xf_book_club | Story 135: "Untold" by Melymbrosia

Once again, I am reminded it has been far too long between posts. But "Universal Invariants" was long and wonderful and worth spending the time on. Plus we had Thanksgiving weekend! Anyway, if you haven't already, there is still time to participate in the discussion, as well as send feedback to

syntax6. I am still hoping she will finish "Original Sin," eventually.

This week I have a short short story for you. I know I recced it at

crack_van and might have mentioned it in passing here too, but it deserves a post of its own. It is unusual for a story of this length, and in this genre yet, to have so impressed me since I usually like long stories with complicated plots.

Technically a post-ep for the pilot, "Untold" is told through a series of interconnected vignettes about the Consortium, featuring some familiar names and places, and introducing a few new ones as well. It is chilling and unforgettable.

You can read the rest of her stories at her website or at her author's page at Gossamer. Let us know what you think and remember to feed the author.

Read "Untold."

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This was so good. And 'good' in a different way than I usually mean it. This was a must read. It didn't feel like an addition to fanon. This was something I'd felt about the story but never been able to define exactly, until I read it, at which point it was stunning only in how naturally it filled in a part of the story.

I love each and every part. I love the way each part makes so many implications, but the writing remains so objective, leaving the reader to make the connections and feel about it what they will.

There are fics out there which focus on the suffering of characters who were swept aside and forgotten in canon, but often those fics are deliberately out to emphasize the way the show neglected to give such characters the treatment they perhaps deserved. there's a sense that the author is saying, "Hey, CC, just because they're not your heroes doesn't mean their pain means nothing."

But Untold, remarkably, manages to emphasize the way people got chewed up and spit out by the conspiracy. it emphasizes the neglect of the Consortium to value human life, without making it about the show's neglect. it's the way everything is taken, if not in stride, then simply as matter of fact, that i find so smart and so chilling; that attitude that says, "Of course there is a human cost. There always is, where these things are concerned."

And, upon further consideration, I realize that one of the most effective things Untold does is place Mulder and Scully on the same level with any of the other victims. It does this by not naming them. Mulder is, heartbreakingly, just a boy. Scully is just a woman, a green agent. We know who they are, but by denying them names it's forcing us to recognize them in the same 'class' as all the others, who are "just people". Which in turn forces us to draw back and look at the conspiracy in all its massive, enduring complication - something i feel isn't done enough. something i certainly don't do enough, anyway, because it can be hard to get the bigger picture into focus. one needs a fic like Untold to give such a Boschian panorama (http://stateofformation.resolvedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/HieronymusBoschHellD1.jpg) as TXF a bit of order.

One question: who are Mike and Jason Holloway? Were they canonical characters, or are they Melymbrosia's additions?

Yeah, it is really, really good. I was pretty blown away when I first read it. It's a reccer's wet-dream: a great story that I'd never seen on anyone's rec lists.

She ties together so many stories, bringing into focus the show's notoriously loose canon. By pushing Mulder and Scully back into the Consortium's larger story, she changes their personal tragedy into something more universal. Yes, yes. A Boschian panorama is exactly right.

it emphasizes the neglect of the Consortium to value human life, without making it about the show's neglect. it's the way everything is taken, if not in stride, then simply as matter of fact, that i find so smart and so chilling; that attitude that says, "Of course there is a human cost. There always is, where these things are concerned."

This story is so ambitious and so successful and so -- short -- all at the same time. It made me rethink every preconception I held about the limitations of the short, short story form.

As far as I know, Mike and Jason Holloway are not canon characters, they belong to Melymbrosia.

Wow, this was great, in a mind-boggling sort of way.

It's also worth noting that stylistically it's very different from this author's other work, which I like as well.

Mind-boggling? Yes, I agree. Mind-expanding, even.

It's also worth noting that stylistically it's very different from this author's other work, which I like as well.

I like everything of hers that I have read, which admittedly, isn't much. I've read all of The X-Files fic, the story about Aeryn Sun, all of which I liked. The story about Ellie I didn't understand very well, but I was a casual watcher of The West Wing. "Agatha" I did not get much out of either, but I was not a huge fan of "Minority Report." They both seemed well-written, but they weren't stories for people outside the fandoms. Sadly, I don't have many fandoms in common with her.

Besides "Untold," the story I like best is "Subaqueous," which I thought was a great missing scene for "All Things." Was it stylistically that different? I would have said "Untold" was different in tone and in structure from her other work, but it had a very different purpose. Okay. You've sold me. I guess that's style.

It's definitely worth taking the time to look at her other stuff if you share any fandoms.

I have read Melymbrosia, and I remember thinking that she does angst right: brief, hard, and to the point. The writing is hard, that is, in the way of prose that has been triple-edited by the writer herself. I don't mind feeling fictional pain but I don't enjoy enduring unnecessary words to reach it.

The thing about a dry, stripped-down recitation of bad things is that when someone expresses an emotion it really strikes a spark. When Bill Mulder waits to punish his son because he's sure to have done "something or other horribly and unforgivably wrong" it tells you all you need to know about the guilt and pain that has been assigned to Fox Mulder.

I didn't need to read something as long as Oklahoma to get that.

Everything everyone said. So so good. I kept thinking of those bright summer interns hoping to get name credit on some research paper while they do the consortium's dirty work... Close to home

Story 135: "Untold" by Melymbrosia

If conspiracy means "breathe together" would condeletum (destroy together) not be more accurate?

Re: If conspiracy means "breathe together" would condeletum (destroy together) not be more accurate?

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