The Killer of Dole Nu Lin

Fanfiction
Title:	The Killer of Dole Nu Lin
Author(s):	Penny Dreadful
Date(s):	2001
Length:	11 pp
Genre(s):
Fandom(s):	Blake's 7
Relationship(s):
External Links:	Wayback link to the story on the author's website
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The Killer of Dole Nu Lin is a Blake's 7 story by Penny Dreadful. It was published in the zine TTBA in 2001 and won the Best Gen Story FanQ Award in 2002. It is the most well-known work by this author and has been widely praised by the fandom.

Initially Tavia wanted to publish in TTBA a different story by Penny Dreadful, The Seven Deadly Virtuals, but Penny Dreadful had already agreed to have it published in Forbidden Star by that moment and offered The Killer of Dole Nu Lin instead. "I solicited it for ttba and considered assassination of a certain UK zine editor when I found out that I'd been pipped to the post. (Cordial relations were later restored when Penny sent me a story that I liked just as much!)"

Summary

A futuristic fairy story, told from the point of view of a mutoid on Travis' ship.

The Killer of Dole Nu Lin: a Blakes 7 story, previously published in ttba, which is now sadly out of print. Compare and contrast with all my never-saw-paper stories to see what a difference a good editor makes. Also said editor came up with the excellent title, which otherwise would have been yet another song-quote. Thank you, Tavia!

Reactions and Reviews

First published in the zine 'ttba', this fic plays on the fact that Glynis Barber, who played Soolin in S4, also played one of Travis' mutoids in S1. We know that Travis escaped from Space Command in 'Trial' with a pursuit ship and three mutoids. What if Soolin and the mutoid played by GB were one and the same? What if that mutoid rejoined Travis when he became an outlaw? How do mutoids function anyway? These questions are mostly answered in this fic, which also delves into Soolin's early past and gives some explanation as to why Travis began working for Servalan again after 'Gambit'.

Why this must be read: Because it shows that fan fiction at its best is as good as anything out there in profic land. You don't really need to be into B7 to get it, either. It is about a mutoid, a human being chemically modified, who is gradually reverting to her human origins. It is, in fact, about what it means to be human and the mutoid's gradual process of reclaiming her identity is mirrored in a subtly-changing use of language, from the time, early on, when she still refers to herself as "this object":

Imperative: if subject uses phrase which includes word/sound 'outlaw', then subject equals Commander of this object. Perform this operation only once.

to when, her identity gradually returning, she becomes "I" again. This story, which first appeared in the zine ttba is an award-winner, justly so. You won't often read an author, in any genre, so interested in style, in the craft of writing, and at the same time never forgetting that she has an audience to keep hooked.

Quite simply one of the best B7 stories ever written: probably worth the price of the zine alone. It relies heavily on Penny's very successful experiment with writing style to explore "mutoid subjectivity". It also triumphantly pulls together the very incoherent canonical accounts of Travis's journey from Trial to Star One, the Space Command structure, and how mutoids work, to create a tough, pysychologically and socially plausible, realistic, hard-ish SF universe where the canonical characters fit in (how hard is that to do?). I always appreciate Penny's focus on physical and bodily detail - and this carries through into the violence, moving away from the cartoonish violence of canon into a much more realistic, effective style (not for the more squeamish reader!). Oh - and a thoughtful Travis II portrayal, giving him much-needed depth and coherence - but for those who know Penny's work, that goes without saying! Great Servalan cameos, too.

Penny Dreadful's story 'The Killer of Dole Nu Lin' is, quite simply, one of the best B7 stories ever written. It is a story of the resilience of humanity, and its emergence in unexpected places; it exploits canon yet is scrupulously attentive to its detail; it is pure B7, yet something absolutely novel from a gifted writer.

This is the kind of story that you wait years to read. Only 'Blake's 7' could allow a fanwriter the space to write a story like this; it is putting aside simplistic divides and concentrating on creating bloody good fiction that allows such writing to emerge. Penny has done the fandom proud in writing this story; Tavia is to be commended for creating a zine in which this story stands as the epitome of her aims.

"The Killer of Dole Nu Lin" in ttba, which I haven't read but everyone seems to rave about it)

Another memory that really sticks out -- the first time I read the incomparable B7 story "The Killer of Dole Nu Lin" by Outlaw (also known as Penny Dreadful). I can't say this was the first time I realized that fanfic could be as literary as any pro novel and more than most, but it reinforced my belief that I'm not wasting my time reading and writing it (not that I ever really thought I was). An adventurous, dark, and pretty much perfect gen fic

There's a wonderful old fic (from the mailing list/zine days) that assumes Soolin was a mutoid and shows her breaking free and finding a reversal process, re-crafting a sense of identity until Our Heroes run into her. It was really good and I can't remember the author!