Cascade Visions

Zine
Title:	Cascade Visions
Publisher:	Nuthatch
Editor(s):
Date(s):	2003
Series?:
Medium:	print, CD
Size:
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	The Sentinel
Language:	English
External Links:	flyer
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Cascade Visions is a slash 125-page anthology. Color cover by Jade. It is "illustrated with art by Pat, Virginia Sky, Jade, and lavishly photo illustrated." There is also a CD called "Cascade Digital Visions".

From the flyer: "The stories themselves are not on the disk, but CASCADE DIGITAL VISIONS features a contents list which pulls up the synopsis and sample for each of the major stories, and being multimedia, it's all richly illustrated with photos and digital art!"

From a Flyer

CASCADE VISIONS in Pre-Press

The website is under design at this time, and it'll be uploaded in time for the next major NHE newsletter. But the exciting news right now is that after two years, CV is happening. It just isn't happening quite as we had imagined... read on!

We opened the zine for submissions in October of 2001, right after we produced SHAMAN by Toshua, and we discovered in the next six months or so, it was going to be tough to get enough stories ... the web is a wonderful place for writers to work and be read, and often zines tend to get blown away by it! So it took quite a while to put together a good mass of stories, and when we'd gathered enough to make a zine of nice proportions, we had to get our teeth into another challenge: two of the long-pieces were not well-suited to a general T/S zine -- they're GREAT stories but an editor would hesitate to include them in a middle of the road issue because each one has a 'different' element that may not be every reader's cup of tea (or coffee if you prefer).

[information about Menage a Enterprise and A Year with Mason snipped, see those pages]

Well, with two thins under production, we're also left with a whole zine's worth of mainstream material featuring some of the best-known and best-liked writers and artists: a lovely 20pp first-time piece from Alyjude, a long one from Lyn which is a 'what if' reworking of an episode, a raft of Patt's vignettes plus another story-length tale from her, in which Blair and Jim are 'out of tune' with each other and it's Conner to the unlikely rescue ... Wally is here too, and Barbara Jones (both well known in Pros and S/H but new to T/S), and we have loads of art from 'PR1,' Virgina Sky, and of course Jade. The zine is also stuffed-to-busting with photos, and will be under a color cover by Jade...

So what happened to the CASCADE VISIONS CD-Rom???

It's still being done, but ... differently. We just had a not-altogether pleasant experience with our first direct zine-to-CD project. Sales were very small (under 30), and this is more than likely because it may have been poorly reviewed on the lists. It took six months for us to track down why some readers had not liked the disk. But eventually we did learn that for at least a significant percentage of the fanfic world, readers have little or no interest in graphics, photos, videos, animation, sound bytes, full color paintings, music videos, special effects, and all the other things which to us are so great. They want only the stories; what were termed 'the bells are whistles' are unwanted baggage. Moreover, readers wanted to be able to get into and out of the disk instantly, and go right to the stories: the 20 second videoclip intro and close-out sequences which we'd installed on the Cross My Heart #14 CD-Rom to represent the zine-cover and the on-screen credits, were enough to put off some users. Further, not everyone wants to read on the screen; they want to be able to just print the zine out. In the interests of trying to control the fate of the stories (keep them from free-distribution at least in the short term) we installed a print-manager on the CMH #14 disk that allowed the generation of draft quality copies, not printer-ready zine pages ... and of course a few people discovered how long it takes, and how much it costs, to print out a zine-thick wedge of paper! Finally, we can't make a true multimedia disk for Mac, which leaves 10% or so of users 'out in the cold,' and feeling annoyed, which is never a good thing ... and/but what really took us by surprise is that some readers are still using systems too old to play multimedia in any case (another 10% of the community???) We genuinely thought that pre-1997 PC systems had all gone to computer heaven!

All these things make us very reluctant to put CASCADE VISIONS on a CD as a zine-on-disk. The experience with CROSS MY HEART #14 showed us, people want PAPER zines, no matter the fact that they're expensive to print and mail! But..

This doesn't stop us doing a CASCADE DIGITAL VISIONS CD-Rom. It will be an addition to the zine(s) ... it will have all the aforementioned goodies: all the color photos, the graphics, wallpapers, videoclips, animations, morphs, sound bytes, full color paintings, music videos, special effects... the only thing it won't have -- the stories. On the disk, you'll get whole libraries of JPEG photos (over 1000), wallpapers for Mac or PC, a collection of sounds and videoclips, and the FLYERS, teasers and sample chapters for the stories. But right at the point where most people would be looking for the 'print' button, we'll hand the production over to the paper zine.

You'll be able to buy the zine without the disk, of course, if you genuinely have no interest in having all that stuff. Getting the disk/zine combination, the disk will be slipped inside the zine... and you'll be able to get the disk without the zine, too, in which case it will be in its own CD-case, like the DIGITAL DREAMS: Digital Dreams: Starsky & Hutch and Pros disks.

Lastly, we've been able to address the problem of compatibility with Mac: a Mac version of the disk will be done using Javacript. A welcome page will pop open Internet Explorer, and then the all-singing, all-dancing show will run inside a Java environment. The only point we have to make here is, Mac users who are running Netscape ONLY, and have a moral aversion to Internet Explorer, won't see a majority of the show, because Netscape is incapable of handling all of the code. However, *any* Mac or PC users will be able to access the resource libraries, and we urge the Mac user to bend the rules in this one instance, and run Internet Explorer, which *can* handle all of the code!

