Labyrinth (Professionals story)

You may be looking for "Labyrinth," the third story in the Witchfire Series.

Fanfiction
Title:	Labyrinth ("The Labyrinth" on the cover, "Labyrinth" on the title page)
Author(s):	Jane of Australia
Date(s):	September 1986
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	The Professionals
Relationship(s):
External Links:	at The Professional Circuit Archive
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Labyrinth is a 173-page slash Professionals story by Jane of Australia.

a cover for the story

first page

last page

See List of Professionals Fanworks by Jane of Australia.

Reactions and Reviews

1990

What an interesting tour of Bodie's brain.

I adore ... when Ray tells about how he and Bodie shop for groceries.

1991

"Labyrinth" by Jane. Read it, Alys, it's a classic piece of bad writing.

1993

[I liked] parts of Labyrinth (I thought that was very original. Really dwelled on Doyle's virginity. And Bodie was so mean!)

1994

My first exposure to this legend of Pros Productivity came in 1992, when, as a naive and unsuspecting new Pros fan, I avidly sought out every story ever penned with the names "Bodie" and "Doyle" somewhere within, hounding my Pros mentor, Sandy, with a relentless intensity which would have frightened lesser mortals. Sandy loaned me lots of good stuff, but one day, no doubt in a fit of temporary bad taste, she gave me "Labyrinth", an AU Novel From Hell by Jane.

Ahem. Well, okay, I was still ravenous at that point, so I actually read the thing. It was bad. The plot was absurd, the characterizations were annoying, and every other page everything stopped for a sex scene. Which may be why I kept reading it. But it took me a long, long time to finish it, since every time I picked it up I thought, "You'd have to be brain dead to really like this." At a certain point, masochism took over, forcing me to finish it just so I could sigh with relief when I was done. Never again, I thought, will I touch a novel by Jane.

I read Labyrinth just recently for the first time, and I (gasp) liked it, too. Not for the plot (which was grantedly quite implausible), but for the hint of danger from Bodie that was there during the 'dream part' and for the sex scenes.

1996

[One of my least faves is] "Labyrinth" by the infamous Jane Of Australia where The Virgin Youthful Slight Doyle learns to appreciate being Stuck Up the Arse over and over and over and over.

Gosh, now I understand why I liked it!!!! Definitely a guilty pleasure story. It is one of the few Jane things I can read.

1999

I read a story called Labirynth (sp?) and I found it very unusual. I think it is circuit, I got it with other old xeroxes from a friend. No author is indicated but it sounds like a Meg Lewtan or a K Keegan to me. (feel free to correct me if you know more about it.)

I thought it had LOTS of potential, being a very unusual plot, and I was intrigued despite some antikinks of mine were also hit.

(Warning: the story is WEIRD so unless you have read it my comments will make no sense at all -- I mean more than my usual [missing word?].

Specifically, I think that the "frame" story was rather bad and run of the mill compared to the "mental" part, and that it should have been cut at the very minimum. The "mental" part was very very good in the way D slowly realizes Things Are Very Wrong, and in the naturalness of the oniric atmosphere.

I think that it should have ended there -- they never wake up again -- and it would also have been nice to have left the doubt that Doyle is NOT "really" there in the "mental" part, but he is part of Bodie's "hallucination", created by the remorse for having tried to kill Doyle, and the shortcircuit of conflicting programmation and instinct. (Doyle having died of grief/shock when Bodie attacked him).

I know -- I am obsessed with angst and darkness: but what do you think of this story? did you have the same impression of the frame not being up to the core story?

2004

I'm going to end my month of recs the way I began it - with a story that concerns itself with the inner workings of Bodie's head. In the case of Labyrinth, I mean that quite, quite literally.

I love pretty much all of Jane's work, so here's why I chose this story to recommend. One - it's long - long and complicated and beautifully layered. Two, she rewards us over and over with great dialogue and sexual tension and the Bodie and Doyle for which she's rightfully celebrated...

And then the story really begins.

