The Field of Human Conflict
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Field of Human Conflict |
| Author(s): | M. Fae Glasgow |
| Date(s): | 1990 |
| Length: | |
| Genre(s): | slash |
| Fandom(s): | Blake's 7 |
| Relationship(s): | |
| External Links: | online here |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Field of Human Conflict is a Blake's 7 A/B/V story by M. Fae Glasgow.
It was published in Oblaque #4 and is online.
Reactions and Reviews
An A/B/V piece with a very dark Blake. BDSM and heavy angst. Good view of Avon's possible family background.[1]
It's back to A/V in "The Field of Human Conflict", at least to begin with. Avon is on the psychological rack when Blake tries blackmail to force him to help destroy Star One. Avon fears that if Blake revealed his secret he would lose Vila; yes folks, this time it's love on both their sides. However the plot thickens considerably and this is ultimately a very bleak story where none of the protagonists can escape their earlier experiences and conditioning. An anguished and powerful portrayal of all three men, heavily laced with dramatic irony.[2]
The following story and how nasty I feel compelled to be in reviewing it makes me think that there’s REALLY something to Don’t Like Don’t Read, and that as someone this story isn’t ‘for’, I have no business commenting on it. This may be an unfamiliar argument to you if you’re not in fandom, but it often has a lot to say to the individualistic, emotionally-driven genre, which relies on and speaks to desire and affect, and doesn’t necessarily work if you don’t share its assumptions, knowledges, pleasures and value scales. This doesn’t necessarily make it Bad Literature. Think of the point about how you’d read Macbeth if you didn’t know of it as MACBETH in Macbeth Murder Mystery, or the dated but interesting arguments about cultural contexts in Shakespeare in the Bush.
But this story and other’s like its’ influence are all over this pairing, including in fics that speak a lot more to me, so ultimately I feel I do have to slog through “The Field of Human Conflict” and think about why I ‘Don’t Like’ this to the moon and back. Plus, I’m sure that in its day it got a lot of positive feedback from people it did work for: just look at how many fics share its core misapprehensions and affect. There are certainly imitators! So one very angry review can’t really erase the effect it had in its moment, in its conversation, and thus I’m gonna be a bitch because I think, on balance, it’s necessary and forgivable to publicly be so now. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
MUSE OF FIRE RESPONSIBLE: M. Fae Glasgow
HAS POOR VILA BEEN DRAGOONED INTO THIS SHITSHOW? Vila. SO MUCH Vila.
WHY ARE BLAKE AND AVON DOOMED THIS WEEK? Avon is from a hideous BDSM aristocrat family out of a Nova fic and loves Vila, really. Blake likes submission, and maybe also did it in his unremembered past, and is Crazy for the Cause. Anytime you see that capital C in narration, you in danger girl.
EDITOR’S NOTE: none
PROSE: This story is WAY too long for what it is. If you like what it’s doing, perhaps dwelling in the story is pleasure rather than pain, but I also think this one’s just formally lax, tortured by tons of epicycles of retrograde motion. Vila thinks Avon’s listing like a ship in the Sargasso Sea. Bitch what? This dome-bred dudesman thinks in nautical metaphors in his POV? Why the Sargasso exactly? This is like that time we roasted poor Tara in writer’s workshop for ‘like a Prufrock mermaid’. Never has a ‘how so?’ been so brutal.
[much, MUCH snipped, see the entire review at the source] [3]
References
- ^ 2002 comments by Predatrix
- ^ review by CB at Judith Proctor's Blake's 7 site, Archived version.
- ^ from Oblique Reviews, Oblique Reviews #4, Archived version by Erin Horáková, January 15, 2017