Allyson Beatrice

Perhaps this book would be more interesting if I'd never participated in online fandom. It sounds like the author had some interesting experiences to share, and had this been my first exposure to fannish communities, maybe the positive notes would have made more of an impression than the stories of trolls, the hammering upon the potentially fraught relationship between fans and producers, and the entire essay about her fear of being seen as a name-dropping impostor. By the end, though, I was tired of her world-weary tone and her tendency to knock fandom/fannishness before the outsider-reader can.

I've read more interesting LJ entries about fandom friendships, and I have a friend who tells more interesting stories about getting to know the producers (even if those producers aren't Whedon and company--get on that, you!).

Then again, slamming Firefly doesn't tend to endear people to me. So. Your mileage may vary.… (mais)

This book forced me to confront some assumptions I make about what books should be. If I shared a fandom with Beatrice, a major Whedon fan, I’d probably be pleased to read her journal. But what is reasonably well-written snark and inside baseball gossip read for free on the internet turned fairly annoying on the printed page, even though Beatrice was forthright about her desire to be seen as important by fellow fans and to convince us that she really was friends with David Fury. I just wasn’t sure what the book’s target audience was supposed to be: I either already knew this stuff (fandom is full of wonderful people and the occasional person disconnected from reality who perpetuates bad stereotypes and then some) or didn’t want to (details of how well she really did know the people from Mutant Enemy and was good at organizing promotional events, though Joss never recognizes her at parties).… (mais)

I put this on my tbr list on the strength of the title alone, I think. This book is a look at how fandom - specifically online Buffy/Angel fandom - changed one woman's life.

I haven't been deeply involved in a fandom since I was in high school, but I was deeply involved for several years and it has effected my life in some ways similarly to Allyson's - the threads of that involvement linger in old friendships and in-jokes and fond memories. It was fun to read about a fandom that was as close and intense as the one I was involved in, but because it was filled with adults rather than teens, the members could do things like travel across the country (or in some cases, across the globe) to gather and meet, contact the actors and other people involved in the shows and actually have them respond and occasionally get involved, and so on.

Overall it was a very enjoyable book, often laugh-out-loud funny and at times poignant (the story near the end about everyone donating money to bring their friend from Israel to the US for two weeks almost brought me to tears). It was a fairly easy read, too, especially for non-fiction, written in a conversational tone, perhaps similar to blog or forum posts.… (mais)