There's a lot going on here and not everyone will like it. Along with a powerful love story, there is also terror, pain, and unbearable brutality, so this one's not for the faint of heart. Because we're dealing with Bodie's mind - a mind altered by violence - there is good and evil, love and hate, memory and fantasy - and Jane does not spare our feelings as we accompany the Lads on a long and quite visceral journey.

On a personal note - for all that it's Bodie who's the center of the story, it's Ray that I adore throughout. His love for Bodie is so strong, so pure - it will steal your breath and break your heart.

I'll confess to avoiding Jane like the Plague. I have heard things about her style, but since I've agreed and enjoyed with what you've said about your recs I'll give Jane a try.

2007

I think it's a great example of Jane's strengths and weaknesses. The imagination is incredible. The characterization...not so much. But one of the things I find intriguing about her AU stuff is that while the protags rarely seem like canon Bodie or Doyle to me, I do often find them engaging...Jane's Doyle is rarely a recognizable Doyle to me.

2008

...it's a guilty pleasure for me... They're both very emotional and talky - I think it's close to equal, or at least the balance shifts around a bit - I didn't feel that Ray was overwhelmingly more emo than Bodie. There's a disconnect between how Bodie (and others) perceive Ray and how he actually acts. Words like little, skinny, fey are used (I counted 138 instances of the word little and most times the word was used to describe Ray). Bodie's initially much more confident, and in the situation they find themselves in he casts himself as Ray's protector and Ray seems to accept that and the 'fact' that Bodie is physically much stronger than he is. I think Bodie is borderline paternalistic at times, although their situation, travelling through Bodie's subconscious, makes this a little easier to take. When they have sex, Bodie is unquestionably the (more experienced) top, until the end - they talk about doing it the other way, but for some absurd reason decide it isn't possible until Bodie's enemies have been defeated. But as the story unfolds Ray takes the lead more often - he fights alone when Bodie is incapacitated and beats one (stronger) enemy after discovering an inner, secret weapon - he loses a second fight, but after a seemingly tragic climax the story resolves happily.

As well as slightly built, Ray is also described as being particularly sexually wanton and Bodie as being unable to resist him. There's more than a hint of WNGWJLEO and that other fanon trope, Ray comparing his appearance unfavourably to Bodie's.

There is a rape scene, but it's in the context of Bodie being under a malign influence so I've omitted that from my summation.

Some other Jane quirks are evident, such as her obsession with certain physical/medical risks of anal sex, which are out of proportion to reality. But overall it's an interesting, well drawn out story and I think that's why I re-read it from time to time.

2009

I think I’ll preface my comments by saying that I don’t necessarily think Labyrinth is a brilliant fic -- although there are certainly brilliant things about it. It’s not even one of my favorite fics, to tell the truth, but it’s a classic fic and it’s a long, meaty fic, which I think make it ideal for discussion. Also it’s by Jane, and I know many younger/newer writers and readers aren’t so much familiar with Jane’s work as with what has been written about Jane’s work. Love her or hate her, Jane was an amazing creative force....

Labyrinth is a CI5 case story and an AU. It’s a first time story, it’s a rape story, it’s a partners story…it’s pretty much got it all, including elves. (And I am grinning as I think of the scene with the elves.) While I don’t generally find Jane humorous, I think this is a hysterically funny fic in parts. And poignant too. Personally, I think the fic goes on too long and, like much of Jane’s work, would have been better served by a good, stiff edit. But what an imagination! And she does write rather nice sex scenes. Basically, the story opens with Bodie gone missing and Murphy observing Doyle reacting to the probable death of his partner (which is one of my favorite tropes -- third party POV of the lads). While checking out Bodie’s apartment -- and flipping through Bodie’s eclectic choice of reading material -- Murphy makes a comment implying that he thinks Doyle and Bodie are lovers -- they’re not. We proceed to interminable pages of Doyle’s thinking about what he does feel for Bodie and what Bodie might feel for him…blah, blah, blah. Then Bodie is found alive but pumped full of all kinds of evil drugs. There’s nice writing throughout all this, and there is some pretty weak writing too. And, yes, there is the fingernails-on-a-blackboard-usage of “pet” and “love.”

