Back in between DS9's Sixth and Seventh Season, and early S7, when I was a member at the PsiPhi DS9 board, there was a guy named John Burke who wrote this really great Alt-S7 of DS9, featuring different takes on some characters, some new characters, and some less-common Trek species stepping up. I had it downloaded on four-computers-ago or so, but it's long gone. I've been wanting to read it for some time now to see if I still think it's as good now that I'm grown up, and have never been able to find it online.
Truth be told, I can't even remember the title of the thing.
Oh, that really sounds interesting. I've only read short fanfics, nothing as long and huge in scope. I really wish I could read it and compare it to the actual season 7, which was a strange mix of brilliance (Cardassian rebellion storyline), mediocrity (Worf/Ezri/Bashir triangle) and stupidity (the Pah-wraiths).
In general, the whole fanfic scene lost me a few years back when it was (or at least seemed to be) taken over by the slash element, which meant virtually every story I came across had the male leads doing X-rated things to each other. I know it's nothing new (as folks who remember some of the earlier Trek fanfic and even professionally published novels can attest) but I hated it. Aside from it not being my cup of tea (being a male heterosexual who had no interest in reading about Odo and Quark doing unspeakable things with Odo's bucket)
Fanfic writers do come up with all sorts of nonsense, but I haven't heard of that one before.
Unfortunately, a lot of fanfiction is just porn, whether it's slash or heterosexual pairings, and a lot of features really unbelievable events and out of character behavior. What I am especially amazed at is the randomness of many of the pairings. That is really why I have stayed away from all fanfiction for a long time, after being burned by some bad examples, going back to the days of the
X-Files. But I've recently started to search through the world of fanfiction again, and it is worth it when you find some gems among the crap. Even the crap or almost crap is not that unbearable, at least it can make me laugh or I get an insight into other fans' mindset.
I haven't read any fanzines and I haven't read that many fanfics altogether, as I'm relatively new to this world, but I've found a dozen or so that were worth reading.
Here are a couple of DS9 fanfics I really enjoyed. They're based on the "five things that never happened" concept.
Five Things Which Never Happened.
Five roads not taken between Kira and Dukat. Exploration of a relationship. NOT a romance.
by
Selena
- and amazingly, it is not porn, either.
As it says, 5 short AU stories that explore different possible outcomes to events described in certain DS9 episodes and how they could have affected the Kira/Dukat dynamic. Quite dark stories, well written and with good characterization.
Paths Not Taken Five things which never happened between Garak and Bashir.
by the same author- exactly the same thing as above, only it's Garak/Bashir dynamic. Again, good characterization, dark stories, and believe it or not, this one is not porn, either.
And here's a BSG fanfic - a short character piece by the same author
, The Quality of Mercy.
Four conversations Laura Roslin has in the four weeks before her death.
This one is not AU
, just an elaboration of canon events from season 4, although it does feature a non-canon (but possible) explanation of a certain event. I like it for the good characterization of everyone - Roslin, Caprica, Ellen, Baltar, and even Tory (something that rarely happened on the show itself, which was all too happy to make her into an eeeevil character we are meant to despise).
Of course, our own PS Garak/Enabran Tainted, Nerys Ghemor / Nerys Dukat and others on Trek BBS have written some great stuff, but you can find their stories in the Fanfiction subforum or linked in their signatures.
And my stuff, I guess, although I doubt it's on the same level as the aforementioned authors.
