...a five shake case
| Zine | |
|---|---|
| Title: | ...a five shake case |
| Publisher: | |
| Editor(s): | |
| Date(s): | 1989 |
| Series?: | |
| Medium: | |
| Genre: | gen |
| Fandom: | Simon and Simon |
| Language: | English |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
...a five shake case is a 308-page gen Simon & Simon fiction anthology. It was agented by Bill Hupe.
From the Editorial
So shoot me. It takes me three years to get a 'zine together. I could give you a pile of excuses, hip deep. But I won't.
[...]
I think you're holding one hell of a good zine right now, definitely worth the wait. Christine gave me her story several years ago after we talked at MediaWestCon about Dead Letter File (my next major project). When you read it, let it be known that Chris wrote and finished it before the episode aired about AJ running for City Council. Rebecca Wise (nee Walker) wrote her script somewhere around third season before Liz dropped out of the picture. By the time she had it polished and ready to send out to an agent, the texture of the show had changed so much that she abandoned it. Soon after, she gave it to me so you could enjoy it. Rainbow's story was written on request by me. I wanted a story told from Marlowe's point of view, and she did better than I expected!
Rick's essay on summer camp was fun — I read hundreds of essays like this so I've gotten very good at imitating it. It's a bit longer than a usual essay by a 13-year-old, and very sophisticated, but if Rick told it, I think it would've come out like this.
[...]
The script I wrote has a frustrating story. I came up with the idea several years ago, but never really got beyond the outline and having the first scene written. Well, three years ago when the S&S crew came to San Diego to film what turned out to be their seventh season, my friend from the last shoot and I began talking. (Yes, he's the one who told me about the cancellation the year before. I showed him the flyer Chris and I sent around and he couldn't believe, still, that it actually worked. But he and the rest of the crew said thanks and I'm extending it to y'all who wrote in several years ago.) He asked if I had ever tried writing a S&S script. "As a matter of fact..." Actually, I was carrying my journal and notebook since I had to leave at two o'clock for school, so the bits I'd done years ago were inside. He asked to read it and spent ten minutes laughing over the opening dialogue. He suggested that I write it up and give it to him tomorrow at the stadium (Lynne and I were extras) and he'd try to show it to JP. True to his word, he did and the suggestion came back to get rid of the special effects (no budget for that) and try writing it as a script. Well, that's all the encouragement I needed. It took a while (an hour script is hard), but I polished it off last Christmas. The word trickled through my grapevine that CBS had cancelled it for good — no more letters, please. The guys had gotten the two more years they previously asked for and were ready to pull out. I was upset — it was finished, dammit — but there was no longer a market for it. So here it is. I hope you like it.
When you read the two scripts, you'll notice that the style is different. Rebecca's reads more like a shooting script while mine doesn't. Actually, all those angles (with a few exceptions) and stuff are put in by the set designer and camera people when they meet with the director before the shooting begins. So the writer is not obligated to put that stuff in. That's why they read differently.
One last item then I'll let you go to read the good stuff. I did some minor revisions on "Vida o Muerte?" I found some discrepancies (that's what happens when you write part two two years after part one) and lots of boo-boos so I took the liberty of cleaning them up. If you've already read the story in there's not a lot of differences, but I did change the ending, so you may want to read that before starting "Pen vs. Sword."
Contents
- Case File, editorial by Kathleen B. Retz (2)
- Vida o Muerta? by Kathleen B. Retz (5)
- Pen vs Sword by Kathleen B. Retz (A self-insert story.) (67)
- House Call by Rebecca Wise (111)
- The Name Knows by Rainbow T'Pyr (163)
- Tippecanoe and Simon Too by Christine Jeffords and Mary Otten (172)
- How I Spent My Summer Vacation "by" Richard Simon by Kathleen B. Retz (247)
- Intersteller Invitation by Kathleen B. Retz (252)
