powerful starship, to the mix of silliness, black humor, and often less than happy endings to episodes. Also sometimes extremely cheap set design. I wonder if the Farscape creator has ever commented on influences.

Also, I got the "The Mind of a Man is a Double-Edged Sword"! I haven't had a chance to read it yet, it's the 1986 reprint, and apparently reprints were Serious Business; there's 4 different people's signatures on the opening pages attesting to it being an authorized reprint.
posted by tavella at 6:17 PM on April 3 [1 favorite]

The Farscape team absolutely own their influences. Grayza looked like Servalen on purpose...
posted by suelac at 8:04 AM on April 4

So I haven't finished it yet, but “The Mind of a Man is a Double-Edged Sword" is pretty well written! Definitely whump-heavy, but Blake's 7 wasn't exactly whump-light in canon either. Though there are definitely some points where it drifts towards smarm, I can see why one reviewer said it would actually work better as slash.

Also, x_los other fics are also good, not just the one in the post. I had a fine nostalgic time reading them.
posted by tavella at 1:29 AM on April 20