Open Season

Fanfiction
Title:	Open Season
Author(s):	Alicia Ann Fox
Date(s):
Length:	short
Genre:	gen
Fandom:	Blake's 7
External Links:	at the Hermit Library, at fanfiction.net
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Open Season is a Blake's 7 story by Alicia Ann Fox.

Reactions and Reviews

You may have noticed that Avon and Cally get teamed up a lot. Why? Karma. It's like hot and cold, light and dark, yin and yang, vanilla and chocolate. Basically, if you're going to be a misanthropic cynic with a penchant for fiddling with computers quietly, you will get teamed with the raging idealist with an action kick. See? It's that contrast thing. And, as Spinal Tap said on the subject of textual contrast, "Being in a tall-girls school would make us look very short, while being in an all-girls school would make us look very... male". Fortunately, Avon learned early on to put on some platform shoes and make the most of it, because, let's face it, it's hard to make him look butch in the company of the women of Blake's 7, when he's a code monkey and Cally's, like, a professional terrorist. (Of course, they're also paired up a lot because she's the only person he's never quite managed to start a knock-down, dragged-out argument with, making them the least likely to stuff up a mission together for stupid reasons. This being Blake's 7, of course, things usually go to hell anyway.) This story shows the most unlikely - and uniquely - functional team that Blake's 7 ever produced in action. It's not lush like The Quibell Abduction, nor extravagently dark and grim like much B7 fiction, but spare and focused, with efficient prose and a knack for combining gritty violence and gentle character piece seamlessly. In "Open Season", we hit the ground running, with Avon and Cally already long past the action-packed heist and dramatic showdown, and just trying to survive, injured and running out of ammunition, as the bounty-hunting vultures close in for the kill - it's Butch and Sundance, not robbing the train, but reaching the end of the line while on the run in South America. It's also a neat, self-contained metaphor for the relationship between Avon and Cally - two people, damaged and tired, becoming unlikely allies while trying to survive in a desolate, cold, and dangerous environment.