Harlequin Airs

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Having been dragged away by rl I'm going to try and finish posting those rec50 recs now - with apologies for the delay (oh and since these were purposefully kept short for rec50 extra comments/thoughts on the fic would be gratefully received!)

Title: Harlequin Airs
Author: Ellis Ward
Link to story: at Circuit Archive or at the Hatstand
Zine: Harlequin Airs, Uzi Press, 1993.
Permission to archive the rec/review at Palely Loitering: Yes
Short review: Review at rec50 and
There are so many fabulous Pros alternate universe fics to choose from that this was a particularly hard prompt to try and match, but in the end it had to be Harlequin Airs. As soon as I flicked on the link and re-read the first sentence I was sucked right back into the universe. Doyle works for CI5, having had a previous career as a trapeze artist, and so when Cowley needs someone to go undercover at Circus Sergei he is the obvious choice. He meets Bodie, who also works the trapeze, and has to decide exactly where the man fits into the IRA operation he has been sent to investigate. The author writes beautifully, the plot is brilliantly conceived, the characterisation spot on, and the whole thing reeks of sawdust and magic…

This is a novel-length fic with art by Suzan Lovett. The art is also included at at Circuit Archive

Comments

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reccing this - I re-read it a while back and it really is a story that draws you in. Because it's AU you really don't have much of a clue to begin with about the sides people are on and it adds layers of suspense. The other characters are very well drawn. The art is a perfect complement to the writing: Doyle looking very 'Ladder of Swords'-ish, Bodie all dark sleek lines & arrogance.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Doyle looking very 'Ladder of Swords'-ish
What a combination - part Doyle part Don DeMarco... *g* I'm actually missing that movie right now, I really fancy seeing it again and it's packed up home in Ak! I wonder if EW had DDM in mind when she wrote it? I mean, surely she must have...or am I just assuming?

I also love the first "section" where we see Doyle at the cemetery and there's a sort of wondering for me of where and who and what he's going to turn out to be - and then with a lovely kind of rush we're back in CI5 and it's partly familiar again, there's just a sense of wondering what will happen next, and where we'll be taken. And the motorbike ride north too has for me that feeling of oooh, what's gonna happen?! As you say, it completely draws you in this one!

[gilda-elise.livejournal.com]

Yes, a real favorite, as are all Ellis Ward stories. And I love the accompanying artwork.

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

I love so many things about Harlequin Airs: the sexual chemistry sizzling between them throughout the story; the very believable other characters; the relationship between Doyle and a lion? (I think, can't remember). When I think of classic Pros stories this is the sort of story which comes to mind. Thanks so much for recommending this one.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is Doyle and a lion! It sounds strange to see it written like that, and in fact the very premise of them being in a circus put me off reading it for a while, but as soon as I had read it I wanted to go back and re-read... And yes, the chemistry!

[carodee.livejournal.com]

It's a funny thing because I happen to really like AUs and crossovers, but Harlequin Airs just didn't work for me. There's just enough changed that it doesn't ping as Pros to me anymore. I read it once and enjoyed it as, say, one of Martin's and Lew's other roles paired up. It is well-written, nicely plotted, and the sexual chemistry is there but...

And it's not that I don't like Ellis Ward's work. Her Trial Run and The Return are at the top of my re-read list.

Suzan Lovett's artwork is superb and half the fun of Harlequin Airs.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh interesting! I'm eternally interested in how everyone has their own line of where Bodie and Doyle stop being themselves and become someone else, to the point of being hard to read about.

I sometimes wonder about some of Helen Raven's fic like that for example - I adore Heat Trace, but I can see that the lads aren't themselves, as such. And yet they're not so far out, or perhaps they're different in a way that I can still relate to on some other level. Hmmn - not sure what sense that makes! And yet in... um... oh, perhaps some of Jane's fic they might still be in the CI5-verse even and yet not be close enough for me to deal with... And then again in Harlequin Airs, even though they've the different backgrounds and so on, I get them as them.

And then Hostage to Peace (Wally) and The Cook and the Warehouseman (Helen Raven) are I think identical stories written differently, and yet the former I've not been able to finish, and the latter I'm thoroughly enjoying because I do see the lads in there, despite the alien AU setting! (Mind you, I'm only halfway through C&W at the moment, and I was never able to finish HtP, so I'll have to go back to it to be sure).

