Back to the Beach

Zine
Title:	Back to the Beach
Publisher:	Asbestos Press
Editor(s):	Kelly & Rosemary C
Date(s):	1997?
Series?:
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	Miami Vice
Language:	English
External Links:	online versions of the stories
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Back to the Beach is a 152-page slash Miami Vice anthology with stories by Flamingo, previously published in other fanzines. It is volume two of the collection of her Miami Vice stories.

• Along the Road of Dreams, published by Bodacious Press
• Sensei, published in Miami Spice 3
• Mr Saigon (new story)

Reactions and Reviews

Many people are just becoming aware of Flamingo through her recent S/H stories, but for several years, she languished fairly solitarily in MV writing incredibly hot and intense Castillo/Crockett (and Crockett/Tubbs. And Crockett/Castillo/Tubbs), one of the few writers doing so and definitely one of the only *good* writers doing so. This is the second collection of Flamingo's MV stories that Asbestos Press has come out with and like the first, all but one of the stories have been previously published but are nigh on impossible to get ahold of (read: some of them were published by Bodacious Press). As far as I'm concerned, *anything* with at least one Flamingo story is worth the price of the zine, generally. When you get a whole zine with her stuff in it, it's time to break open the wallet. And in this particular issue, there's one of my all time favorites by her.

"Along the Road of Dreams"--Originally published by Bodacious Press as a digest sized novella (the yellow one), this is set sometime during the first season, not too long after the episode "Out Where the Buses Don't Run" with Hank Wheldon. It's not necessary to be that familiar with the episode, though it does help. In this story, both Castillo and Crockett are suffering from extremely erotic and intense dreams featuring the other and have no idea why. Somehow, Hank Wheldon holds at least part of the answer. It's amazing to me how something like this, which is not heavy on plot at all, even less so than a lot of her other stories, can still have such sparks in it. Perhaps not one of my absolute favorites of her stories, but still a very sexually charged read.

"Sensei"--(Originally published in MIAMI SPICE 3 by Bodacious Press) Let me just say that I *love* this story. It actually features one of the sexiest scenes I have ever read in a story. Ever. (With the scene in the closet in PHONE SEX coming in a close second, if not tying.) The fact that I still don't think that it's physically possible is utterly beside the point. (Nothing truly kinky, but it does involve the both of them in the driver's seat of the Ferrari. That said, Flamingo explained to me for the first time last weekend that this was meant to be a h/c story to appease those wanting one. While it never occurred to me to look at it as such, it superficially fits the bill, I suppose. In a street confrontation, Sonny is blinded, possibly permanently. Castillo, feeling somewhat responsible for leaving him on the streets when he was still shaken up over a previous incident, takes Sonny into his home and decides to teach him how to defend himself as a blind person. Again, there's lots of sexual *tension*, not just sexual activity in this story which separates it from stories with similar surface plots in other fandoms. It's the element of eroticism that seems fairly lacking in much slash, in fact.

"Mr. Saigon"--This is the totally new piece written for this collection. An interesting look at a what if: What if Crockett and Castillo had met in Vietnam right before the Fall of Saigon? The flashbacks scenes are interspersed with 'present day' scenes set during the episode "One Eyed Jack", the episode that introduced Castillo as the new commanding officer of the department. Explaining some of the tension--and rather quick connection--between C&C in that first episode, the story is another well written one from this author. More than anything, I came away from this story like so many others that deal with Castillo's relationship with Sonny and Jack Gretsky feeling sorry for the man--he's got a thing for head cases who aren't known for fidelity.

If you are at all a fan of MV or have been introduced to Flamingo's writing through her S/H that she's been doing in the last year or so, I definitely recommend this one.