I'm about halfway through, but I thought I'd comment on what I've read so far just to get the ball rolling. I took notes as I read, so sorry if my thoughts seem disjointed!
Disclaimer: I haven't read Negative Utopia, and I couldn't get into Hiraeth/A Moment in the Sun/Paracelsus enough to finish, though I did try. Also, in my real life I'm just a band director/musician with no creative writing training so my opinion is basically worthless!
I know pru has a large following, and I can certainly agree with and appreciate her talent for very fleshed-out worlds and unique, interesting plots. The majority of her writing in this story is smart (I will expound upon this point later); however, there has always been something about her characterizations that fall a little flat for me. There's definitely enough recognizable about her characters to tell an entertaining story, but there is rarely a time when I can 100% reconcile her Mulder and Scully with the Mulder and Scully we see on the show (jeez, I'm going to get crucified for this, but I also feel the same way about some of the works by other much-beloved authors, like syntax and penumbra). Of course that doesn't mean that I don't still enjoy reading these fics or find them well-written in other ways. I do! It's just that the X-Files is so much about these characters and their interactions that everything else is almost secondary for me, and it's difficult to feel invested in a fic if I don't recognize M&S. Having said that, I feel like this works in prufrock's favor in this story: of course Scully/Mulder/Skinner would be a bit out of character and/or unfamiliar to the reader in this new world they're living in after colonization. That makes perfect sense. I guess what I'm saying is I can appreciate these kinds of characterizations better when I know they're important or relevant to the story (as a side note, I would love to read some of prufrock's original fiction; I think she'd be excellent).
Love that Skinner is in charge of the colony. It feels believable and I like seeing his military background surface. Don't love the Skinner/Scully aspect, but that's just personal preference; I understand and appreciate its larger function in the story, even though the whole "Scully is a commodity" thing makes me uncomfortable (which, again, is probably the point: pru shows humanity/society pared down in some ways to its most basic, animalistic form post-colonization). It's an interesting concept for Mulder to "use" Skinner's body in order to be intimate with Scully. I don't know that everyone in that scenario would just be as immediately comfortable with it as they're presented in the story (and would Mulder really be selfish enough to influence their thoughts and feelings to get what he wants, even if it's at the expense of other important work being done in the colony? I don't know, but then again he may not be Mulder anymore, which would explain it), so that kind of put me off a little.
Pru has a tendency to get caught up in details, I think. Sometimes it works great and adds something to the story (like Byers never wearing his holster, loved that little bit of info), but other times it can make some of her passages seem too dense and slow the pace down. Right now, about halfway in, the pace is and has been too slow for me. I'm also not crazy about the writing style in the flashbacks to the beginning of Mulder and Scully's relationship in and out of the bunker. The romantic language/similes feel a bit cliche ("You're my girl" pleassssseee no, that really took me out of the story every time someone said some iteration of it), but I think this is because I know prufrock is absolutely capable of some beautiful prose (or possibly because I read way too much MSR).
no subject
Disclaimer: I haven't read Negative Utopia, and I couldn't get into Hiraeth/A Moment in the Sun/Paracelsus enough to finish, though I did try. Also, in my real life I'm just a band director/musician with no creative writing training so my opinion is basically worthless!
I know pru has a large following, and I can certainly agree with and appreciate her talent for very fleshed-out worlds and unique, interesting plots. The majority of her writing in this story is smart (I will expound upon this point later); however, there has always been something about her characterizations that fall a little flat for me. There's definitely enough recognizable about her characters to tell an entertaining story, but there is rarely a time when I can 100% reconcile her Mulder and Scully with the Mulder and Scully we see on the show (jeez, I'm going to get crucified for this, but I also feel the same way about some of the works by other much-beloved authors, like syntax and penumbra). Of course that doesn't mean that I don't still enjoy reading these fics or find them well-written in other ways. I do! It's just that the X-Files is so much about these characters and their interactions that everything else is almost secondary for me, and it's difficult to feel invested in a fic if I don't recognize M&S. Having said that, I feel like this works in prufrock's favor in this story: of course Scully/Mulder/Skinner would be a bit out of character and/or unfamiliar to the reader in this new world they're living in after colonization. That makes perfect sense. I guess what I'm saying is I can appreciate these kinds of characterizations better when I know they're important or relevant to the story (as a side note, I would love to read some of prufrock's original fiction; I think she'd be excellent).
Love that Skinner is in charge of the colony. It feels believable and I like seeing his military background surface. Don't love the Skinner/Scully aspect, but that's just personal preference; I understand and appreciate its larger function in the story, even though the whole "Scully is a commodity" thing makes me uncomfortable (which, again, is probably the point: pru shows humanity/society pared down in some ways to its most basic, animalistic form post-colonization). It's an interesting concept for Mulder to "use" Skinner's body in order to be intimate with Scully. I don't know that everyone in that scenario would just be as immediately comfortable with it as they're presented in the story (and would Mulder really be selfish enough to influence their thoughts and feelings to get what he wants, even if it's at the expense of other important work being done in the colony? I don't know, but then again he may not be Mulder anymore, which would explain it), so that kind of put me off a little.
Pru has a tendency to get caught up in details, I think. Sometimes it works great and adds something to the story (like Byers never wearing his holster, loved that little bit of info), but other times it can make some of her passages seem too dense and slow the pace down. Right now, about halfway in, the pace is and has been too slow for me. I'm also not crazy about the writing style in the flashbacks to the beginning of Mulder and Scully's relationship in and out of the bunker. The romantic language/similes feel a bit cliche ("You're my girl" pleassssseee no, that really took me out of the story every time someone said some iteration of it), but I think this is because I know prufrock is absolutely capable of some beautiful prose (or possibly because I read way too much MSR).
(continued)