On Tue, 26 Dec 1995, Couture, George, A1C, SAM-OPTS wrote:

 And secondly, Jeanne H. made me ponder this- how does everyone feel about a 
BubbleGum Crisis Fanfic
contest? Not enough stories? Not enough readers? Has Bert won already?
What are your thoughts?

I think it's just that we don't have the kind of fan-base that Ranma and 
Star Trek have.  A contest wouldn't hurt, and it might encourage 
more authors to write fanfics or finish the ones they started (although I 
doubt it).

Making a BGC fanfic guide would also help.  When I started reading 
Ranma fanfics, the first thing I got was was the guide.  I think something
like that would attract readers by letting know what's out there.  Right now,
entering the BGC directory at ftp.std.com, you can either just d/l, or get 
a directory listing.  Not very informative or helpful.  Probably 
discourages people, too.

If the BGC fanfic contest were held, I think Knights End (or the entire 
Tokyo Babylon/KE/BGChaos story arc [if completed in time] would win).  Mark 
Latus' extension and continuation of the BGC story is very well written.  
It includes a wide variety of things in the story (*).  And it also
focuses on the characters, introducing new  ones and developing them with 
the existing ones, and focuses on events and their effects.

But I'm most impressed with how he was able to incorporate every 
character introduced in the OVAs (**), in an original story, while keeping
everything cohesive and everyone we already know in character.
 

(*) I'd list them, but I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't 
read it yet... but it includes intellectual enhancement, other 
mercs, lots of realistic (for BGC, anyway) tech, inner workings of Genom, 
Mackie is one of the foreground characters, and the KS get an enemy whos more
clever and malicious than Mason/Largo ever was.

(**) Except for people who died.

Salomon Farin                                              sfarin@netcom.com