Shadow Unit

[bryant]

Interesting geeky project of the nonce: Shadow Unit, from Elizabeth Bear, Emma Bull, Sarah Monette, and Will Shetterly. It’ll be updated weeklyish with more stuff; starting in February there’ll be fiction every two weeks, including a full novel.

Right now it’s the front page plus two character dossiers, but if you go here you’ll find the rest of the dossiers. And a message board. Keen.

Edit: And LiveJournals. Start maybe here. I haven’t figured who’s who yet, although that one is obviously Chaz, because I need to get to work.

The one-liner for the whole schmear is Criminal Minds meets X-Files, I think.

Originally published at Imaginary Vestibule.

Comments

[head58.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's pretty keen. Asa sucker for ARGs and for X-Files stuff, this thing seems marketed directly at me.

[bluegargantua]

My wife is totally crushing out on Chaz.

later
Tom

[michele-blue.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying the setup and the writing - those are all writers whose work I enjoy a lot (thought I've read very little of Shetterly's stuff).

The one part of the Shadow Unit setup that leaves me a little cold is the livejournal part. My suspension of disbelief is warring with my certainty that folks in a very hush-hush government agency would not post about their work & relationships on livejournal.

Then again, it's all vehicles for words, and I like the concept a lot. (X-Files/Criminal Minds mashup? Yes plz.)

[bluegargantua]

"The one part of the Shadow Unit setup that leaves me a little cold is the livejournal part. My suspension of disbelief is warring with my certainty that folks in a very hush-hush government agency would not post about their work & relationships on livejournal."

Ah, but how could you tell it was a hush-hush government agency and not, y'know, some sort of collaborative fiction deal?

On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog...
Tom

[michele-blue.livejournal.com]

Mmm, I think it's more that the fictional characters have real folks (the writers' agent, for example) as lj friends. That made my brain go *sproing.* Then again, if the only "friends" were the other chars' accounts, that would have taken ANY hunt out of looking for the info.

Mine is a very literal brain, for someone who loves speculative stuff as much as I do. ;)

[bryant]

It's precious. It doesn't bug me per se, but it's distinctly precious.

[shiffer.livejournal.com]

Neat. The characters are about as stereotypical as they can get, but I'd still watch/read the show.

[bryant]

I may have to friend them, or do a friends group, or something. There's a lot of meat in the comments.

I think they have superpowers.

[shiffer.livejournal.com]

I'm having a really hard time with the LJ's. There's so much text, and I can't even figure out how much I'm interested in.

Maybe it'll get better once I get a chance to see the characters objectively through a storytelling form.

I'm not counting out the superpowers, but I think they want to keep it in the sleeve for now.

[bryant]

I think the LJs are a bit indulgent. The deep comment threads read, as someone noted somewhere, much like an author procrastinating on deadlines.

... which is brilliant in a way. The four of them have figured out how to make Internet procrastination a legitimate means of avoiding work.

But there are indications. The techie mentions being able to network without cables and types comments without using her keyboard. And Chaz has some kind of weird metabolism -- I was thinking anorexia at first, but there's way too much indulgence from his teammates for that to be accurate.