Catalyst (Babylon 5 zine)

Zine
Title:	Catalyst
Publisher:	As You Like It Press/Nina St. Clair, at some point it was agented/distributed by Bill Hupe
Editor:
Author(s):	Aleysha Matthews
Cover Artist(s):
Illustrator(s):
Date(s):	1994
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:
Fandom:	Babylon 5
Language:	English (New Zealand)
External Links:
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cover of Catalyst (1994)

Catalyst is a 114-page Babylon 5 femslash novel by Aleysha Mathews.

The pairing is Susan Ivanova/Talia Winters.

A 1995 ad said: "contains some '/' material, but it is not the focus of the zine."

Summary from a distributor, Knightrider:

"Susan Ivanova had resisted all Talia Winters overtures and coaxing attempts at seduction but the anguish that leaked from the woman as she stumbled through the doors to the Hydroponics centre was harder to resist. Susan Ivanova knew anguish. She also knew that, despite her reservations towards the telepath, she could not let Talia suffer such anguish alone. She decided to offer her help.

It was a decision that would lead Babylon 5's second in command into a mire of murder and mystery. It was a decision that would take her from the steel-girded construction of the space station to the back country remoteness of the Iceini encampment on Earth where clan ruled supreme and telepaths ran wild. And it was a decision that would bring her up against, and force her to work with, her greatest foe - Psi Corps. The same Psi Corps who, through their meddling had destroyed Susan's mother and who, if she would not let them use her, could destroy Susan Ivanova herself."

Summary from a distributor, Bill Hupe:

It had been a gesture of kindness -- and assurance that the weary telepath was not alone -- that someone cared who would better understand that fear and loneliness than Ivanova. Life and work went on as usual on Babylon 5, or so the Lieutenant Commander believed, but as unexpected trouble arises, the tie between Susan and Talia cannot be so easily ignored or denied. And so the adventure begins.

Reactions and Reviews

1995

Definitely underwhelmed, but that may be because: 1) yes, I know it's handed to us on a plate on the show, but Ivanova/Talia just doesn't thrill me.

2) I don't like what I see as the victimisation that goes on in this novella. Talia is raped and left for dead followed by Talia-the-child is raped and left for dead followed by Talia's mother is raped (the latter two are incest-rapes) followed by Talia's mind is raped followed by Talia's mind is healed by having a whole bunch of people tramping around inside it while she relives the rape on multiple levels multiple times. Rape just isn't my cup of tea (I like my sexual abuse to be consensual!), so a lot of this zine was on a losing streak from the start. I probably wouldn't have minded as much but this Talia just struck me as a Victorian heroine waiting, wilting, to be rescued.

3) There were just one too many cliches in here for me. Admittedly, if this were a couple I really fancied (say,

Franklin/Garibaldi), I'd probably be a lot less critical, but I found myself saying, "oh puhh-leaze!" several times, not least when it turns out that Talia's mother and Ivanova's mother had been lovers.

...bad characterization.

CATALYST is the first slashzine I can remember reading where I wish that the author would give up writing slash and turn to gen (using Sinclair) since her strengths obviously lie in that area. In a slash round robin that I run, a fan pen friend is trying to turn her crossover story into slash — and it wants to stay nonslash? I wonder how common this phenomenon is? The SBF discussion about CATALYST plus my own experience reading it, reminds me of a common trap some writers, both professional & fan, fall into: They are so busy analyzing their characters, they forget to treat their personas as people. And it's funny too. CATALYST'S scenarios of having her characters stand around Talia, endlessly discussing her, psychoanalyzing her as if she wasn't there even as she sit in the midst of them all...

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