Let Me Count The Ways The World Ends

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Title:	Let Me Count The Ways The World Ends
Creator:	Kathryn Andersen
Date(s):	June 1992
Medium:	print, online
Fandom:	Blake's 7
Topic:	Post-Gauda Prime fanfiction
External Links:	PGP Survey @ KatSpace, Archived version; @Tarriel Cell
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Let Me Count The Ways The World Ends is an article by Kathryn Andersen which explores Blake's 7 fifth season or post-Gauda Prime fanfiction, enumerating which characters from the episode 'Blake' survive, as well as which other characters appear.

It was published in print form in Tarriel Cell V.5 N.5 in 1992, and is archived online at the author's website, KatSpace. The print form has an additional bar chart showing who survived. The author's online summary is a non-exhaustive survey of the Fates of Our Heros in fanfic.

Kathryn admits that her sample of zines was biased towards Chronicles, an Australian genzine, and might not be representative. Espresso Addict comments that as Kathryn is known as a gen/non-explicit het fan who states that she reads no slash, PGP slash stories might not be represented.

Summary

Essay in Tarriel Cell

• In a sample of 126 PGP stories from printzines, the 'Blake' characters to survive most frequently were:
  • all (13.6%)
  • none (12.8%)
  • Avon & Vila (10.4%)
  • Avon alone (8.8%)
  • Scorpio crew but not Blake (4.0%)
• In a sample of 138 PGP stories from printzines (including sequels), the characters most often alive were:
  • Avon (72.5%)
  • Vila (63.8%)
  • Orac (55.1%)
  • Tarrant (37.0%)
  • Blake (32.6%)
  • Dayna (32.6%)
  • Soolin (26.1%)
  • even Gan was alive in 1.5% of stories
• The most popular non-crew characters to appear were:
  • Servalan (41.3%)
  • Avon's brother (5.1%)
  • Avalon (3.6%)
  • Del Grant (3.6%)

Excerpt

Have I been around fandom too long, read too many fifth season stories? It doesn't seem to matter how improbable a scenario may be, there has probably been a story written based on it. Who survives? There are almost as many combinations as there are characters; which leads me to conclude that logic plays little part in 5th season stories; the author just makes survive the characters they want to survive. Well, some authors are more logical than others. I decided to test my impressions with research; I would go through every serious fifth season story I could lay my hands on or recall and assume it is a random-ish sample, since I could never lay hold of all the 5th season stories ever written, and note Our Heroes' fates, put it all in a database and churn out the result. I decided to count the ways the world ends...