Who Dares Wins
| Zine | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Who Dares Wins |
| Publisher: | Friends Will Be Friends Press |
| Editor: | |
| Author(s): | Sharon F. |
| Cover Artist(s): | |
| Illustrator(s): | |
| Date(s): | 1994 |
| Medium: | |
| Size: | |
| Genre: | slash |
| Fandom: | The Professionals, The Final Option, Codename: Wildgeese, Intrigue, Ladder of Swords and Cassidy |
| Language: | English |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Who Dares Wins is a slash novel by Sharon F. It was edited by Darien Duck, Carol Hunterton, Linda Neel, and Sarah Leibold.
It is a same-actor crossover with characters drawn from several movies that also featured the actor Lewis Collins (who played "Bodie") and Martin Shaw (who played "Ray Doyle") in the Professionals.
Musical inspiration was: "Freddie Mercury (always), Billy Squier and Claude Debussy."
It was the winner of a 1995 STIFfie Award.
From the Zine
Where do stories come from? This one was actually born many years ago when I read "Shall Brothers Be...." I liked the idea of a familial relationship between Bodie and Peter Skellen. As other stories took priority, this one fermented. Perhaps it would have been written if Martin and Lewis had not chosen to play other soldiers, other cops, other spies. But they did, and another connection came to mind. What if Robin Wesley was related too? And even Gavin Ramsey? There were even more roles to consider on Doyle's side. So this is really a long "What if?" story with lots of characters, a little plot, Peter Skellen's acerbic tongue, Doyle's fantasy of Bodie look-alikes taking him to bed ail at once, Bodie's love for Doyle and his matchmaking for Cowley, Wesley's heroics and Rozhkov's desire to run away.
I hope you find escape from your worries and daily struggles in these pages. Enjoy.
The written words, all 121,801 of them, constitute a huge thank you to the wonderful friends who are Friends Will Be Friends Press. The story owes much to their deep sighs, their grumbling, mumbling and muttering, their incredulity, their support and willingness to work hard in the face of impossible deadlines. Thank you (should that be underlined, put in quotations or italics?) does not adequately convey my appreciation to you all. Your love and support mean the world to me.
Because these characters are drawn from so many films and shows, I have employed literary license and abrogated the time period the character may belong to so that they may all belong to one, happy moment in time.
The Characters
Characters: Bodie, his 1/2 brother Peter Skellon (a character from the movie "The Final Option" or "Who Dares Wins"), his cousin Robin Wesley (a character from the movie: "Codename: Wildgeese").
"Doyle and his--non-related as far as they can figure--look-alike Nikolai Rozhkov (a character from the movie "Intrigue"), his brother Sean Doyle who has used the alias Don DeMarco (from the movie "Ladder of Swords") and his cousin James Griffin (from the movie "Cassidy")."
- Bodie and Doyle: The Professionals
- Robin Wesley: Codename: Wildgeese
- Peter Skellen: The Final Option
- Gavin Ramsey: The Cuckoo Waltz
- Nikolai Rozhkov: Intrigue
- Alan Cade: The Chief
- James Griffin: Cassidy
- Don Demarco (Sean): The Ladder of Swords
- Mike Barclay: Black and Blue
- Peter Balliol: For the Greater Good
Summary
The story revolves around a broken Robin Wesley coming to his cousins for help in capturing Rozhkov, who it turns out he is in love with. Doyle goes along for the ride.
Reactions and Reviews
Unknown Date
Well, this one was certainly *memorable*. The premise is rather extreme. Basically, the author took every character Lewis Collins and Martin Shaw had ever played (including the actors themselves!) and wrote them into one big Bodie/Doyle-CI5-Universe story, where various Doyle and Bodie look-alikes are running around, many of them family, but some not. An amazing premise, but since I'm not familiar with the acting work of Collins and Shaw, and have seen little of the actual series 'The Professionals', it didn't mean a great deal to me. I suspect it would mean more if I'd seen all of these movies/TV shows the novel referred to. A shame, since I think a die-hard PROS fan would love this novel. [1]
1994
I was sold by the time I hit page 2, which is a color xerox listing the players in the novel and including color pictures so that you can keep them straight--Peter Skellen is Bodie's brother, Lewis Collins is a character, Gavin (from Cuckoo's waltz) is a character...in fact Bodie and Doyle had 4 alter-egos a piece. But the novel is not a farce, (mind you, I haven't finished it yet, but it didn't start like one) each of these characters has some logical reason for their connection to Bodie and Doyle, who are clearly the major characters of the zine. [2]
[The descriptions I've been hearing] sounds like the novel should be retitled "I Think I'm A Clone Now"... I'd heard it was riddled with crossover characters; I think I've heard of about a dozen of 'em running around. Is there a point to it all?