Perhaps that's why there can be so much Prosfic - there was enough scope left in the series that everyone can see their own pieces of personality and so on, and then if all of those people expand just a little bit outwards, well we're still close enough... but then every little expansion moves just a step further away from someone else's idea of the characterization, like some huge, glitter-y web of personality assets and defects and quirks. Hmmn, maybe that's a metaphor too far and I should get back to work!

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

I didn't post a direct reply to you as I didn't want to take Carodee's 'place' but I just wanted to step in here, if I may, and say that even though Heat-Trace is perhaps one of my top 3 favourite Pros stories and has influenced me more than any other, I think I'm now able to step back and be objective about it and say yes, the lads definitely aren't themselves, well, particularly Bodie. I just can't see him being able to kill off his old mates/colleagues so easily and recover from his illness so (relatively) easily.

Hostage to Peace? No, I couldn't finish that one either. I'd originally tried to read it because I thought Cook was a salute to it, almost a recommendation, but I now think that Helen Raven wrote Cook because of the shortcomings she saw in Hostage to Peace.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I sort of assume that's why Raven wrote Cook as well. Though I do wonder how that worked out author-rights wise etc. I assume it was with permission... but then I've assumed that with other things and been wrong...

I can't see Bodie being able to recover easily from what Raven put him through either - was in very contrast to Doyle's slow slide through despair in some ways, although I think she left it open enough that we're not really sure what stage he's at recovery-wise when he and Doyle meet up again. Oh, this just makes me want to read it again now!

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I sort of assume that's why Raven wrote Cook as well. Though I do wonder how that worked out author-rights wise etc. I assume it was with permission... but then I've assumed that with other things and been wrong...

I've just tried looking out my very old, secondhand copy of Hostage to see if HR had written anything, but do you think I could find it? No. But I've got a feeling that somehow she wouldn't have bothered as she almost says the same thing at the beginning of Heat-Trace: that she was inspired by Brother's Keeper, that she should have asked the author's permission to write a follow-up but she didn't as she was going to write it anyway! (Or something like that).

[blktauna.livejournal.com]

A beautiful collection of art and a story that induced boredom coma.

This was more 'the movie starring' than an episode of Pros, and I didn't buy what bits of the characterisation I did read. (No I did not read all of this. Just about the first 10 pages.)

Not my speed. Except to drool at the art.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Now see, I was the other way around - I thought the story was more "them" than the art was. And Lovett has a bit of a tendency to feminize Doyle, I think, in her work, which is something I rail against in fic as well. Beautiful art, but not quite "them".

I had a strange feeling you might not like Harlequin Airs actually (*g*) - out of curiousity, if you were reccing a favourite Prosfic, what would it be?

[blktauna.livejournal.com]

Well. I don't think the art was particularly them either, I just like Suzann's work on its own (except for the prominent penis thing ;) ) I can enjoy semi-lads art much the same as many readers can enjoy semi-lads stories.

Its not so much a tendency to feminise Doyle as it is to morph him into Starsky... But that's a Suzann thing.

I had a strange feeling you might not like Harlequin Airs

LOL, see you know my taste already ;)

A favourite Pros fic.

Cause for Concern always pops to the fore, followed by Injured Innocents and Fruit of the Spirit.

[empty-mirrors.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed Harlequin Airs a lot, but as original fic with familiar faces rather than a Pros story. For me there wasn't enough of the lads as I see them to make them believably my Bodie and Doyle. I find the same thing with C&W and several other AU's as well. Doesn't detract from my enjoyment of them as stories, though. If they're well plotted and consistently characterised then I'm happy to give them a whirl.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Thinking about it, I guess I start off with that premise when I read AU actually. They're not going to be our Bodie and Doyle, cos our Bodie and Doyle live in London and have to fit in with that world. Anything else is automatically going to be a not-Pros story, and so the characters are going to be some variation on "them". And as you say, reading it with that in mind, original fic with familiar faces, is a whole other, but still enjoyable, thing... Good fic is good fic, whoever the characters. If they're my favourite characters from elsewhere - that's a bonus...

[ancastar.livejournal.com]

::Sigh:: I love Harlequin Airs. I haven't been in the fandom long, but it's one of those fics I've already reread (parts of it more than once). The characters may not exactly be canon B & D, but they're close for me to see a strong resemblance. Ellis probably takes the most liberties with Doyle. Her version is a bit more battered and unsure of himself than on the show. But I feel as if she motivates that by what came before (the deaths of Chandra and Doyle's former flying partner). I thought she really captured the setting and her original characters--people and humans--were memorable. People have already mentioned Sanjay (he's a tiger, though, right?). But I was awfully fond of little Basil too. All in all, this is one I would recommend as well.

