The Tea Bowl - Cooperative Fiction
As many an old timer will tell you, most of the fiction posted in the Chatsubo
used to be cooperative work. These days it's almost entirely solo stuff.
In this section I've tried to piece together some of the jointly authored
stories, starting with the grand daddy of them all (in more senses than
one).
This is huge. It near enough dominated the Chatsubo for the first couple
of years, judging by the archives. In fact, I've put it up as a zip file
(347k), since nobody's going to read 863k on line. You'll have to save
it, decompress it and then read it. At least two of the story strands in
Model 66 have also been treated as separate entities (Nekoko's Story and
Lab Cat Karma), but they tie into this greater whole. You could see it
as a collection of linked stories rather than a single story with multiple
authors.
Here's somethimg Jim Gaynor (who wrote the character Blackjack) said
along the way:
Hubert Bartels swung in with a character he was using in a Shadowrun
game I was running at the time. The story of Nekoko and the ARES hunter-killer
was a great one. That story and the story of Liralen's steel-blue character
got intertwined, and soon it seemed like everyone was writing a part of
the "Model 66" storyline. Nobody noticed that all the conversation had
ended, and that the Chat had started to revolve about this massive multi-
writer story. Not to say that that it was the only story. Kent Jenkins'
Ode to Joy, the 'Ski stories, the Willy Wonka story, all were wonderful.
But a.c.c. still seemed to be centered on this one story.
Unfortunately, he went on to say:
That is, until some of the major writers had to drop out - right
near the climax of this monstrous story.
The finale limped on, enough that most people could stop feeling
guilty about that parts that went unfinished.
Such are the perils of internet fiction. Actually, I think the ending hangs
together pretty well. A few characters fade out without reason and there
are some loose ends; but the resolution of the central plot strand is a
cracker which fills me with admiration.
Anyway, as the old wolf would say, enough static - here's
the deal.
...vintage 1993 to 1995, is on Liralen
Li's web site.
A typical evening in the bar, with clientele courtesy of Daniel "Kane"
Harty, Evan "Thunderfoot" Gibson and Justin "Jus T.Ego" Otto.
By Wendy H. Ohnsman, Evan Gibson (Thunder), Whisper and Jus T. Ego.
Kathryn Anderson, Stephan Dahl and Jonathan Burns, 1991
Tim Kuehn and David Yu (Moonrise Programmer), 1992
Henry Robertson and Donovan (a beat-up tan hat wearin' kinda guy).
More to Come
Once I've got my head round the UN Patrol and White Crystal stuff and decided
what goes where. Others, too.