So here we are: CASCADE VISIONS has turned into *three* zines and a CD, which give readers total control over what they want: you order only the content you want, you don't have to get a page or a disk you don't need!

Incidentally, we'll be offering a package deal: 1, 2 or all of the zines, plus or minus the CD-Rom, plus or minus the coasters plus or minus a set of wallet photos which can be added into the 'full package' for about an extra three bucks! All info will be on the new CV webpage in a couple of weeks.

Phew! It's been a long road, but we're here at last!!

If you have ANY questions about Cascade Visions, then please email me at dldownes@...

The Editorial

By JJ and Mike:

The zine has been a long time in the planning, and the final product turned out to be three zines. two "thins" and the full-sized Cascade visions, which came in at 127 pages. If you add the three issues together, we actually produced about 280pp of brand-new SENTINEL material, plus a CD-Rom ... that's quite a contribution, and we're proud of it It's been a lot of fun. and we can already hear folks saying, 'what about another issue? That's a good question ... and it can only be answered by the writers and artists. We would love to do another issue, but you can't make a zine happen without stories and art. Hint, hint!

For the moment I want to thank our contributors... there's some great reading ahead of you as you get this zine (or these zines. If you have them all) in your hands. And then there's the CD-Rom, which can be used by anyone with any kind of computer.

we made the decision to produce the CD a long time ago, in fact all illustrated NHE zines have included a picture disk for some time... because photocopiers ruin artwork and photos. Even if you can get access to a machine which is specifically set up to copy photographic images, the result is a compromise. And at this point in time, the machines we have access to are set up to favor text. Our compromises have been twofold: we generated a set of printouts of the artwork which were designed to make the copiers job as easy as possible (ie.. the prints are washed out and gray ... to the naked human eye they look pretty bad. but the Xerox loves them), and then we've used all the photos and art on the CD-Rom. where you can see the whole suite of illustrations in living color. In this way, we can all have the best of both worlds.

We hope you enjoy this issue... and the call is out to writers and artists: If everyone would like another issue of CV, hey guys, its about team work! We'll handle the multimedia, the DTP and the websites, and we'd love to hear from you!

Contents

• Promises by alyjude (Blair makes a New Year's resolution to give Jim some space and not 'push' him ... like that's going to work out?! A vivacious, witty piece filled with astute human observation!) (7)
• Lights Were On, No One Home by Patt (27)
• You Phoned by Patt (28)
• Someone Had to be Tough by Patt (A classic case of a guy getting the wrong side of the story sends Jim into Megan's arms, while Blair quietly goes nuts in the background...) (32)
• Blairs by Wally (As always, Wally finds a different perspective which you may never have anticipated. She's out in left field, and taking a look at the genetics of the sentinels and guides, and the mechanics of a secret society!) (49)
• You Just Felt Right by Patt (64)
• Bonds by Lynn (Here is a fresh take on 'The Seige' ... how would the story have turned out if Blair was taken captive? This re-telling of a pivotal episode is enormously compelling.) (66)
• They Got Their Man by Patt (118)
• Magic by Patt (123)

• 
• 

Reactions and Reviews

PROMISES by alyjude Blair makes a New Year's resolution to give Jim some space and not 'push' him ... like that's going to work out?! A vivacious, witty piece filled with astute human observation!

BONDS by Lynn Here is a fresh take on 'The Seige' ... how would the story have turned out if Blair was taken captive? This re-telling of a pivotal episode is enormously compelling.

BLAIRS by Wally As always, Wally finds a different perspective which you may never have anticipated. She's out in left field, and taking a look at the genetics of the sentinels and guides, and the mechanics of a secret society!

SOMEONE HAD TO BE TOUGH by Patt A classic case of a guy getting the wrong side of the story sends Jim into Megan's arms, while Blair quietly goes nuts in the background...

And a squadron of shorts of every kind by Patt including: Lights Were On, No One Home; You Just Felt Right; You Phoned; Magic and They Got Their Man

Promises by alyjude: I don’t think there is a story around by Alyjude that I don’t love. And this one is another one of those. I love when she writes our boys and this one is clever, witty, fun and sexy. You can’t miss.

Bonds by Lynn: This is a heavy duty story written by Lyn. Sheís one of my favoriteís for angst and edge of your seat writing. She did a great job as usual and you really need to read this. Especially if you liked the episode of Seige. Itís better than the episode, believe me. The art in her story is nice too.

Blairs by Wally: I tend to give too much away with reviews, so I’ll just say how much I loved this one and I think you will too. It’s very different and very nice.

Someone Had to be Tough by Patt: This one has a lot of het sex in it before Jim and Blair figure out where they are supposed to be. Megan is asked by Blair to be Jim’s new Guide. Blair and Jim are fighting and Blair moved. He told her she would have to bond with him and make it work. The whole time, she’s wondering, “Bond? As in sex?” It’s funny and you might enjoy it. Give it a chance. All ends well and there isn’t going to be anymore het sex for these two guys.

Lights Were On by Patt, No One Home by Patt, You Just Felt Right by Patt, You Phoned by Patt, Magic by Patt, They Got Their Man by Patt: These are all just short and sweet stories.