Sally Hayward's Spring Term
I was dubious about this when it was announced, but you'll never catch me turning down new Marlow fic, and as it turns out I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Things I liked:
It's AF-flavoured rather than an attempt at a pastiche - the dialogue is mostly spot on, but the narrative is restrained, with a number of nicely expressed moments of insight. I don't know if I'd back anyone except
ankaret to keep up AF-ness for a whole novel, but Sally Hayward does a good job of capturing the flavour, and her own prose style is good, both in the story and in her meta essay afterwards.
It's funny! Nothing at the level of 'wearing briefer-than-briefs for Lawrie and Nicola', but there were quite a few moments that made me lol, neatly integrated with the more serious stuff.
The pacing was excellent - starting it at midnight turns out to have been a terrible idea. The plot threads are skilfully interwoven and either Sally Hayward or Tig Thomas has a great sense of where to put the chapter breaks to foil my efforts to put it down and go to sleep.
The plot is canon-esque (and very thorough about it - she puts in pretty much everything), but she rings some effective changes. A Deadly Srs Open Day sounds exactly like Keith, for example. I think
slemslempike pointed out that Kingscote students spend rather a lot of time rehearsing plays that everyone thinks are going to flop, but it was fun having the students think the staff overconfident rather than the other way around as in Autumn Term.
Nothing horrible happens to Nicola, which is rather a relief. Attic Term always makes me wince.
I also liked that she covered some things that AF tends to avoid describing directly. I nearly clapped when Keith came in and clobbered them all about Cyrano (though possibly she was a little fairer and less infuriating than in canon?), and I loved Nicola's scene with Ann - she hardly gets to talk to her in canon, but it was a really interesting moment for both of them.
She's strong on characterisation and has obviously put a lot of thought into it, but Ann's development is especially good. I'm not sure I buy all of it; I think, whatever Ginty did, Ann's viewpoint is so determinedly rosy that she'd still think people were basically good and deserving of her help, so thinking of giving up nursing is a stretch. But forcing Ann to abandon her unthinking trust in authority and engage with the world as it is, not the world as she thinks it should be, was both believable and interesting. She's not quite as successful with minor characters - both Selby and Monica were a bit shadowy around the edges - but Dr Herrick's characterisation was splendid, and I liked Ann's worried friend. She's good at kids, too, which is important if you're going to put Fob in.
Lots of lovely Miss Latimer.
Things I didn't like:
If Nicola was going to be ambushed into religion, it would be by atmosphere and old-fashioned liturgies, not by finding unexpected meaning in a psalm. I love Nicola, but her conviction that nobody nowadays 'believes properly' is her version of Lawrie's obtuseness about, well, everything, and is in its own way pretty impenetrable. (She has, for example, met Patrick.) She might well react to suddenly understanding a psalm by wondering what else was in there or even deciding to read further, but developing a personal relationship with God on the spot is a bit of a stretch.
Ginty going to the Dark Side. Everyone else is viewed with insight and sympathy, even Miss Redmond; I thought that scene was especially well done, with neither Ann nor Miss Redmond coming off as a villain, but the mess instead being caused by an unlucky combination of their respective character flaws - which, now that I think of it, are related. Miss Redmond lacks empathy and thinks the appropriate answer is always to clobber wrongdoers with the Hammer of Authority; Ann doesn't have the experience (has perhaps wilfully avoided getting the experience) to realise that Authority can be flawed. Anyway, as I was saying, a sympathetic eye for everyone except Ginty. Mr Merrick in Attic Term says it's even odds whether Ginty will go to the good or the bad, but he doubts it will be very spectacular either way; being awful enough to alienate Monica completely is a bit more spectacular than I can quite believe in. She's been a weak character, but never exactly bad; she's never been willing to look too hard at her own motives, but outright dishonesty with herself and others is new.
I could have done with a bit more cricket (Miss Craven being sniffy about Nicola missing a practice seemed to be setting something up, but nothing was resolved), but I suppose there's a limit to the number of interesting scenes you can set at an out-of-season cricket practice, and that limit is probably in the region of 'one'.
Thing that I neither liked nor disliked but feel like mentioning anyway:
I was a bit discombobulated by their dorms suddenly sprouting lockers. Not that I find it unbelievable, just that my mental picture was more along the lines of chests of drawers and a little wardrobe like they had at my school.
In sum: not canon, but a lot of fun. I'll definitely read it again some time, and I'd love to see more from her.
