Hammer to Fall

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Archive
Name: Hammer to Fall / Blake's 7 Story Archive
Date(s): before September 1998 to 2008–2010; last update: 19 November 2002
Archivist: Orac
Founder: Orac
Type: fanfiction, fan poetry
Fandom: Blake's 7
URL: www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Set/4667/archive.html; http://www.oddworldz.com/b7fanfiction/archive.html (via Wayback Machine)
Hammer to Fall collection at AO3
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Hammer to Fall: a Blake's 7 Story Archive, originally known as the Blake's 7 Story Archive, was a medium-sized Blake's 7 fanfiction archive.

Founded before September 1998, it may have been the first multi-author B7 archive (rather than an e-zine, such as The Aquitar Files); it was probably the largest until overtaken by the Hermit Library, founded a couple of years later.

It is named for the Brian May song.

The founder and archivist was Orac.

The site also housed resources for writers, including character & series information (with artwork by Randym), essays, quotations, story ideas and a selection of 'purple prose'. There was an extensive links list.

The archive originally accepted all genres & subjects of stories, but later refined its content to gen stories & poetry set before or during the series. Works were sorted by series (prequels, series A, B, C, D & different universes).

Hammer to Fall was the sister archive to Bang and Blame, which housed gen stories set post-Gauda Prime. It also linked to the Hermit Library, as well as to other stories available online in personal websites.

From site: "Many of these stories were first published in paper-format fanzines in the 1980s, now out of print. They appear here by permission of the authors. Some are new. Please email [redacted] if you wish to contribute."

History & Scope

The archive was founded by Orac under the title "Blake's 7 Story Archive" some time before September 1998. The original url was http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Set/4667/archive.htm on GeoCities. It moved to the Oddworldz domain on 26 July 1999.[1]

Originally the archive accepted all types & genres of story. On 19 November 1999, Orac announced: Due to changes at Oddworldz, adult stories from the story archive moved. The rest of the site will remain at Oddworldz, because Orac has better things to do than move its site over and over.[1] Adult-rated stories (both het & slash) were moved to the Liberated archive, and the Blake's 7 Story Archive became a gen-only archive.

The archive had split again by October 2000, for storage space reasons.[2] Stories set post-Gauda Prime (PGP) moved to the new archive Bang and Blame. The main archive was renamed "Hammer to Fall: a Blake's 7 Story Archive" by 5 January 2001;[1] it retained gen stories set before and during the series. The archive was last updated on 19 November 2002. It went offline between May 2008 and September 2010.

In June 2017, it was announced that Hammer to Fall and its sister site, Bang and Blame, would be preserved at the Archive of Our Own as an Open Doors Project.[3]. The transfer was completed in August 2017.

Statistics & Authors

After the splits off into the Liberated & Bang and Blame archives, Hammer to Fall contained just over a hundred stories. Many of the stories had previously been published in printzines. Authors archived here included: Rebecca Ann Brothers | Cami | Riley Cannon | Alicia Ann Fox | Kathy Hintze | Deirdre Hughes | Jennifer Husczca | Irish | Jackie | Kaelar | Oliver Klosov | S.L. Koss | Jennie McGrath | L.E. O'Brien | Sheila Paulson | Emma Peel | Susan | Linda Terrell | Thesseli | Ros Williams | *Teri White

Reviews

  • Murazor describes the archive as A now disappeared archive that used to be one of the main repositories for B7 fanfic in the Internet.[4]
  • Judith Proctor describes it as a very large story archive.[5]
  • Una McCormack recommends the resource site: The Fanfic Resources page contains comprehensive character summaries, with quotations and other information gleaned from episodes. The Story Ideas page is particularly thought-provoking.[6]

References