Bodie recovers consciousness, he and Doyle talk about their feelings in tedious detail, and Bodie is released from hospital. He and Doyle attend a welcome home party and Bodie receives a mysterious phone call -- whereupon he tries to strangle Doyle. He’s pulled off in time, but Doyle is unconscious -- and Bodie collapses seconds later. When Cowley arrives at the hospital he’s informed that Doyle is brain dead and -- weirder and weirder -- Bodie seems to exhibit the brain activity of two.

It sounds exactly like the kind of fic I hate, but this is actually where the fun begins. And it is, in my opinion, great fun indeed....

...but this is actually where the fun begins...

That was for me the point of "where the fun ends...". Up until then it was an interesting reading, sometimes too much talking/thinking but the story builts up and also their relationship, and "boing" an interesting big break - Bodie is the marionette of some villains - Doyle is dead(?) - now there are some new entanglement to come. I thought... But then that fantasy world... First I try to follow, then I only read 'in between', then I skipped pages... Now I would be grateful if someone would tell me, if the original story will be fetched up somewhere? Should I read on?

Sorry! Normally I'm not so indignant about a story - but this really could have been a good one...

There are indeed some lovely touches in this fic, but overall I find it hits too many of my off switches too often for me to really get into it.

It has above all one really excellent conceit which I love: it's the way impossibly incongruous details from their real life keep emerging in Bodie's fantasy world, where Ray notices them, is jarred, and eventually realises that's where they are - in a fantasy/mental construct. The way Bodie keeps blithely explaining these incongrujities away at first is actually quite chilling - and that part of the story is handled beautifully, imo.

But there is (as indeed you point out) a great deal of lovey-dovey verbiage, and it doesn't sound like them to my ear - well I know it's only my ear, obviously! - and despite a lot of nods towards Ray's physical prowess and competence the overall emphasis throughout most of the fic is on his fragility. At first you might think that this is just a clever way of showing how Bodie has conjured up his image of Ray's physical presence in the fantasy world, but if that were the case you'd think Ray himself would notice!(since he's depicted as being mentally his "real" self all the time). And the Ray we know and love on screen is only very slightly smaller and slighter than Bodie - nothing like this brave but slender, willowy, trembling creature.

I think the fantasy world idea is such a clever way of being able to take them anywhere, have them meet anybody and do anything - and I like Doyle realising what's going on (e.g. where Gandalf comes from) and dealing with it accordingly. But I can't "get" Doyle finding himself in the fantasy world to begin with - he wasn't drugged, only Bodie was. I would have loved the Ray in the fantasy to be wholly Bodie's projection, a figure genuinely capaple of helping him because he's generated out of Bodie's feelings for/relationship with Ray - while the "real" Ray is waiting for him on his return, unaware of what's been going on but having undertaken his own parallel journey while he watches over Bodie in hospital/deals with the villains back in the real world.

I hadn’t read this but I was glad to have it recced because it made me read it and think.

I normally enjoy AUs, even crack!fic ones and I love fantasy. However, I do need to trust the author and I think this is my problem with Jane in this fic.

I got so exasperated with various flaws in the ‘real’ world - inconsistencies in the writing/ the timing of some events/ the American mindset etc. that by the time we reached the AU. I couldn’t suspend disbelief sufficiently. Especially because the mechanism of the brain transfer is never adequately dealt with, even in fantasy terms.

I know the following are niggles but they really add up and get to me as a reader: the metaphor of a brain through a shredder - in 1981?/ £20 on groceries for one man and he still needs more the next day - in 1981? (plus - a £20 note - most of us hadn’t even seen one then)/ GI Joe dolls in UK/ use of Mister instead of Mr. when the speaker isn’t being sarcastic / pineapple creams - wrapped - in Milk Tray/ use of ‘pet’ on a consistent basis when it isn’t much used outside certain dialects/ Bodie’s bare chest in hospital/ sending out for pizzas in 1981/ standard use of the term ‘bi’ in 1981/ pig-sticker for a cut-throat razor in UK. Later she has: tins of beer/ a little three litre engine/ the thought of anyone going to Niagara Falls from UK on honeymoon(1981)/ someone with £25K in 1981 needing to watch the pennies/ butter going off after a few days in hospital (I assume Doyle had a fridge).

