Real Boys
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Real Boys |
| Author(s): | Salieri |
| Date(s): | 2007 |
| Length: | ~22,000 words |
| Genre(s): | slash |
| Fandom(s): | due South |
| Relationship(s): | Fraser/Kowalski |
| External Links: | on Salieri's website (Wayback Machine copy); on AO3, sequel on AO3 |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Real Boys is a Fraser/Kowalski cyberpunk AU story by Salieri.
In 2008, Zabira created a 02:52:52 podfic of it.[1]
Version History
The first version of the story was a gen fic titled "Real Boys (A Chip Off the Old Blog)" that a word count of ~4900. It was posted to the ds flashfiction livejournal community on December 30, 2006, as a late entry for the genre challenge and was inspired by "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Philip K. Dick. The author noted that "while self-contained, this is actually part of a bigger tale, as of yet unwritten, which maybe should remain so."[2]
Two weeks later, an extended slash version titled "Real Boys" was posted in three parts for ds flashfiction's space challenge. The first part was still titled "Real Boys (A Chip Off the Old Blog)" in the fic header, with "A Chip Off the Old Blog" serving as the title of the first chapter, though the title was listed as just "Real Boys" in the post header. This appears to be more or less the final version. It was also posted to Salieri's personal fansite as "Real Boys". Then in April Salieri started writing the sequel, "Real Worlds".[3]
Reactions and Reviews
The first version posted to ds flashfiction had 63 comments.[2] Part three of the extended version had 131 comments.[4]
thefourthvine recced the first version the day before the second version was posted:
The One That Proves That the World May Change, but Macaroni Sculptures Stay the Same. A Chip off the Old Blog, by Salieri, aka troyswann. due South, gen.
Okay, two things: I'm not going to spoil this (not not not, no matter how much I want to, and oh god I so do) and I am going to warn for something. There is a suggestion of animal harm. The harmed animal is not Dief. The animal harm does not appear onscreen, as it were. And yet, it bothered the hell out of me, and I know there are a few people out there who might also be bothered. Hence, warning.
But here's the thing: I love this story anyway. And those of you who know me will know how stunning that is. Normally, if there's animal harm of any kind, that's it - my brain wipes and the rest of the story becomes meaningless. In extreme cases, this ends with me sobbing helplessly against a fence in Disney World (Curse that animation demo, with the clips from Certain Animated Classics We Won't Mention, Because Just the Names Sometimes Make Me Cry!) to the degree that Disney employees grow worried and offer to "help," for which read, "Take you somewhere where you won't disturb the people who are having fun in the happiest place on the earth, unlike you, you - um. Are you all right? God, can you even breathe?" (Yes, that really happened. It wasn't a shining moment for my dignity. Also, please keep in mind that I was twenty-four at the time. And I couldn't talk, so Best Beloved had to reassure people that no, really, I was perfectly fine - not easy against a background of choking sobs - and then tow me out and keep me from bonking into random tourists, because I also couldn't see very well because of all the crying. Disney animators: destroying hearts, minds, and lives since the 1930s!)
Anyway. My point is: I love this story so much that I just deal with the whole animal unhappiness. Because this story is incredible. I have an unhealthy love for science fiction anyway, and this is like a tribute to certain SF classics (which I am not saying, because remember how I am not spoiling this?) and the most perfect dS AU ever. The casting is - oh, it is so perfect that I get light-headed from glee just thinking about it. (You can tell because of all the italics. I get crazy with the emphasis when I'm gleeful.) I - I kind of want a dS v 2.0 TV show, based on this premise, because I tell you and I tell you true: the only thing better than a sexual-tension laden buddy cop show filled with magical realism and Diefenbaker is that same show in a classic SF setting.
