It may be reader's burnout, to which I am subject after twenty years of obsession, but I found OS a bit overly long and the ending, in particular, was oddly and hesitantly paced. Still, Scully and Mulder do end up together. And they have sex, twice, which I suppose is what I meant by "softer, kinder." But you must admit that anything would have been softer and kinder than FCTIC. Which is actually a fantastic story, but sheer horror.
I skipped the sexy bits. Burnout.
Mulder of course did what he had to do--what he had done on the bridge--and maybe the story would have been stronger cut off there, with a brief addendum showing the two together in the basement. The will-she-or-won't-she attenuation of Scully's decision struck me as a little soapy.
The most interesting part of OS was the creation of the tormented twin Samanthas: one the mother of CSM's children, one a self-destructive stripper. (In my mind, anyone who goes to Vegas is self-destructive.) Were they real or highly developed clones? If they were real, was the extra one adopted--and then married, yuck--by CSM? This story really does an interesting thing with our familiar old baddie: we see him (through Diana) in psychological free-fall, failed in his career, addicted to his hideous private sins, fully deserving of retribution. I had no compassion for him, but I felt very sorry for the Samanthas and for Mulder, confronted with such a situation and forced into such an act. Yep, it's a pretty tough tale. Samantha was better off "in starlight," even if I thought that an idiotic resolution.
Syntax6 continues to be a very entertaining line-by-line writer, and her secondary characters were first-rate. OS also is piquantly open-ended, leaving open the possibility that somewhere, doing something weird, is yet another Samantha. We may not want to meet her. Still--shades of Iolokus!
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I skipped the sexy bits. Burnout.
Mulder of course did what he had to do--what he had done on the bridge--and maybe the story would have been stronger cut off there, with a brief addendum showing the two together in the basement. The will-she-or-won't-she attenuation of Scully's decision struck me as a little soapy.
The most interesting part of OS was the creation of the tormented twin Samanthas: one the mother of CSM's children, one a self-destructive stripper. (In my mind, anyone who goes to Vegas is self-destructive.) Were they real or highly developed clones? If they were real, was the extra one adopted--and then married, yuck--by CSM? This story really does an interesting thing with our familiar old baddie: we see him (through Diana) in psychological free-fall, failed in his career, addicted to his hideous private sins, fully deserving of retribution. I had no compassion for him, but I felt very sorry for the Samanthas and for Mulder, confronted with such a situation and forced into such an act. Yep, it's a pretty tough tale. Samantha was better off "in starlight," even if I thought that an idiotic resolution.
Syntax6 continues to be a very entertaining line-by-line writer, and her secondary characters were first-rate. OS also is piquantly open-ended, leaving open the possibility that somewhere, doing something weird, is yet another Samantha. We may not want to meet her. Still--shades of Iolokus!