Some of these are during the AU and after but what it all adds up to is that I keep wanting to shout at the author and I am not able to relax and immerse myself in the story. If she can’t get her UK research right, do I trust her with the characters and plot? Also, she eventually admits that gay sex isn’t illegal in UK in 1981 if between consenting adults in private, so why all the insistence on it being the stuff of blackmail? She doesn’t make us believe that. I also dislike the suggestion of ‘I’m not gay; I’m only gay for you’, and the assumption that to be gay means to sleep around.

Then when Martin Shaw is described as a Wild Irish Rose and as a faun I just fall about laughing, which destroys the atmosphere even further. Neither actor is over 6’ and there’s about a 2 - 3 inch difference between them - and they’re both taller than a lot of people around. In those days smaller men weren’t welcome in the police force so the ‘fey and fragile’ description makes even less sense. I wonder, honestly, if she ever saw the show. Did she maybe read some fic then mix up the guys with Starsky and Hutch? Even then, fragile is unlikely in a police officer... but at least there was a greater physical difference between that pair.

In fact, in both this and in The Hunting I wondered if what she really wanted to write was original m/m fantasy but felt she had to attach it to a fanfic premise to get any readers. I would think this would be a perfectly possible explanation at the time when she was writing these - I’m assuming they are pre-21st century.

If that’s the case, then yes, she has a good imagination and can write well, most of the time. ( I assume some of the errors in the text are due to the transfer from zine to screen.) Some of the writing is erotic - e.g. the first kiss - but it doesn’t read like B/D. However, there is too much repetition and too much anxiety to make sure her readers are following the characters’ reasoning. There is also an disconcerting change of point of view without warning within a section. Some hard editing and she’d write acceptable fic, but not, perhaps, fanfic, which demands some kind of adherence to canon.

So, altogether too many flaws to let me enjoy the story. But I thoroughly enjoyed having to analyse my thoughts!

Hmmm. Not ever going to be on my top ten lists of Pros stories. I don't particularly like Jane and the way she writes, if I am being totally honest.

I dislike any story where either partner hurts the other, either physically or mentally, mainly because I cannot see them doing that to one another. And if I cant imagine it, then it doesnt work for me.

The fantasy world just irritates the hell out of me. I find myself saying...why?

So, sorry, not knocking anyone who does like the story, but for me, personally I'd be happy never to read it again.

I actually love the center part of this story. . . .I loved the movie Tron, so this premise wasn't hard for me to float in.

I love how the clothes that Doyle finds to put are are obviously what Bodie would like to see Doyle in. I loved how the literature on Bodie's shelves is the ground work for his dream world.

It totally cracks me up that Doyle questions his geography knowledge because he accepts what all Bodie tells him. That aspect unfold cleverally and I don't let the stupid "love" names spoil it.

It's too soppy in the 'real world' of the fic, but I can get past that as well. This is a story I can reread. . . . it's amusing.

This is a sort of interim comment, because I've only just started re-reading, and I've got to admit that my heart sank a bit when I saw the rec, because Labyrinth is a fic that I find really heavy going, for some reason. I actually printed it out all in excitement, back in the heady days of first-Pros-love in Alaska, and started reading it, and then... well, somehow it ended up languishing on my mantlepiece for months, and I just couldn't bring myself to read any more. This is hugely unlike me even now, and unknown back then... I think I've since read it, cos I've printed it off here, but to be honest I'm not really sure - which isn't a good sign either! So I picked it up again yesterday, and I find that I'm struggling with it again. I'm trying to work out why...

There's the characterisation, even physically: "Small and slight, with pale, perfect skin, big green eyes and red-brown curls. Smiles that made him look like a kid again..." - this is who?

There's what I think is a terrible tendency to make Bodie the oh-wise-one, and Doyle the fragile little muffin, for all she now and then says "but really he's very strong...": "Obviously, as he literally grew up under Bodie's nose, his attitudes were moderating. His hair, once kept so short, was allowed to grow... his clothes, instead of being tattered and scruffy were now sylish and soft". This just reeks to me, not of "feminising" Doyle, but of literally infantalising him.