Oh, I can't even begin to communicate the perfection of this story. Or, okay, I could, but I'd end up spoiling it. Which I am not going to do. Just - just read it, okay? Please. Otherwise I'll be forced to keep babbling, and since I can't talk about the story (which is oh my god so perfect), I'd end up talking about other cruel things Disney animators have done to me and mine. You don't want to hear about how my father (yes, it's genetic) and I both cried all the way through dinner on my 16th birthday, alarming waitstaff and fellow diners and forcing my mother and sister to come up with topics of conversation that didn't revolve around the two freaks weeping into their linguine across the table. (The restaurant manager refused to charge us for our meals, even though my father tried to explain that it wasn't the food that was the problem.) Neither do you want to hear about my first and only childhood moving-going experience. Really you don't. So just read this story, okay?[5]
A 2012 review by the Slash World blog:
Why You Should Read This:
Space mounties! This is a futuristic tale, where robots are common and animals are not. Ray is still a cop, but he’s ‘queer’ – his implant didn’t take. Ray hesitantly gets involved in Fraser’s hunt for the killer(s) of his father and ends up embroiled in a case much bigger than it originally seems. Fans of Vecchio will be pleased with his appearance in the fic. I love how much world-building the author did, little background knowledge dropped casually into the fic, creating a whole. If you’re a fan of sci-fic, you should give this fic a try. [6]
2007 rec at Crack Van:
troyswann is an amazingly talented writer and I'd heartily recommend any of her more traditional due South stories (like, say, the incredible Dysmas) but Real Boys condenses everything I love about Sal's writing into a neat little AU sci-fi epic that interrogates the meaning of love, the nature of reality and exposes some of the truths of life and death. This AU modelled on loosely on the 1982 Ridley Scott flick Blade Runner, a film which I loathe and find infinitely forgettable. Prior knowledge of the movie isn't at all necessary: all you need to know is that in the distant future, Ray Kowalski is a private eye struggling to make ends meet, and he falls into an odd partnership with a handsome Mountie who isn't quite what he seems. Sal is writing good science fiction here, the kind that asks big questions about the human condition, and this story expanded my definition of what fanfiction could do. Hell, it expanded my notions about what literature could do. Sal peoples her tale with recognizable faces from the show and her characterizations are great. The writing is incredibly creative and snap-crack-pops with wit and energy, and there is something in this fic for everyone.Real Boys is so much more than tense sci-fi potboiler, or a fannish romance about PI Kowalski's love for the lost and lonely Mountie searching so determinedly for the killers of his father. When Sal first put this fic up I predicted that it would someday be recced along with the Hockey AU or Strange Loops or End of the Road as one of the towering classics of the fandom. Not only are her Ray and Fraser recognizable and fully realized in their Philip K. Dick trappings, but their friendship and, later, their romance, grows into something profound and sacred in the midst of the sad artificialities of life in the future. Rocks, trees and grass, as well as most plants and people, have been entirely eclipsed by stims and holorooms and 'liners. Daily urban existence for painfully-human Ray, superhuman Fraser, and even so-rare-he-could-be-an-exhibit Dief, is gritty, dangerous, and filled with pressure to conform or risk becoming obsolete. Only in the far-flung Colonies does the artificial give way to the real, the human, the possible. Post-CotW stories rarely carry that kind of weight, but it works in this fic where the loss of the natural world and the importance of connection is so keenly felt.
I hope I've whetted your appetite for one of the true pleasures of the due South fandom, and if you like this story, you'll be pleased to know that Sal is in the midst of composing the sequel fic, A Chip Off the Old Blog, which should be completed soon (click on the link to read the first part). Pimping aside, do try Real Boys. It's an extraordinary reading experience, and I find myself revisiting it whenever I need to be reminded of what we writerly types are capable of when we have the raw materials of a half-wolf, a Mountie and a Chicago cop or two. [7]
2013 rec at Crack Van:
F/K dystopian sci fi AU shouldn't work, but it really, really, does. [8]
Links
- Real Boys (A Chip Off the Old Blog), Archived version on ds_flashfiction (December 30, 2006)
- for the Space Challenge: Real Boys by Salieri on ds_flashfiction (January 14, 2007)
- Real Boys (Part 2), Archived version on ds_flashfiction (January 14, 2007)
- Real Boys (Part 3) on ds_flashfiction (January 14, 2007)
- Real Boys on Salieri's website
- real boys tag on Salieri's dreamwidth account
- Real Worlds sequel on Salieri's website
References
- ^ Real Boys - Audiofic Archive, Archived version (Accessed 16 July 2022.)
- ^ a b For the Genre Challenge/Amnesty by Salieri, Archived version, livejournal post by troyswann in ds_flashfiction, 2006-12-30. (Accessed 31 July 2022.)
- ^ DONE! And so: Due South, Space!Mountie, again!, dreamwidth mirror of a livejournal post by troyswann, Apr. 18th, 2007.
- ^ for the Space challenge: Real Boys (Part 3), by Salieri, livejournal post by troyswann in ds_flashfiction, 2007-01-14. (Accessed 31 July 2022.)
- ^ rec by thefourthvine at 159: God Does Not Play Dice with the Universe. But We Do., January 13, 2007
- ^ Slash World, 2012
- ^ 2007 rec by nos4a2no9 at Crack Van: Real Boys by Salieri (R), Archived version, 2007-11-28.
- ^ 2013 rec by doodlesinsand at Crack Van: Real Boys by Salieri, Archived version, 2013-09-22.