Star *

Fanzine at http://www.blakes-7.com/

Reviewed by Kathryn A on ?

The first issue of this zine was called "Star One", the second one "Star Two", and so on.

Generally good stories, including the occasional reprint of a long lost classic.

!!Two

I have finally read my copy of Star Two, and this time I'm going to attempt a review!

Okay, the worst thing about Star Two was that the middle pages kept on falling out. 144 pages were just too much for the staples.

I have to say that I liked Shane the best, perhaps merely because it was the story I read last. Not being familiar with the story from which this was um, inspired, I don't know how original it was, but I came at it fresh, and I simply liked it. This is the Avon I like best - dark, mysterious, sharp-tongued, full of angst, pragmatic and honourable in his own sneaky way. A melancholy story, really.

Hunter, being the longest story in the zine, it was just as well it was good too. Not just a kill-them-off-one-by-one adventure-type story, but sprinkled about with good character bits.

The rest of it was good enough, for the most part. "Trial" was a good idea - another one of those sneaky Avon stories - but the style of telling it from Blake's point of view in the first person, didn't really work for me. "Wolf" was okay, I suppose. Leah's Travis cartoon was worth a smile or two. "The Ultimate Slash Story" was, um, well, silly. "Fugitives" was a workmanlike explanation of how Travis and Docholli got together, not bad, not outstanding. "Ambitions" was pretty good - a fairly good idea for why Anna did what she did. "Tiger" sounds like it ought to be a filk - is it? "A Step Between" was a cheering little piece, spot on for where it was set. And what were either of them doing having read the most proscribed text in the Federation, I wonder... "Gauda Prime - An Alternative Ending" was just silly. "Slip To Black" had no surprises in it; it sort of felt as if we were meant to be surprised at the end, but you could see it coming a mile off. I dunno, it wasn't a bad idea, but it didn't quite work.

Overall, this was a decent zine, and I'm glad I contributed to it. 8-)

Artwork? You want to know about the artwork? There were fourteen pieces of artwork, including the front and back covers. All artwork was of A5-page size (since this is an A5 zine, they couldn't be bigger). The pieces by Leah Rosenthal, Will Blight and I (9 out of the 14) were all good, and the pieces by Andrew Kearley and Les Jones were not. Though I suppose the one on p75 by Les Jones had something going for it - must be the claws tearing through the door. 8-)