X-Files Book Club

I love angst and fix-it fics (and the writing of prufrock's love) but I'm ready to take a break from the post-series, post-IWTB setting, and read something set earlier in the series. This rec comes from last year's The Ten Greatest XF Fics You've Ever Read. Read what zinnia03 had to say about "America's Games":

America’s Games by Sarah Segretti. Author’s synopsis: “Assigned to the bioterrorism squad at the 1996 Summer Olympics, Scully tries to make sense of confusing evidence, her baffling partner and her uncertain place in a world where the X-Files don't matter.” Set just post-Talitha Cumi and Herrenvolk. Sort of a fish-out-of-water story with Scully temporarily assigned away from Mulder and the X-Files, though of course Mulder can’t stay away long. Scully tries to puzzle out the information from files they found at Strughold Mining, and Mulder wants to investigate ginseng farms in Canada. Both are frustrated by their lack of progress, plus there's an undercurrent that is making them snipe at each other. High tension story that fits the mid-series tone.

Read America's Games.

I'd love to know what you thought of the story. The nomination post is always open for your suggestions and I will get back to posting them soon. You can also read this fic at Sarah Segretti's Author Page at Gossamer.

Back when I was still having a normal life, I took on a number of Geocities-related projects. One is to recreate The Spooky Awards Archive, complete with working links, but minus the hideous graphics. Even before the demise of Geocities, the links had all gone dead on the old site. I did finish 1995 and put it up at Dreamwidth. Now that I am back working on that project, I thought it might be fun to read some of the stories that won awards back in the day. Believe it or not, some of them still hold up very well.

"Genius" is vintage Kipler, well-written, with believable season two-three Mulder/Scully interaction. It's genfic, which was more common then than now, or so I've heard, but in any case seems perfectly appropriate to me for the time period. The story is a case file/x-file, told from Scully's POV, involving a child abduction. Since it's not been that long since her own abduction, I think it's fair to say that Scully is a little creeped-out by this investigation. We all know how Mulder is with child abduction cases.

"Genius" won the 1995 Second Place award for "Most Carteresque," which I suppose is short-hand for the story that most resembles the show itself. Since I liked the show best back in the first few seasons, I was eager to see what a fine fanfiction writer could come up with that could fit seamlessly into the series canon. Kipler does not disappoint.


Kipler's old site went down when AOL Hometown closed, so the link is to her site, way-backed.

Genius
Kipler-waybacked

If anyone is still in touch with her, please let her know we are discussing her story. Please leave suggestions for next time at the nomination post.