Enterprising Women: Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth (Contemporary Ethnography)

Description

A study of the worldwide community of fans of Star Trek and other genre television series who create and distribute fiction and art based on their favorite series. This community includes people from all walks of life—housewives, librarians, secretaries, and professors of medieval literature. Ninety percent of its members are women.

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Customer Reviews

Fandom's female subculture
Being a woman who is an occasional writer of Klingon fan-novellas, I was interested in this scholarly book on fanfic and its female following. The author does an in-depth study of female fans of not only Star Trek, but Blake's 7 (a British sci-fi series), Starskiy & Hutch, The Man From Uncle, Alien Nation, Doctor Who, and other TV shows. Her conclusions: 98% of fanfic is written by women, who prefer intimacy, character-interaction, and continuity over action and special-effects. (I guess that makes me a "2%er" -- I prefer plot-driven adventure, decriptive carnage, and characters of my own creation.) Immersing herself in the subculture, Bacon-Smith delves into the very personal and sometimes secretive world of 'zines and fannish writing. With great respect toward the community which generously contributed to her study, she exposes the genres of fiction which appeal to most female writers and readers. They are the "MarySue" and "LaySpock" which are basically an extension of the writers' own personnae and fantasies; the "Hurt-Comfort" tender tales of nurturing and caretaking; and "Slash" or erotica featuring explicit sex between established characters. Bacon-Smith also cautiously explores the underground realm of homoerotic "Slash" (sometimes called "K/S" after Kirk/Spock) in which female fans envision intimate relationships between the two male partners of various favorite series. This is an intriguing book, containing much technical terminology and psych-evaluation. I thought I might identify with it, but instead I found the subculture wholly alien (no pun intended). At least I know now why my klinzines are not a big hit with the mainstream fandom!

2000-07-30 (Tovarischi Imports, USA/RUS) | Helpful Votes: 10 | Rating: 4

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Interesting
I think people could be surprised at how much fanfic, esp on the Internet, can mean to people. Let alone that it was a big enough topic for people to write books and scholarly essays about! Could be something of a surpise, esp if you had no idea so many people enjoyed this hobby.

2000-03-27 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 3

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An intriguing look at fandom on the verge of major change
A fascinating look at fandom, managing to catch the world of zines, video, and small communities just before the 'Net fully hit fandom. Occasionally a bit too filled with academic lingo for the average reader, but an utterly engrossing read for anyone involved in fandom.

2000-03-27 (New Orleans) | Helpful Votes: 5 | Rating: 3

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Daemon Eyes

Product Details

• Notes: Mark New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Mould: NEW
• ISBN13: 9780756404451

Description

The paranormal mystery of Eye of the daemon and eyes of the empress Together for the first time!

Kevin Bradley and his partners are uniquely qualified to handle cases involving the occult-he and Evan Davis are far more than the mere mortals they appear to be. Kevin is a powerful daemon lord, and Evan is his half-daemon, half-human son. Solving mortal crimes should be a cinch for them. But somehow, they never get the easy, open-and-shut cases.

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Customer Reviews

Very disappointed
I made it half way through this book but couldn't finish it. I like the authors concept and created world, that was interesting. But this book just seem to drag on and on.

2008-06-10 | Kathy (Bristol, CT) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 2

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Heard the Author Read It
I heard the author read from this at Philcon 2007 and resolved then and there to use up the last two slots of my phone's address book to enter the book information so I remembered to get it. While I am not an aficionado of the genre, I found her plot, characters and dialogue to be compelling, and I look forward to reading the rest of the book! If you get the chance to go to a reading of hers, I highly recommend it; she is a dynamic reader and opinionated lady.

2008-01-09 | acaliforniancustomer (SAN JOSE, CA United States) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 5

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Entertaining
Depressed and terrified, Evan has horrific dreams which cause him to contemplate suicide. After allowing two close friends to drag him to a satanic bar (you can tell Evan doesn't make the smartest life choices), he soon becomes a captive of the evil barkeep Mac who is secretly a demon in disguise. Ritually tortured, he is eventually freed, and must come face to face with the frightening reality of who his father is and what he must become to survive.

I admit, I picked this book up because of the cover. Two hot guys.. You can't go wrong, right? Well, the novel was a bit slow to start. It takes about 30 pages of Evan self-pity (and stupidity) to get to the good parts... The good part in my case, being Evan's Dad, Brad. Reading about Brad (no its not his real name) is perhaps the best part of the book. His evolution as a character makes it all worthwhile. Evan grew on me a bit too...But I found it difficult to like him.. Evan's not a bad kid... But he is a victim and for the first half (the first book), his victimhood and pain and abused nature did not make light reading.

Which brings me to the final issue with this novel which kept it from being a five star read. At times the author strays off target and brings in a lot of minor characters at once. There are heavy amounts of dialog and I felt like the story strayed from the tight action-packed urban-fantasy package it had previously been. Any time Claudia and her brother were mentioned for instance... Just didn't seem to fit in the whole storyline that well. The dialog in particular between these characters seemed cheesy and overdone. Also, at times I felt the story lacked grounding. The demons can teleport wherever they want to be, and sometimes the real world and the demon world was difficult to distinguish and because the writer does not employ alot of environmental description, this makes this problem worse.

