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Title: Echo (and it's sequel) Broadcast Difficulties
Author: Ellis Ward
Link to story or zine/ProsLib info: Echo (Circuit Archive) and Broadcast Difficulties (Circuit Archive) - also available at The Hatstand.

Echo/Broadcast Difficulties had by far the most votes in our which fics shall we talk about poll, and yet no one else volunteered to rec/review them, so I'm afraid you're stuck with me... which is fine, because I like these stories alot! They read to me as good old-fashioned science-fiction adventure tales - the human race has gone out and found worlds occupied by all kinds of beings, including some who are remarkably like ourselves - and the added bonus is that Bodie/Doyle are the heroes, and in my humble opinion, very much themselves.

As a bonus to the story itself I'm rather fascinated that the unkind guard at the prison is called Carnall - not a common name, as far as I'm aware, but of course a well-known Pros writer. I'm wondering if there was a specific reason for that, or if it was just a name chosen at random - does anyone know?

If it was chosen at random then it seems odd to me - I've read a number of stories where characters have been named after someone famous, such as Shane Warne (Nothing Left to Lose), Russell Grant (can't remember the title, but Jane again!) and even Noel and Liam Gallagher (Exile - complete with artwork of the actual people), and it's thrown me every time. "Carnall" wasn't quite as bad, perhaps because I don't have a picture of her in my head, but it's still got me wondering about backstory rather than the actual story when I re-read this. I wonder why authors do it - it must surely be done on purpose, perhaps as an in-joke of their own, without realising the potential effect on readers?

Back to Echo - I actually recced this back in 2008, and while it would be very easy to repeat how much I like it and why, and how fab the sfangi is, and that I like Echo more than Broadcast Difficulties, I'm not going to... *g* Instead I shall talk about something I particularly like about this story - and I think others of the era - which is the way it begins.

The lads meet when Bodie rescues Doyle from the prison planet of Stepney, which is perfect, because we immediately want to read more to find out what happened - how did Doyle end up in jail? Why's Bodie there? What's going on..? Current writers often use similar tactics to drag us into the story, but I've noticed that there seems to be a tendency these days for authors then to flip back in time and explain how the characters got to that point in the story - almost as if they're turning the story inside out, somehow. In small doses, this can be an interesting device, but it seems to be such a trend at the moment that nearly every fic I open is structured this way (cue everyone pointing out all the fics I haven't read that don't do this! *g* But you know what I mean...)

I've been doing more re-reading of Prosfic than anything else lately, though - and it strikes me that older stories very rarely use this structural device - instead they do what Ward does in Echo, which is to intrigue us with the beginning of the story, and then keep going! We learn about the lads' history and how they came to be on Stepney as part of the ongoing story rather than in a separate chunk, and I think there's a much nicer flow to that, somehow - as a reader who just wants to be swept up, it's perhaps like being on a roller-coaster with all its ups and downs, rather than one of those giant swings that take you up and up and up one side... and then stop and reverse and take you back again and up and up and up... and then stop and reverse again... And I find I'm a roller-coaster kind of reader to the point that I don't often want to get on the giant swing any more...

So - what did you think of Echo and Broadcast Difficulties? Do you know anything about any connection with Carnall - and/or does recognising non-Pros name (outside of the plot) bother you in a Pros story? Are you a roller-coaster reader, or do you like the giant swing best? Are you also wishing that there'd been a sequel where the lads chase down Cowley instead of following Bodie's worry that he's chasing them? What d'you reckon?