Prosfic review - After the Fire by Cat Shannon
Title: After the Fire
Author: Cat Shannon
Link to story: Not online
Zine: Other Times and Places II

Short review:
I've started working my way through the Hatstand's AU Science Fiction list, and After the Fire by Cat Shannon is next on my list! It's a post-apocalyptic story...

...where in true eighties style (at least the way I remember it, though the zine was actually published in 1991!) the world has been devastated by nuclear war. CI5, however, has endured - amongst the priviliged few to be able to ride out the storm in deep and safe underground bunkers.

This is very much an angsty hurt/comfort fic, I'd say - Doyle has been unable to cope with what happened to the world, and Bodie in turn is trying to cope with his relative withdrawal. I love this set up actually, and I can absolutely see both lads reacting to things the way they do here. There's no long, heavy-handed explanation of what led up to it all, or of why Doyle has withdrawn - the author presumes we know the characters well enough to understand that much, and I like that. There's a definite atmosphere of doom and shall-we-despair about it all too, tempered with that strange post-apocalyptic hope, and I like that too...

I do find myself a bit torn about the writing - there are a few too many "jade eyes", and I did wonder if the author had Doyle maybe a wee bit too affected by it all, but then she made him quite tough as well, and neither limp nor swoon-ish, nor too-fey-to-live so I was able to wince inwardly at some of the language but still move on.

On the whole... yeah, not a fic I'm sorry I read at all. I bought Other Times and Places II for Ellis Ward's fabulous Legacy of Temptation but After the Fire is a good enough little extra!

It's zine only at the moment, I'm afraid (not even on ProsLib, although there are a couple of other Cat Shannon stories there) - but has anyone else read it?