Also posted at Dreamwidth.
Things I liked:
It's AF-flavoured rather than an attempt at a pastiche - the dialogue is mostly spot on, but the narrative is restrained, with a number of nicely expressed moments of insight. I don't know if I'd back anyone except
ankaret to keep up AF-ness for a whole novel, but Sally Hayward does a good job of capturing the flavour, and her own prose style is good, both in the story and in her meta essay afterwards.
It's funny! Nothing at the level of 'wearing briefer-than-briefs for Lawrie and Nicola', but there were quite a few moments that made me lol, neatly integrated with the more serious stuff.
The pacing was excellent - starting it at midnight turns out to have been a terrible idea. The plot threads are skilfully interwoven and either Sally Hayward or Tig Thomas has a great sense of where to put the chapter breaks to foil my efforts to put it down and go to sleep.
The plot is canon-esque (and very thorough about it - she puts in pretty much everything), but she rings some effective changes. A Deadly Srs Open Day sounds exactly like Keith, for example. I think
slemslempike pointed out that Kingscote students spend rather a lot of time rehearsing plays that everyone thinks are going to flop, but it was fun having the students think the staff overconfident rather than the other way around as in Autumn Term.
Nothing horrible happens to Nicola, which is rather a relief. Attic Term always makes me wince.
I also liked that she covered some things that AF tends to avoid describing directly. I nearly clapped when Keith came in and clobbered them all about Cyrano (though possibly she was a little fairer and less infuriating than in canon?), and I loved Nicola's scene with Ann - she hardly gets to talk to her in canon, but it was a really interesting moment for both of them.
She's strong on characterisation and has obviously put a lot of thought into it, but Ann's development is especially good. I'm not sure I buy all of it; I think, whatever Ginty did, Ann's viewpoint is so determinedly rosy that she'd still think people were basically good and deserving of her help, so thinking of giving up nursing is a stretch. But forcing Ann to abandon her unthinking trust in authority and engage with the world as it is, not the world as she thinks it should be, was both believable and interesting. She's not quite as successful with minor characters - both Selby and Monica were a bit shadowy around the edges - but Dr Herrick's characterisation was splendid, and I liked Ann's worried friend. She's good at kids, too, which is important if you're going to put Fob in.
Lots of lovely Miss Latimer.
Things I didn't like:
If Nicola was going to be ambushed into religion, it would be by atmosphere and old-fashioned liturgies, not by finding unexpected meaning in a psalm. I love Nicola, but her conviction that nobody nowadays 'believes properly' is her version of Lawrie's obtuseness about, well, everything, and is in its own way pretty impenetrable. (She has, for example, met Patrick.) She might well react to suddenly understanding a psalm by wondering what else was in there or even deciding to read further, but developing a personal relationship with God on the spot is a bit of a stretch.
Ginty going to the Dark Side. Everyone else is viewed with insight and sympathy, even Miss Redmond; I thought that scene was especially well done, with neither Ann nor Miss Redmond coming off as a villain, but the mess instead being caused by an unlucky combination of their respective character flaws - which, now that I think of it, are related. Miss Redmond lacks empathy and thinks the appropriate answer is always to clobber wrongdoers with the Hammer of Authority; Ann doesn't have the experience (has perhaps wilfully avoided getting the experience) to realise that Authority can be flawed. Anyway, as I was saying, a sympathetic eye for everyone except Ginty. Mr Merrick in Attic Term says it's even odds whether Ginty will go to the good or the bad, but he doubts it will be very spectacular either way; being awful enough to alienate Monica completely is a bit more spectacular than I can quite believe in. She's been a weak character, but never exactly bad; she's never been willing to look too hard at her own motives, but outright dishonesty with herself and others is new.
I could have done with a bit more cricket (Miss Craven being sniffy about Nicola missing a practice seemed to be setting something up, but nothing was resolved), but I suppose there's a limit to the number of interesting scenes you can set at an out-of-season cricket practice, and that limit is probably in the region of 'one'.
Thing that I neither liked nor disliked but feel like mentioning anyway:
I was a bit discombobulated by their dorms suddenly sprouting lockers. Not that I find it unbelievable, just that my mental picture was more along the lines of chests of drawers and a little wardrobe like they had at my school.
In sum: not canon, but a lot of fun. I'll definitely read it again some time, and I'd love to see more from her.
Also posted at Dreamwidth.