Overall, a good story. Entertaining.

2007-09-11 (California, USA) | Helpful Votes: 19 | Rating: 4

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Great book!
Anyone who likes a book w/action, heroes you can sympathize with, and simple entertainment will love this book! It is an Awesome book!

2007-07-19 | BMD0123 (Michigan) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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A Legacy of Daemons

Description

Third in the paranormal detective series

Evan Davis and his partners, Brad and Lily, attract the jobs no other detective can handle-cases with a dangerous, otherworldly slant. But no one is better equipped for this because Lily and Brad are powerful daemon lords, and Evan is Brad's half-daemon son. Now, however, the trio face a real challenge---involving armies of daemons, and wealthy mortals who have delved far too deeply into the dark arts...

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Eye of the Daemon

Description

On a quest for her kidnapped half brother, Marnie Simpson hires a Philadelphia group of private investigators whose ties to the supernatural enable them to combat a staggering plan of conquest. Reissue.

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Customer Reviews

Slow to Start
I pulled this one off my shelves the other day and decided to read it right away. But things started out confusingly with references to adventures made in a way that made me think I had missed a previous volume.

What we have is a detective agency that specializes in retrieving lost or stolen art (so why does their ad mention the occult?). The agency is made up of a father, a son and a distant cousin. Father and cousin are daemon lords and the son is a half-breed. Their new case has been thrust upon them and it brings up old memories of how dad got reunited with son (this part really seems like a reference to an earlier book). The case takes them around the world and involves a rival daemon lord.

Much of the plot revolves around the mythology of the seven spheres (humans in the first, daemons in the second) and the interactions of daemon lords and princes. By the last third of the book things are clearer and it became enjoyable to read even if the ending was a bit cliched. I found the cosmology interesting but not the way it was integrated into the story. Since none of heroes are human, their actions, motives and dialogue are hard to understand. I don't feel the reader is brought into the picture properly but if you can handle a book that starts slow and confusing it could be worth sticking with it to the end.

2005-12-01 (Chicago, IL United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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A Great Book
I was really amazed by this book. I got it as an interesting read, not expecting such a great tale! I do agree with one problem, and that is i felt there should or was a book before this since the large reference to the past. However, the past is all explained in this book, but i was disapointed to learn there is NOT a book before this one , otherwise i'd be reading it now. The book doesn't qualify as a mystery but more a sci-fi, which makes it all the better to me, and paranormal type book. The book was NEVER boring and happily i never has to skip any "slow parts". If you like daemons, paranormal, etc. i can almost gaurantee you'de like this book. To be more clear on what it is ABOUT, its about a woman who goes to a private detective agency of Bradely, Ryan, and Davis, that specialize in handling "cases involving the occult with descretion", though by some rather daemonic means...However, the plot is raveled with alterial motives and our protagonists soon find themsleves in a rather difficult situation. I highly recomend this book, as well as "Eyes of the Empress." to add a last quote from the hardcover additoin Daemons, Inc.--"They're detectives on a mission. And their methods are...diabolical."

2003-04-14 | Angela (Oregon) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Not a detective story
I was somewhat misled by the plot description, essentially "a detective agency, run by demons, investigates a kidnapping." I expected, well, something more of a mystery to be involved. But the identity of the kidnapper is never a mystery, nor is the mysterious Eye of Omage that the kidnapper claims to want for ransom. Villains explain their dark plans at the slightest prompting, and every character introduced, like in a Scooby Doo cartoon, proves to have a role in the Big Plot. Had I been expecting something more in the vampire genre of "sex, death, and angst" I might have been better prepared to like this book.

The description of daemon thinking was interesting, and is what gives this book its second star, for me. One daemon explains: "You see a painting and feel a set of emotions you translate as appreciation. [...] If you could become the painting, love your own beauty, and then pass on, [...] then you'd be getting close [to how daemons experience things]." However, while the description of how daemons are different was interesting, by the fourth or fifth time it was explained in detail that for daemons, it's always now, I was ready for more plot, less exposition. Or, please, a little mystery.

2002-12-30 (Somerville, MA USA) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 2

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To Hell with The Daemon!
This book is so badly done in so many different ways, it's hard to know where to start. That seems to be the author's big problem too: the book reads like some of the worst sequel novels I've seen, where the first hundred pages are spent explaining, in unlovely prose, what happened in the first book. In this case, there was no first book, but the author presents his characters in that manner anyway. The narrative moves with the speed of frozen molasses -- when it isn't moving backwards. Then there are the characters themselves. Billion-year-old daemons who are as tempramental and un-self-controlled as two- year-old kids. This is just really, really stupid stuff. For a couple books that handle similar themes much better, check out Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle's "Inferno" and Steven Brust's "To Reign In Hell"

2000-10-29 (Glendale, CA USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 1

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Good book!
This was a good book. The biggest thing wrong with it is that I kept thinking there was a book before it I should have read. It keeps refering to events in the past, like I should already know of it. I eventually figured it out, but I think that this one should have been a sequel, not a first book. I would recommend it to most people though, it is a good book. They run a detective agency, and all of them seem to be trying to figure out why they like Evan. Kevin is struggling to understand his paternal feelings. Lily occasionally gets confused by her emotions for Evan. Even Evan is trying to figure out why he wants to stay alive. Meanwhile, you are trying to figure out why they don't know. I mean, he is such a great guy!

