Roswell Fanfiction

This is one of my secret vices.  But it is a big one.

The Internet is a marvelous place - you can find all sorts of stuff there if you are not in a real hurry and don't mind that searching is a lot like free association.  Among the things one can find is what amounts to fan clubs for various TeeVee shows, some long defunct.

Fanfiction is fiction that takes the characters and sometimes the circumstances of a show series, a book series, or some other grouping and creates new stories, story lines, and story series based loosely or tightly on the information already present.

Some of this stuff is really well written, some is crap - just like everything else in the known universe.

I was a fan of the Roswell series when it was on TeeVee.  It lasted only three seasons (resurrected twice by fans who drowned the production company in tabasco sauce...) and had its ups and downs depending on who was writing - but the young actors in the series had chemistry such as rarely gets observed.  The Pilot and the first 5 episodes were probably where the show peaked, and after that it sometimes got gimmicky and appealed to folks looking for outlandish or outrageous anachronism or science untruth.  

For those who don't know, Roswell centered around the lives of four teenagers that had been foundlings at around the age of 6 and adopted in Roswell - and the four other teenagers who were schoolmates, playmates and soulmates some of the time - and the attempt by the first mentioned group to keep secret that while the looked like other kids, they were not at all like other kids, having been created from a mix of terrestrial people DNA and the DNA from elsewhere.  Sounds kinda uninteresting, but the relationships between the aliens and the natives were convoluted, and the analysis of what sorts of paranoia might rest in the aliens was well done, along with the interplay of the two species after the natives became aware of the secret of the others.  

In any event, the relationships were well done, the chemistry between the player pairs was so great that I've not seen the like before or since, and I could identify with one of the aliens - the alienation in school, the need to stay private - I've been there, and it is hard.

Anyhow, even before the show was taken off (and there was still enough interest that DVD's for all three seasons were released before the show had been gone for a year; and I own all 3 sets....) there were a large number of web sites collecting fiction written to the Roswell characters and legends - and there was an incredible load of it, and a surprising lot was really good.  Of course, some was absolute shit, and some was borderline pornography, but a surprising amount was very well crafted stuff, and over the years I have developed a list of writers whose every word I will read - as well as a list from whose stories I will run.

I check on some places several times throughout the day looking for new stuff from "my" writers, and have a pretty steady diet of new approaches to Roswell characters and circumstances, some of which might have allowed the series to run much longer.  The depth of understanding of the human condition that some of these writers have is amazing.  Many are young people, but many are not - the age spans high school to late 60's / early 70's - student, worker, retiree, retired military - everyone is in there writing for all they're worth.  

When I started reading this stuff, I had over 200 sites in my bookmarks.  Some have closed, some have gone static (nothing new, but site still there) but many still remain.  Most of my reading occurs over at RoswellFanatics.net - it is active with a good slate of good authors, and a large number  of finished stories.  Some of the writers are quick, some are not, and some never finish anything, so you take what you can get and enjoy the stuff that flows.  Right now my favorite writer over there calls himself GreyWolf and from what I gather, he's probably around my age, retired carreer Air Force officer, and pretty bright - and he really does his homework!

I have always been one to read, and read a couple of books a week, in addition to trade magazines, email and my beloved FanFic - but it is amazing how good a lot of what is out there is. Another site is FanFiction.net which has 3477 Roswell stories, and a huge number of other stories written around a couple of hundred show characters sets and stories.

If you like to read and are searching for new sources, google FanFiction and pick some places to try out.  It's cheaper than paperbacks, and you get the added treat of watching the story grow, and even of shaping it by your feedback to the writer.

Try it - just be advised it can become quite a large part of your day if you let it.