And another thing: why this huge disparity of opinions about which authors and stories represent "quality" writing? Can we *really* put it all down to individual tastes (and/or kinks)? I tend to side with those who say, Hey, wait a minute, there *are* literary criteria for what makes a piece well written, but I'd probably have to take all those English Lit classes I took 15 or more years ago over again and get terribly analytical to justify that opinion, and you all know how much I dislike getting anal...
But I'm wondering about what fans really read for - are they sitting down with their slash and thinking, "Oh, boy, another piece of quality literature to look forward to"? Um, well, I don't. I think, "Is this story going to evoke the Bodie and Doyle I know and love, will it have enough tension/conflict to keep me interested, will it be fun?" I'm not looking for the "Pride and Prejudice" of Pros. I'm looking for escapist entertainment, and while I want the writer to have a certain level of basic skill, be able to plot without creating huge holes left and right, have a handle on the characters (especially in terms of motivation), do believable dialog, and not confuse "shudder" with "shutter", I'm certainly not breathlessly expecting a fine literary experience.
So, I guess I have a lower standard when reading slash, and call things "good" that, if I encountered a similar level of writing ability in professionally published work, would make me scream bloody ripoff. On the other hand, I think there are things in fanfic that are BAD no matter how popular the story and/or author may be - things like: Bad Guys whose sole motivation is to Be Bad, plots that seem contrived solely to shock, viewpoints that bounce all over the place within the same paragraph, stories with no conflict, dialog in which no one can ever just *say* something but must utter it soulfully and/or mutter it angrily and/or gasp it breathlessly and/or snap it defensively...and so on, and so on.
As I said, I haven't read "Who Dares Wins" yet, but I've heard every possible opinion on it, from "I loved it" to "it was okay, lightweight entertainment", to "it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion", all from people whose tastes I normally trust. You'd think that if there *were* objective literary standards of "quality", opinions on the novel would be more consistent. Or am I missing something here? Why the disparity? Are people reviewing the content and not the writing quality - i.e., "it had a bunch of plot stuff in that I really like, so it was good"? Are people so entranced by the crossover characters that it makes the novel for them? Or do they just expect less from slash, and when they get it, they say, "Oh, yeah, that met my expectations well enough, so it was okay"? [3]
1996
... lots of stereotypical sex, idiot plot, and no characterization; I was really disappointed that this one won a Stiffie. And it beat out "Tea for Two" for that Stiffie... you can probably tell that this still rankles a bit.
I managed to get all the way through the first half of page one of "Who Dares Wins" before tossing it - how's that for endurance? [4]
Not impressive. I read the first 20 pages, tossed it aside, then read the whole thing about six months later when I was desperate for Pros fiction that I hadn't read. This is the story that led to my referring to [redacted]. It appears to be a favorite description of hers -- I've now noticed it in several other works, including the godawful purple thing.
Let's see -- the plot is idiotic, the setting suffers from a bad case of "it's a gay world," the characterization is lame, the believability is nil -- what have I left out? [5]
1997
... a clear breach of the "Bodie and Doyle only, please" rule. The use of multiple roles from non-Pros shows and films was a cruel notion indeed for someone who would like to believe that the actors were subsumed by Bodie and Doyle and never truly resurfaced. I managed to read one page of this novel. Violence followed. I later told the landlord that the plaster which had mysteriously dislodged itself from the wall must have done so as a result of that 5.2 earthquake we had. I think he believed me.[...]
Thus we arrive at the fateful year of 1995, when "Who Dares Wins" beat out "Tea for Two" for the Best Pros Novel Stiffie Award. Clearly, this is the novel I wish to consign to retroactive banishment from the face of the earth. In the end, it all comes down to good old-fashioned ego-boo. My conclusion is that in Pros fandom, there are no truly "bad" novels, merely unreadable ones, as well as a whole host of sadly undiscerning and mentally ill-equipped ballot stuffers. So there! [6]
References
- ^ [www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/2564/zines.html#Man Raonaid's Zine Recommendations], Archived version
- ^ May 31, 1994, Sandy Hereld, Virgule-L, quoted with permission
- ^ quoted anonymously with permission from Virgule-L (October 5, 1994)
- ^ from Virgule-L, quoted anonymously with permission (November 21, 1996)
- ^ from Virgule-L, quoted anonymously with permission (November 24, 1996)
- ^ comment at Virgule-L, quoted anonymously with permission (9 Jun 1997)