And then she explains to us how the world works (again, rather as if we were children who needed the education): "That kind of androgynous streak was common in those long gone, uncomplicated days, before people penned themselves up in little encloures labeled, 'Male' and 'Female', and insisted on dressing their multitudinous brats in pink and blue, and..." I won't even go into the historical inaccuracies of this passage, but...

So... as other people have said above, I find that sort of style really difficult to believe in and/or read, and so it's a bit of a battle to keep going already (page 18/136 of my printed copy). But why do I find it hard to read that sort of thing? I'm wondering if it's because she's trying to tell us too much, as the author, she's not leaving enough room for our imaginations to take the words and soar with them, to fill in all the little corners that we do when we read. Reading is something of an outlet for our subconscious as much as anything else, I think, and I find that I do sort of imagine around what I'm reading as well as actually take in what's being described. But with Jane I think perhaps my subconscious isn't able to do that - she explains so much that as soon as my head starts to fill in the historical background to a statement, for example, with all the following layers and implications of it that create the larger picture of seeing/understanding our world/the story, it stumbles over her explaining that next part of the world for me, if you know what I mean, and then the next and the next. Suddenly my subconscious just doesn't want to continue, because it's kind of tiresome to be second guessed all the time...

And on that musing note, I have to head off to work, but I'll be taking Labyrinth with me on the bus, will see if I can get any further... *g*

Yes, reading Jane is a little like driving along a dirt road in the bush after heavy rain - you're going fine, dodging the odd pothole and rock along the way; the scenery's nice; then you encounter a stretch that's all muddy, gooey clay and you're up to your axles, bogged down in the stuff. Please send in the road crews.

Labyrinth is built around a really nifty plot idea, and those parts of it that are to do with getting on with said plot work best for me.

People have commented that they hate the characterisation of Doyle - the odd thing for me here is that most of the mis-characterisation is Jane putting words and thoughts into other people's minds, rather than something that comes out of the way Doyle actually behaves. For example, early on Murphy thinks of Doyle as "Doyle looked like an abandoned waif on a blasted heath under a sky promising a thunderstorm. I simply can't imagine that he would look like that - so it's a pothole on the road for me. But for large swathes of the important parts of the story he is something like the Doyle I love, resourceful, intelligent and tough. OK, also terribly emo - but so's Bodie when he's "himself" rather than his dark counterpart (btw, one thing I like about this story is that it lets me indulge my fantasy rape kink relatively guilt-free). The climactic scenes are really good. The talky stuff at the end - not so much.

I haven't finished my re-read, so these are mostly just wayside thoughts/rememberings. But this is a Jane story I have read a couple of times and will likely do again, sometime in the future.

Emotionally they're just over the top. I can't picture anyone -- male or female -- going on like this. But then I know that's part of the fun for some readers. The twists and turns of plot -- the obstacles she throws in their way -- that inventiveness gets me every time.

The sheer cleverness of the premise and the entire middle part where Doyle slowly comes to realize that he's in Bodie's fantasy makes up for the sometime tediousness of the rest.

I love that seeing Gandalf is the last link for Doyle to put it all together. It's obvious that Janes loved Star Wars because references to it often crop up in her stories.

Doyle's dilemma in trying to decide how long he can stay with Bodie before getting himself killed is rather poignant.

I love Jane being able to make fun of herself.

D'you know I've never had the impression that this is something Jane is doing. Humour is an incredibly subjective thing, but I really don't see any indications in Labyrinth, or any of her stories I can think of, that she's not expecting her readers to read with a straight face. I can see that e.g. the Gandalf thing lends itself to being sent up, by a reader or the writer herself, but I'm just not convinced that's what Jane's doing. She's so earnest about the parts where she's explaining to us about the development of sexism, for example - something that just doesn't work for me in a fic you want people to read with a pinch of salt. A story needs to... not just build up its overall mood, but rise and swell and wane and rise again around its moods - too much staccato mood-building and I want to take away the piano... *g*

My impression is that Jane loved SF/Fantasy when she was writing in Pros (lots of us do) and so, just as she imposes her other beliefs etc very overtly on her readers, she imposes her other hobbies on us too. I don't think that she wants us to be amused by Bodie's brain, or by the predicament Doyle finds himself in, she wants us to be touched by it.