An

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

You're braver than me then - took me ages to get into Pros AU, and I protested for ages that I didn't want to... Now I'm reading and adoring The Cook and the Warehouseman which must surely be about as AU as you can get...

Hmmn - I never really thought that about Doyle in HA, but that was probably because, as you said, EW built it into the background so well with Chandra etc. And that's pretty much how it works for me too - if I can see that a certain background might have had a certain effect on their characters, then it works for me in an AU (or whatever). If I can't see them reacting in a that way to something ever then I can't see that reaction building into a later character trait...

*but sighs happily too over Harlequin Airs*

[callistosh65.livejournal.com]

I'm relatively new too, and I must admit that my knee-jerk reaction to AUs is to do what I did as a child when my mother would insist porridge was good for me- purse my lips, shake my head and get that 'Uh-uh, no way' look fixed on my face.*g*

So far, the only AUs I've managed are ones where CI5 is at least somewhere in the background - I'm thinking Rainbow Chasers and Rediscovered in a Graveyard by HG, which I thoroughly enjoyed. (This is also why I haven't tackled any aliens or elves yet..) But Ellis Ward is a terrific writer - her 'Breaking Cover' is in my top ten - and this thread has certainly peaked my curiosity, so I'll go read and get back to ya.

On a side note, am I odd in that I absolutely don't like pics and drawings with my fics, no matter how talented the artist?

[blktauna.livejournal.com]

No, there's lots of people who don't.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

purse my lips, shake my head and get that 'Uh-uh, no way' look fixed on my face.*g*
lol - perfectly described, just how I was! But I started getting through all the other long fic too fast, and came a day when I was casting around for something to read, and... *g*

And I liked Rediscovered In A Graveyard alot - I think that was one of the ones that eased me in to AUs actually...

I'm fairly ambivalent about pics and drawings with fic actually. I sort of take them as a (hopefully!) nice bonus if they're original art, and an excuse to look again if they're photos. Now photo manips I find hard to look at, especially when they're quite explicit. I think it crosses a bit too far into infringing on the actors somehow... Can't help but wonder how they'd feel if they saw an actual photo of themselves like that - drawings seem less real somehow, but maybe I'm just being old-fashioned about that...

[blktauna.livejournal.com]

And I liked Rediscovered In A Graveyard alot

So did I. Although I must admit I tend to read each age together rather than jumping back and forth.

Now photo manips I find hard to look at, especially when they're quite explicit.
I agree. Most manips are frighteningly awful. The good ones are delicious but there aren't too many of them.

I'm also not too keen on, as one friends says, seeing the last chicken in the shop.

[callistosh65.livejournal.com]

Okay, went away and read it. I enjoyed it, simply because it's Ellis Ward and she's a great writer. But the CI5 world of *my* Bodie and Doyle was a little too background-only for me

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

*g* It is a ways away from CI5 isn't it?! I think that's why it took me a long time to venture into AUs at all - honest, you should have heard me protest them less than a year ago... It definitely a different frame of mind to read them, I think. But now I like 'em : )

[paris7am.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry that I missed the original flurry of posts, BSL.

Thank you for the excellent recommendation - it was a very engrossing and enjoyable piece of writing. I don't really have anything to add, just a few nods to some of the other comments. DDM? Absolutely! That's who and somehow where I pictured while reading the story. The artwork? I chose not to include it as I read, and didn't look at it until I was finished. I think that it's brilliant and seductive on its own, and I love the myriad of details and surprises she includes, but I somehow wanted the story by itself, and then the treat at the end of seeing the drawings, of seeing how someone else pictured it. Canon? I think that the B and D of this universe were presented so successfully that in the end I didn't want them to be in the CI5 universe - I wanted them to go back to the circus world...

Again, thank you for the great rec, and I'm going to have to go through all 50 - I was just over to peek at a few categories to see what you'd chosen - On Heat! Yes!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Isn't it lovely! And yeah, I was kind of upset that in the AU they chose CI5 over the circus, cos that's where I'd got used to them being, that was the them I'd started to love... Although of course CI5 and the mission were an integral part of that too...

Hee - I wasn't really sure whether to just post the whole table up here or what, but they'd be harder to find in the tags if I did that, so... separately it is!