Reviewed by Nora
Thanksgiving (for us Americans) isn't the only feast available for yaoi fans. Here's a review of a veritable smorgasbord of fresh-cut gourmet English-language fansmut, courtesy of Mas-Zine and the Yaoicon fanfic anthology.
Mas-Zine first, since I read this one some time ago. A true rarity in the field of homegrown smut, Mas-Zine is a semipro fanzine of derivative and original m/m fiction with nonconsensual elements. That's right, non-con not only allowed, but encouraged. Not necessarily manga/anime-based, each Mas-Zine issue solicits stories around a central theme. The one I happened to get was volume 3: Strappado de Luxe. (Note: I see that issue 2 is now available for free, so I guess I've got some reading handy for the post-holiday flight back home. =P)
As with any gourmet dish, presentation matters. This volume of Mas-Zine was published in CD format with a nice professional-looking custom label, featuring stories in HTML and PDF format, along with black-and-white and color illustrations by popular artists like Tammy Lee, Pluto, P.L. Nunn, Helm, and more. The format options are handy, since the stories themselves range from traditional short-story length to novel-sized whoppers (the longest was 120,000 words).
Fortunately, the Mas-Zine folks have mostly done a good job of selecting and editing, so reading such long stories isn't a chore. It also helps that there's something here for everybody: "original slash", historical fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, and gay fiction, running the gamut from fairly standard fanfic to avant-garde indescribable.
My personal fave was Rushlight's Pathfinder, the aforementioned 120K novel with a well-developed sci-fi concept wrapped around a classic fannish nugget: the concept of unbreakable bonds. I have to confess that bonds are a personal pet peeve; I see them too often in speculative fiction and fanfiction, used as a handy shortcut for creating emotional intensity without the fuss and bother of a long relationship. But this story went straight into the dark side of bonding, and how absolutely crappy it can be to have an unbreakable emotional bond with a bad partner. A refreshing change from the usual sappy sweetness of bonding stories. In this story about genetically-engineered psychics who literally lose their minds unless they bond to a "guide", we meet Shai, a pretty young thing who encounters not one, but three possible guides, each of whom lays claim to him in a different way. The first is benign, though exploitative; the third becomes the obvious odds-on favorite by virtue of the fact that he's the only decent human being of the three. The second, and the focus of most of the story, is a sadistic super-soldier who makes his claim on Shai through a series of brutal rapes. In the end, Shai's only choice is which of the three will end up owning him.
I also liked Becca Abbott's Ai no Kusabi fanfic "Fortress," even though it was apparently the sequel to a story which ran in Mas-Zine volume 2. It stood alone nicely, a well-plotted side dish of characters both familiar and original. I liked her explanation for why Blondies aren't supposed to Do It, and what happens to them when they do. I tried to like Tricia's "Forced Surrender," but couldn't quite get into it, possibly because much of the story's plot is provided in a backstory info-dump (possibly an unpublished prequel?). What was left felt like a thin excuse for the characters to play master-slave. Might be some people's cuppa, just not mine. The rest of the stories on the volume are the usual anthology mix of enjoyable and "what were they thinking?" But overall I liked it. I'm tempted to get the "Pirates" issue in the hope of seeing some Pirates of the Caribbean slash. Though I'm not sure I want to see Jack and Will non-con...
Next up for review was the Yaoicon 2003 Dark Temptations story anthology. Talk about presentation---this one arrived as a delectable bound volume, as high-quality in packaging and layout as the best doujinshi, and with a cover more beautiful than many I've seen out of Japan. Yangfan's ornate, elegant art practically sold the book by itself, and Lulu's starker back cover (Dante and Vergil from Devil May Cry in sensual b&w line-art) was pretty damned sweet too.
But all this beauty came with a price. The cover appetizers made me crave exotic, beautiful, powerful stories as the main course; anything less would disappoint, so my expectations were extra-high. Fortunately, I got several tasty helpings of exactly what I wanted. I liked Tavam's "Butterfly", about a mysterious courtesan who meets an even more mysterious patron; Jo Asakura's "Bride," a Devil May Cry PWP with an unexpectedly dreamy, surreal intensity (also liked her very weird but intriguing RK hardboiled detective AU "Onnagata"); Mizu no Ryu's "Wicked Little Town," a gritty dark Fatal Fury tale with surprisingly empathetic "bad guy" characters; Sahari's "Fallen," an Akira/Ryo Devilman story (YES! Subtextual fulfillment at last!); and Sahari's even tastier Lord of the Rings elvish threesome-fic "Better Acquaintance" (though I could've done without the unsubtle illustrations...). In spite of some awkward language I liked Narcissus' Rurouni Kenshin story "Autumn Moon -- Winter Moon", which reminded me of Motoni Modoru's "Hanaotoshi" in theme. And I absolutely loved Gryvon's "Sapphire Rose," which was pure romantic button-pushing (beautiful coldhearted rich man falls in love with downtrodden whore-with-a-heart-of-gold) but which pushed all the right buttons.
Less enjoyable was a trend that I noticed about halfway through the volume:
a lack of variety. Two of the three original stories featured youko, all
three of the Yami no Matsuei tales featured crazy!Muraki (as opposed to
someother!Muraki or better yet, a completely different character), and there
were two Lord of the Rings Legolas-uke stories. Most glaring were the three
Weiss Kreuz stories, all featuring Aya and Youji in some conformation, all
grouped together in a kind of Weiss ghetto about a third of the way into the
book. And most painfully, all four of the stories which incorporated some
element of the artist Jessica's "challenge pic" fulfilled the challenge in
the same way, making the tattooed character a courtesan. I'd been hoping to
see some beautiful tattooed yakuza, maybe, or some variation on the
Illustrated Man theme (like the SciFi Channel's intriguing short on same, "Tattoo
Man"). Something really wild and imaginative.
But this is my personal bias. I'm used to anthologies in which the editors
try to find a breadth of stories from different genres and styles to fit a
certain theme. In this case, all these "sames" only served to remind me of
how very conventional yaoi fandom can be sometimes -- originality
and artistry are in perpetual competition with the conformity of What Fans
Want, and usually the fans win. But when too many writers develop the same
answer to the question "what is exotic/erotic?" the result... isn't.
Still, this is nitpicking. Overall, and especially for a first effort, this is an absolutely fantastic anthology, and a perfect showcase of what yaoi fanfic writers can do. I'm tempted to try and get a few more copies as gifts for all the friends who've asked me "so... what's this yaoi stuff you're always talking about?" But unfortunately, the anthology was only produced in limited quantities and is no longer available. Ah, well.
(Nobody's getting my copy, so don't even ask.)