Raising Hell 1

Review

By Sarah Thompson

This is the gen companion zine of the slash zine Resistance. It's not one of my own top favorites, but there's a lot of good stuff in it.

I particularly recommend #2 for the art. In general this zine was not great for art, but #2 is a stellar exception, with gorgeous Lovett and Feyrer.

There's lots of poetry in these zines, presumably because the editor likes it. I'm not terribly fond of most of it, but occasionally there is a piece I like, such as Ellie Craven's charmingly shameless Emily-Dickinson-inspired Avon-drool in #1.

Fans of pro writer Jean Lorrah will enjoy her stories in these two issues, one of which is a sequel to her adult novel Trust, Like the Soul. Personally, I find that I like her fan fiction less than her use of avatars of the B7 characters in her pro fiction; in the latter case she's freer to play around with them, whereas the fan stories seem to me to pay too much attention to canonical detail. But this is a very unusual complaint for me; ordinarily I'm griping that writers don't pay enough attention to detail. (Which is why it's so nice to have things like the character bios posted here, or the Sevencyclopedia, to refer to.)

There are also two connected stories that give Cally a romance (unconsummated except telepathically) with an original male character. I'm not sure whether they are by two writers, or one using two names; the style seems consistent, so probably the latter.

The story by Sheila Paulson in #2 is mostly A-B, but Gan has a very good part in it too. And it's intense hc with Blake being the hurt one, for a change. Annie and Leah's "Cross the Border" is somewhat similar in concept to the Last Stand series, a PGP with a damaged Avon being cared for by Vila. This could easily become slash, y'know....

Especially interesting in #2 is the Morgan & O'Cullane story, "Mutoid." PGP, Avon is made into a mutoid; the others, including Blake, who has survived, kidnap him and try to restore his memory against his own opposition.

Wasn't this story planned as the first of a series that was never written?

Contents

Editor/publisher: Wendy Rathbone (Poway, CA)
Available from: MKASHEF Enterprises
Date: October 1988

Fiction:
Jean Lorrah, "Confession" (S4; Blake; A)
Alayne Gelfand, "Afterdeath" (S5; A-V)
Natasha Solten, "To Rule in Hell" (S1; A-B)
Ash Brook, "A Point of Honor" (S1; C/ocm)
Wendy Rathbone, "Misunderstandings" (S4; Warlord)
April Giordano, "Meeting by Chance" (S3; A-Carnell)
Wendy Rathbone, "Never Never Land" (S1-S0; A)

Nonfiction:
Wendy Rathbone, Editorial
Lynne Alisse Witten, Word Search Puzzle

Poetry:
Wendy Rathbone, "Trust"
Wendy Rathbone, "False Dawn"
Alayne Gelfand, "Transformation"
Wendy Rathbone, "Battle at Star One"
Natasha Solten, "Shadows of Resistance"
Ash Brook, "Defection"
Ellie Craven, "On Being a Fan in Love with Avon" (with apologies to Emily Dickinson)
Wendy Rathbone, "Reluctant Astronaut"
Wendy Rathbone, "Orbit Postscript"

Art:
Suzan Lovett front cover A on winged horse
back cover B and unicorn
Dragon p. 10 B
Caro Hedge p. 48 decorative border
p. 109 decorative border
Lynne Witten p. 78 Scorpio
p. 83 Zen
Gayle Feyrer p. 85 A

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