Dear Author

Dear Author,

One of the nasty things I'm going to say in the book that inspired the previous letter is that too much time was taken recapping the other six books in the series, and that in one case, the exact wording was reused to introduce a character - presumably because that author didn't figure the beach-reading crowd would realize the redundancy 6 chapters apart.

Imagine my thrill that you have
1) spent over 50 pages recapping the single book before this one, often repeating concepts, and
2) described the same character with the same phrase EIGHT TIMES IN AS MANY PAGES.

For all the flaws in the other book, there was at least a faint attempt to set up a plot, and said attempt appeared in the first chapter. In yours, there are 50 pages of reminders that I shouldn't have bothered with this book first.

I'm giving up. At this point, any review would be a retread of the flaws from one book and the plot from another anyway, because you've pretty much combined the worst of both.

A Maudlin Moment

Once Upon A Time, a girl was incredibly fond of a TV show. For a very brief golden moment early in the fandom, she could even say that she owned anything to do with it. But she wasn't the only one nuts about the show, and the moment passed.

But she made notebooks. She went to the cons and filled them up with 8 x 10 glossies. She got a camera and filled up more with candids and pictures of friends and costumes. A friend sent her cards in the name of the protagonist, and she put them in notebooks. Starlog after Starlog article went in. Postcards and original art went in. She wrote a story that was amazingly popular with the fandom, and a copy of the accompanying art went in. She wrote a letter to Starlog that... wasn't... but it went in as well, along with a clipped-out copy of the rebuttal telling her to "get off it."

Once Upon A Time, there were a dozen of those notebooks, although three of them were repurposed somewhere along the line, their contents stuffed into the others. Archived. Organized. Kept carefully.

Once Upon A Time...

... was twenty years ago. And today, while a repairman bumped around the attic performing arcane proctology on her air conditioning system, every last petted, envied, bragged-about page was put into a box. The notebooks were lined up along the floor and soon buried under new piles of contents. Shawl and wrap patterns. Scarves - lace and winter. Apparel. Socks and slippers. Who Fandom patterns. Random Fandom patterns. Washcloths and cat toys. Afghans.

And for a moment she wondered what she'd fill them with next, twenty years hence when now is Once Upon A Time.

Discovered while doing Sonic

Major photographic spoilers for the Christmas special under cut. ( DO NOT CLICK IF YOU DO NOT WANT CHRISTMAS SPOILERS! )