2000-04-11 | j65bryan (Guthrie, OK USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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Eyes of the Empress

Description

Bradley, Ryan, and Davis, Private Investigaors was the most unique detective agency in Philadelphia, because Kevin Bradley and his partners, Evan and Lily, were not the mere mortals they appeared to be. Brad and Lily were powerful demons, and Evan was Brad's half-demon/half-mortal son. Solving earthly crimes ought to have been a cinch for them. But when someone began stealing the crystal balls which had belonged to the centuries-dead Dowager Empress of China, Brad, and Evan found themselves hard-pressed to track the criminal down. For the thief was a dangerous--perhaps unstoppable-- adversary...even for those with powers beyond anything known in the mortal realms!

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Customer Reviews

A Grand Sequel
I truely hope Bacon-Smith continues with another book of Daemons Inc. This book wsa as great as the first and i would encourage anyone to buy it! Like the first Eyes of the Daemon, the book was never slow and both kept me reader till 2 in the morning. The plot is intriguing and always entertaining, and the complications add flavor to the overall story. To sum-up the book, the private detective agency of Bradely, Ryan, and Davis is called to protect the Dowager Empress Crystals, but before they can start they're gone and Kevin Bradley has become the top suspect! With these and other "family" problems bursting into life, the agency is in for a rough ride, and Kevin maybe in for a greater betrayl...

2003-04-14 | Angela (Oregon) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Let's hope Ms. Bacon-Smith keeps this series going
She hasn't continued with it but I sincerely hope she has more ideas in the works for the detective agency of Bradley, Ryan and Davis. These two books (Eyes of the Daemon and Eyes of the Empress) are unique and utterly fascinating. I keep picking one up to re-read a favorite passage and end up reading the entire book all over again. I never know whether to check the Mystery, Sci-Fi, or Fiction sections to see if she's written a third book in this series, so I check them all regularly. A skillful and incredibly talented writer!

2002-08-14 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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a great read - you won't want to put it down
I picked up this book and the first title "eye of the daemon" together on the off chance that they would be good. I wasn't dissapointed. Both titles are one of the best reads I have had in a long time. A contempoary fantasy that has great characters. You won't want to put either book down. I am looking forward to more books with these characters from this author.

I read a lot of SF, Fantasy and horror and these titles really do stand out from the crowd. Definate 'keepers'.

1999-05-29 | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 5

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Ironic, exotic, erotic, and not to be missed
I'd advise having the following handy when you read this book. First, an extremely comfortable chair; you aren't going to want to put this book down anytime soon. Next, a DO NOT DISTURB sign so the world will leave you alone while you chortle or in some cases laugh hysterically at the book's ironic and often sly humor. Finally, a fan for cooling off after you get through the steamier passages. This worthy successor to EYE OF THE DAEMON picks up several years after the first book, with half-human/half-daemon Evan settling into something resembling a happy existence with daemon father Brad and daemon lover Lily. At least, Evan suspects it's a happy existence because neither has tried to kill him lately... he's a remarkably well-adjusted boy. I'm a fantasy and science fiction reader, and I still don't know what genre this book belongs to, but I can attest to the fact that it's the most legal fun you can have without getting into Serious Literature. The humor is wonderful, the premise delightful. Read the other book first if you can because it's more fun that way, but if you can't, don't worry. I look forward to more in the series!

1999-04-20 | Helpful Votes: 7 | Rating: 5

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Not like anything else
Evan has got it tough. His dad is a Damon from the Second Sphere where time doesn't exist and his Mom's from the Material Sphere - Earth and that makes hims a monster that's not welcome anywhere. Although the main plot-line of this book is a mystery, it serves only as a backdrop to the real story, Evan's relationship with his Daemon dad, Brad and his Daemon lover, Lily. Evan longs for a family, but the Daemon's just don't get it. Their totally non-human outlook on life is effectively captured by the author when Brad, puzzled by why Evan want's him around so badly says to Lily regarding his son, "He was just . . . interesting, nothing more. I never told him I liked him". Of course Daemon's aren't much better then humans at understanding their emotions and that's the source of much of the fun. What I like most though, is the unabashed celebration of the individual. So many books glorify self-sacrifice and heroics for the common good, by Evan wants to live despite the fact it might be better for all of creation if he had never been. This is the second book in the serious and it read better then the first. It can be probably be enjoyed by itself but will be a lot richer if you have read the firest one. Unlike the first this book contains no gore and no murders, which suits me just fine. Hopefully there will be many more books to follow.

1999-02-27 | Helpful Votes: 5 | Rating: 4

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DAEMONS INC: Eye of the Daemon; Eyes of the Empress

Description

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