Thinker, Tyler, Soldier, Spy

You may be looking for the Star Trek: DS9 zine, Doctor, Tailor, Officer, Spy.

Zine
Title:	Thinker, Tyler, Soldier, Spy
Publisher:	Zortified & Fredicated Productions
Editor(s):
Date(s):	November 2000
Series?:
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:
Fandom:	The Sentinel, Jim/Blair
Language:	English
External Links:
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cover by Arwen

Thinker, Tyler, Soldier, Spy is a Sentinel slash 116-page anthology released in 2000.

It borrows its name from a John LeCarré novel, and features nine stories alongside cover art by Arwen and interior manips by Livia. The printing sold out relatively quickly, and the zine has been out of print since shortly after it debuted.

The Submission Request

Sentinel slash. Any pairing, any genre with the exception of Domestic Discipline, torture for the sake of torture, and Mary Sues. Stories may be any length, and any pairing as long as it features at least one character from TS. Also accepting art. No poetry.

Contents

• Here There Is No Light by James Walkswithwind (3)
• Con Man by Cara Chapel (5)
• various snippets by Pumpkin (7)

• Eye Of The Storm by Legion (8)
• Blue by Katrina (66)
• Left Behind by Owlet (71)
• Footnotes by Destina (72)
• Little Earthquakes by Owlet (106)
• Nocturnes by Cara Chapel (108)

Gallery

• 

  interior page, a single "illo"

• 

  sample text

• 

  sample text, shows odd formatting: the last story begins at the very bottom of a page

Reactions and Reviews

See reactions and reviews for Footnotes.

[unknown date, zine]: Be well rested - be very well rested. I suspect the font size of this zine to be 1 (but Debra says it's 6, so I might just believe her... as soon as I can read again... LOL) The zine more or less starts off with a huge Legion-story, one more in her Quantum-Leap-Universe, that offers another peek into Jim's and Blair's life after leaping and escaping the torture chamber. Eye of the Storm, 55 pages; Time has passed and now Jim and Blair are trying to cope with the fact that Jim is no longer working for the PD and that Blair has obvious problems - physical as well as mental ones - to live his life being not only a Guide, but also a shaman, not exactly knowing what he needs to do to fulfill the job-description. They don't get the rest they deserve, though: Once again Sam is trying to make them help him - his own daughter is about to be brutally raped and slaughtered by an unknown killer whose business are snuff-movies. All their wits and their unique bond are needed to get ahead of the rapist. The story is plot-driven and fast moving, with lots of hot and steamy sex (not only between Jim and Blair, also - as sort of a special bonus - between Al and Sam) to make it worth your while. Unfortunately the rest of the stories in this zine seem to be more or less "fillers", short, sometimes too short snippets of glimpses of sentinel and guide. The only other, longer story - Footnotes by Destina Fortunato, 31 pages - is a diary-like excerpt of Blair's tapes that capture "Blair-speak" quite well, but does not bring lots of unique stuff as it is tightly linked to actual episodes (which I am sure was the author's intent).

[2000, zine]: So I picked up a copy of Thinker, Tyler, Soldier, Spy this weekend.

It's a new TS slashzine edited by James Walkswithwind.

Overall it was definitely worth the $9. :-) It's a small zine, physically, which probably explains the low price -- fits easily in one's purse, which is kind of a handy thing. The cover is lovely: a pencil sketch of Blair, really nicely-done, by Arwen. Simple.

My major beef with the zine is that the font size is *tiny* -- ten-point, I think, maybe even nine. I can't read too much of it at one time or my head starts to hurt. And I realize that James probably made it small on purpose, to keep the zine small and affordable, but I have mixed feelings about the trade-off.

There are some nice little snippets in here. James wrote a short one, Owlet wrote a short one. There are several really short ones (ie maybe 200 words) by Pumpkin. Of these, James' is probably my favorite, because it's the closest to being a story -- the rest feel sort of like scenes to me, or blurbs, but they're not quite enough for me.

Legion has a long TS/QL xover, which I have to admit I only skimmed, because I'm not at all familiar with QL and I haven't read the Panther/Chief stories to which I gather this is a sequel. The writing seemed good, but it just didn't grab me. This is probably more my problem than anything wrong with the story -- and later, when I feel like learning more about QL, I'll probably come back and read this one.

Owlet also has a nice one called "Little Earthquakes," with her signature touches of beautiful sensual description of both Jim and Blair. I like that one.

My two favorite stories in the zine are Cara Chapel's "Nocturnes," and Destina Fortunata's "Footnotes." Both of which are, to my mind, fabulous.

"Footnotes" is written in the form of Blair's dictation into his little cassette tapes, and it covers the whole series, from Tape 1 ("Okay, here we go. Blair Sandburg, dissertation project documentation, tape one....I found a living, breathing subject for my dissertation") to post-TSbyBS. It's gorgeous. There's angst a-plenty, as Blair wrestles with his feelings for Jim and the tension between those feelings and his supposed obligation to objectivity. It touches on most of the series' high points, including (of course) the events in S2. And the scene where they finally fall into bed together... *shiver* Good damn. Slide-off-your-seat good.

"Nocturnes" is also lovely, great description, good shifts from Blair's POV to Jim's (both voices seem believable to me). The tension, as each man realizes he wants each other, just keeps ratcheting up. There's a gorgeous scene where Jim's on stakeout and calls Blair on the cellphone (I won't spoil it by giving a description of what happens) -- and the ending, while it involves the by-now-familiar camping trip scene, is also really nicely done.

So. Yeah. That's what I think. I like the zine, and I think it's worth buying for Destina's and Cara's two stories alone -- plus, if you grok QL, you'll get the added bonus of a long Legion story that will make sense to you. :-)