Belle, Booke & Kandell
by
McJohn?
Inkubator?
The secretive person known as
"The Editor"?
(Write to ‘them’
to rave about the story and you’ll find out)
I was gonna wait till there was more of this story out there before getting on y’all’s (and I was assured whilst in Texas that this is the proper possessive term of y’all) case and nagging you to go read it.
However.
I am not a patient person. If I ache for instant gratification, I feel you ought to as well.
Also, the news of Lucy’s appearance on the X-Files serves as a perfect clue in to this story. I am not one to miss out on something like that.
Aside from robbing me of one of my innermost fantasies and turning it into reality, Lucy’s future appearance across from one of the sexiest redheads to wield a gun and use handcuffs is also eerily reflective of one of the best Ubers to come out this year.
"Belle, Booke & Kandell" is (well, in my opinion, anyway) the best story to come out of the Inkubator as of yet. The writing, beside being of the highest quality, feels meticulously sifted through, over and over again – you will not find an awkward sentence in this piece. The plot is suspenseful, and reads like part an X-Files episode, part your regular "through the ages and forever" Uber. All that aside, what is truly remarkable about this story (and the others on the site) are the amazingly full characterizations. And I am not talking about skillful use and manipulation of Uber archetypes created in the past six years, I am talking about a bagfull of original, beautifully crafted characterizations, each holding a fully developed story of their own.
But, to start at the beginning – Casey Kandell is the more conservative partner in a law firm that, besides her, includes a ‘gay man over sixty and a witch from Brooklyn’. The firm seems to specialize in the more… arcane types of cases, in which their clients might be dealing with forces not necessarily of this plane of existence. Due to this, Casy seems like a perfect choice of representative for a young blonde hitchhiker found just outside New Orleans, sitting next to the scattered remains of a man who tried to give her more than a ride to the town.
Lucinda Sanford, though barely grazing eighteen, has matured past her age due to the life on the road and is more than a little wary of the ‘pro bono’ assistance Casey is so freely offering. Not to mention that the poor lad seems to be carrying baggage of the paranormal kind.
Add to all that a love-struck office manager, a telephatic New Orleans socialite, a lawyer who can talk to the other side (‘that bunch down the block’), a seventy year old queen with a fourty-something lover, and – yes – Scully and Mulder, and you have yourself a chapter of this incredible story.
Well, I shall tell you no more, aside from the fact that this is one of three (four?) projects McJohn is working on and gets updated once every quarter. Not quarter moon, mind you, year-quarter.
However (Don’t you just love the suspense?)…
…the writing will be well worth the wait, and – come on – Lucy and Gillian? In the same room? The possibilities, the mental images… Gah, be still my quaking heart!
Go read it. And be sure to thank McJohn.