I'd love to be able to read Jane's stories with a pinch of salt, and enjoy them for their ludicrousness, but something in them stops me being able to do that, and it's this impression I have that she wants us to take her seriously - I hate laughing at people, I'd rather laugh with them!

I was quite happy with the first part of this story. Particularly liked the Murphy pov and his sympathetic character. As others have said, after Bodie regained consciousness there was too much talking and thinking, but it was still an interesting enough plot. What had happened to Bodie? And amongst the deep and meaningfuls there were even relevant nuggets, like Bodie’s assertion he could not be hypnotised. A clue!

The fun really started with the AU part. This was a road trip (in a gold Capri!), a quest story, and a soppy romance, all rolled into one.

I was worried that Doyle was too dependent on Bodie in the AU world, but the fight at the merc camp showed that he was capable of standing on his own feet and that was a turning point. As the journey progresses, Bodie becomes more a slave to his ‘dark side’, and Doyle becomes more and more in charge of proceedings. Finally, I was impressed by the scene in the depths of Bodie’s subconscious – once he loses consciousness, he no longer controls it and Doyle is almost sucked in through the portal. There he is very brave and fights Bodie’s demons for him. He doesn’t succeed in killing them all, though, and ends up succumbing. That seemed a bit regrettable, but then I realised that left it open for Bodie to charge in and finish off Thorkill/Schwerin himself without even a fight.

I know the premise is ridiculous, of two people occupying one person’s mind and acting consciously there, but I recently read a novel by Catherine Fisher, ‘Darkhenge’ (2005), which used exactly that idea. There a teenage girl in a coma after a riding accident is living in an AU Celtic myth world in her mind, and other characters close to her are able to join her there, through some vaguely mystical goings on.

The sex? I liked it a lot, it was well-written, but it did start to pall even for me after the 99th hot and sticky session. I even felt by the end Jane got a bit perfunctory and seemed to have run out of descriptive words. And a propos of the recent discussion about sex in Pros, this seems like a good example of the ‘anal intercourse is the ultimate attainment’ school of thought. But whenever I start to think critically about things like this in the story, I can find a justification. Here it was the opposition (in Bodie’s mind, repeatedly) of rape as the ultimate torture/degradation with the same act as the ultimate act of love, especially when he himself was the recipient.

I have never read any Jane, so I thought this would be a great chance to pop me cherry so to speak, on a wet and dreary Saturday afternoon. I have to say I loved the start, just loved it - that opening scene with Doyle and Murphy is glorious. Doyle fretting - but not uncharacteristically so, Murphy being a cross between supportive, curious friend and agent on the job.. that whole bit in Bodie's flat was so well done. But then, as you said, it all got a bit heavy going, with too much repetetive pause-and-reflect, and too much pet/love for my tastes. And by the time we got to the elves I needed the road crews. Ten out of ten for imagination, mind. It is wild!! And it does make me want to try out a few more.

I like the Murphy pov at the beginning, very pleasant.

'Bodie was clad in cammo fatigues' This has got to be a very promising start, imho, to a scene where you just know there will be sex...

Overlooking the technical failings you mention, this is a great read, thoroughly enjoyed it. And I am very grateful because normally I put off reading long fics, just because of the time required.

This was a fic I put off reading time and time again, but am very glad I made the effort. It's wildly imaginative and really entertaining.

It was an interesting setting with mix of fantasy. I liked parts of it. But I can't say I liked the entire story. I actually skipped several paragraphs...not a good sign. Her Doyle was 'off'. And the overuse of 'pet' annoyed me to no end.

[Jane] does tend to overexplain. That's for sure. Although...I've been reading Hostage to Peace by Wally, and that woman makes Jane appear to be the epitome of terse, uncommunicative, bare bones prose... As a writer I find it interesting to analyze because she was (is still, I suspect -- even if everyone isn't comfortable admitting it) enormously popular. So what is it about her that works for so many readers -- but doesn't always work for me? I think it's these unbiased discussions and analyses that help teach us our own craft.