One Night Stand (Blake's 7 fanzine)

Zine
Title:	One Night Stand
Publisher:	Judith Proctor
Editor:	Judith Proctor
Author(s):	Sebastian and Nova.
Cover Artist(s):	Whitby27
Illustrator(s):
Date(s):	December 2002
Medium:	print
Size:	80 pages
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	Blake's 7
Language:	English
External Links:	Full text on Ao3
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One Night Stand is a slash Blake's 7 80-page novel. The story was started by Sebastian (presumably mostly written around 1995, at about the time Forbidden Star 1 was being published). It was then completed by Nova with story ideas by Judith Proctor, who also edited and published the zine. It has a cover by Whitby27.

It was uploaded in full to the Hermit Library, and later imported to Archive of our Own.

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  Editorial

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  Judith Proctor's notes to the printer

Author and Editor Comments

Sebastian: I have had good experiences with people sequelling my stories. Helen Raven - who could object to HR carrying on one's created universe - her talent surpassed mine and then some. And I had had for a long time a Blake's 7novella hanging about, One Night Stand. It wanted about 20 pages to wrap it up and I just couldn't do it. Threats and whipping myself just did not work. When someone approached me and asked to finish it, I jumped at the chance. It was a good story, my own personal B7 best. And she did it beautifully. Perfectly. It meant that story could go out into the world at last, and I felt satisfied and content and grateful that she had felt inspired enough to birth it for me.

Nova: At the end of 2001 Judith asked me whether, rather than just acting as a beta, I'd be interested in completing 'One Night Stand' for her ... I launched myself into the project through extensive discussions with Judith and multiple readings of 'One Night Stand', to immerse myself in Sebastian's style and perspective. Then I started writing. Then I showed what I'd written to SallyMN and Ika who, with their usual acuity and perfect pitch, instantly identified all the points where I'd lapsed out of Sebastian's idiom and into my own, after which Judith and I had some even more extensive discussions and revised my first draft, as well as changing a few minor plot points in Sebastian's part of the novel, to fit the direction in which we'd taken her story.

Judith: Sebastian allowed me to read the story and wrote some extra bits where I pleaded with her to finish it, but ultimately, the muse had passed elsewhere and she couldn't complete the novel. We did however have some interesting discussions about how some of the threads would have worked through and how the story would have ended. Sebastian wanted something that remained within canon and yet allowed hope. I came up with a suggestion and we agreed that I'd try and find a way of completing the story. Though I loved the story and knew how the plot should resolve, my own writing style is very different. Sebastian and I use words in very different ways; I wasn't the best person to complete it.

Reactions and Reviews

Whitby27 did the color pencil cover, which is Blake and Avon looking at each other. The Avon is drawn better than Blake, in my opinion. He looks pretty good. Blake looks a little cross eyed but that is a small quibble.

The novel is actually by Sebastian but completed by Nova. I am assuming that the title is Sebastian's so I guess I should not complain about it, but it is definitely not a wonderful title. There was a whole zine series in K/S called One Night Stand which I used to own when I collected K/S, and that is what I think of whenever I see that phrase. In the editorial, Nova says she went back and changed some things throughout the novel started by Sebastian so it's not a case of Nova just tacking on an ending. Did I notice when it went from mainly Sebastian to totally Nova? No, I didn't, and I frankly don't care where the unnoticable "break" is.

As far as these two writers go, both are excellent and favorites of mine. My favorite Sebastian story is "Interjunction" in Blake's 7: The Other Side 3, and my favorite Nova story is "Body and Soul" in the m/m slash zine Dyad 19. Nova, as far as I know is still writing, B7. (I just read a story by her in the forthcoming Fire and Ice 8.)

The novel is set in second season or thereabouts. There is a lot of plot in the novel, some hurt-comfort, and angst galore. There is explicit sex but not a lot, which in my opinion is a good thing. I read slash stories for plot and characterization, not sex. Maybe in the first three to five years of this now 16 year old slash addiction, I read slash for the sex, but that passed. There is some S/M, but it isn't written in much detail. I like S/M but I don't need long descriptions. And there is enough emotional and mental angst in this that we don't need a lot of physical torture being added to the pile of misery.

This story reminds me very much of the angst generated in the Sylvia Knight three story arc in the early Resistances. (If you are not familiar with these three excellent stories, they are "Descending Horizon" in Resistance 2 and "A Friend in Need" and "On the Edge" in Resistance 3.) It's very much a throwback to the earlier days of A/B writing--and that is not a bad thing, in my opinion. I love the earlier zines and zine stories. This story has complexity and richness. And you can feel the frustration and pain of the two men in this relationship that always seems to go one step forward and then two steps backward.

Ah, I now realize a basic error I made when I read this zine. It really has so much packed into it that I think I would have enjoyed it much more curled up on the living room sofa with a few glasses of wine as opposed to curled up in bed in the wee hours of the morning. This isn't exactly the type of novel you read to put you to sleep.

Do I recommend the zine? Definitely! Will you enjoy it? Probably--as long as you like A/B. I don't recommend this to people not interested in that twosome because the entire point of the book is their relationship and their relationship is complicated greatly once they start having sex. They both knew it was a mistake when they started, and it was. Although there is not a lot of explicit sex in the novel, it is definitely a novel about sex.