Terrijo

"If You Could Read My Mind" (Sentinel)

Reviewed by Kathryn A on 25th October 2001 (1)

I read this story because Carolyn Claire's "Beautiful" declared it to be an inspiration, so I decided to read it first. Jim unexpectedly bumps into Carolyn in a supermarket. This was lovely; a melancholy bittersweet encounter. Of course it doesn't hurt that the song (this is a songfic) that this is based on is one of my favourites, and that the author made it fit so well.
    When you reach the part
    Where the heartaches come
    The hero would be me
    But heros often fall
    And you won't read that book again
    Because the ending's just too hard to take.

But Jim's got Sandburg, and it made him appreciate that a little more.

Hurricane Sam

(1) "Hurricane Sam" (Sentinel)

Reviewed by Kathryn A on 18th August 2002 (5)
(442K)

This story has drama, action, trauma, explosions, obfustcating, betrayal, kidnapping, thumping, spiffy sailing, men nearly overboard, senses, whopping allergies, deductions, insights, and lots of yelling.

We get introduced here to an OFC, but before you run away screaming, she's neither too perfect, nor a romantic object, nor -- though she's related to Blair -- she's not a clone of him, apart from sharing the short stature and the long curly hair. I did find one point of her background a bit implausible, and that's basically that if she'd really been there in canon, there are certain points in the series where I think she would have been mentioned by people other than Blair, though I do think it's reasonable that Blair had never mentioned her to Jim. Okay, so I can consider this to be slightly AU, then.

Another thing that might send some people running away is that this is a post-TSbyBS story, a Blair-is-a-cop story. But I think he holds it well, here, especially the scene where he makes oblique references to his past, in an attempt to demonstrate to his cousin that he does understand a particular emotional minefield of hers.

I don't know a thing about sailing, but this sure gave the impression that the author knew what she was talking about in regard to boats -- very impressive! And no, I didn't know about this extraordinary use of flour, bottles, candles and matches either. There was also an impressive amount of Sandburgian knowledge about Native history in that area.

On the down side, there were some punctuation mistakes which I did find a bit distracting, and one thing I found almost disconcerting were a couple of the descriptions of the colour of the eyes of one of the characters. Not too far in, these eyes were described as being multicoloured, and then, much later on, as kaleidoscopic. Now, I happen to have the same coloured eyes as this character, and I can assure you, my eyes don't spin or change colour like a kaleidoscope. No way! So it was really very odd to see that there...

However, if you want a good long read, give it a go.

(2) "Hide And Go Seek" (Sentinel)

Reviewed by Kathryn A on 18th August 2002 (6)
(565K)

This is the second of the "Hurricane Sam" stories, and follows on not long after the end of the previous one. Sam is still suffering the aftermath of the previous story, and isn't in the best state to cope with surprises and unexpected bombshells... and reacts badly to one such, with disasterous consequences. I suspect that if for some reason one couldn't stand Sam from the previous story, one is going to still fail to be endeared to her this time, unless you enjoy watching her be put through emotional wringers. This story has even more yelling than the previous one, mostly along the lines of "If you would just listen for just one minute..." which the yellee naturally doesn't do, and much misunderstanding and angst and trouble ensues, as the wrong things get said to the wrong people, and other people behave rashly... and Blair is stuck in the middle.

Again I stumbled over punctuation errors (though I don't think Sam's eyes were kaleidoscopic this time, just multicoloured).

One of the things I liked about this was that Jim had the full range of Jimness, from white-hot rage to out-of-his way compassion. The guest-character of Legault kept one guessing as to what his agenda actually was, and one of the few people who weren't at all intimidated by Jim, which grants him the status of "worthy opponent". This story is again impressive with the details (this time about Sea Otters). As for the plot, it did a great deal of thickening before ending in the not-unexpected fight and flight and fight; and then there's the epilogue.

(3) "Matrix" (Sentinel/Matrix(TV))

Reviewed by Kathryn A on 18th August 2002 (7)
(461K)

The first thing I have to say about this is "Whee!" She did it! She actually wrote the crossover she was talking about! Yay! Of course the next question is, did she do a good job? Did she manage to make this a believable crossover between The Sentinel, and the TV series about Stephen Matrix, the ex-hitman trying to redeem his life? Well, oddly enough, I found this story more absorbing than the previous two in the "Hurricane Sam" series, and I think it's partly because I was more interested in Stephen Matrix than I was in Sam. I may not be the best judge of this story, since I can't come at it cold, since I have seen "Matrix", but I can't come at it like a die-hard Matrix fan, because I've only been able to see about six episodes, and therefore I cannot judge it very well on continuity or details. But I did like the portrayal of Stephen here -- it touched on the way that his past still influences the way he behaves now, even though he's turned his back on it.

The emotional core of this story is really Sam, and those in orbit about her -- Stephen, who gets closer to her than he intended, and Jim, who gets very emotionally uncomfortable and doesn't know how to deal. The action core of this story is that there's somebody after Jim, Blair or Sam, and Stephen's trying to stop the hit... while not being framed for it himself.

There's a warning at the top of the story which should be heeded: "This story contains a very well established OFC. It also contains scenes of consensual relations between a man and a woman." The story is rated by the author to be R, but certain other parties rated it higher, basically because the sex doesn't occur off-screen; even though it doesn't get as explicit as tab-a-into-slot-b, it's still adults-only fare (like something one might see late at night on SBS, perhaps...) So, be warned.

There's also a development that happens by the end... which some people might dislike, but I rather liked it; not least because it had happened so slowly that it didn't seem improbable. I can't really say more!