Limbo

(1) Limbo (Blake's 7)

By Sheila Paulson
Reviewed by Kathryn A on 19th February 2002 (1)

This story has a number of things in it which would send many a fan running for the delete key even before they'd tried to read the story. It has an original female protagonist. It's set in the 20th Century. It's told in first-person. And almost the only other Blake's 7 character in the story is Avon. But before you start screaming "Mary-Sue! Mary-Sue! Kill! Kill! Kill!" let me tell you the things which rescue this story from Mary-Sue-dom. Firstly, I doubt very much that Sheila Paulson is a widow living in Iowa. And the protagonist certainly isn't Mz. Perfect. But more importantly, this story works because of the thematic resonance set up between the protagonist and Avon, both being people who've shut out the world because of the pain of loss. Well, I think it works. And it's fun to see the reaction of Avon to things in the 20th Century. Some people may still find it too much of a wishlist of all the things one could say to Avon to try to make it right. But, hey, this is Sheila Paulson! Happy endings are her middle name.

(2) The Way To Go Home (Blake's 7/Real Ghostbusters)

By Sheila Paulson
Reviewed by Kathryn A on 19th February 2002 (2)

This is a sequel to "Limbo" but doesn't work quite so well. It's more self-indulgent and doesn't have the same kind of unifying theme as the previous story. The characters are too insightful to be true, I just found that a bit too hard to believe. And I wasn't really comfortable with the advice to the B7 characters to be more "touchy-feely" because, well, they just aren't that kind of people (especially Avon!). On the other hand, there were moments of wit, cool weirdness, action and definitely a lot of niceness, so if you feel like some niceness, and want to find out what happened next, then you wouldn't be wasting your time.