2020 Yuletide Fandom Promo Post

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Welcome to the Fandom Promo post, everyone!

Here's where you get those eyes on your fandoms for sign ups!

Share what makes your Yuletide fandoms the shiniest and why you love them. A big part of Yuletide is how small our fandoms can be, and this is a good way to make sure other people know what gems there are out there!

Suggested form to use:

<b>FANDOM NAME</b>:
<b>WHAT MAKES IT GREAT</b>:
<b>WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional)</b>:


For reference, last year's promo post!


This post on LJ

Comments

Briarpatch (TV) + Mac McCorkle series (Ross Thomas)

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FANDOM NAME: Briarpatch

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: A gender-bent, 10 episode TV series based on Ross Thomas' 1984 novel of the same name. The book is about Benjamin Dill, a white DC operative going home to deal with his sister's murder and spending a lot of time with a childhood friend in the process. The TV show is about Allegra Dill, a mixed race, female DC operative going home to deal with her sister's murder and spending a lot of time with a childhood friend who adores her. Among other things. Rosario Dawson plays the main character and is perfect (her wardrobe is based on 1970s BIANCA JAGGER, for the love of god), and there are just epic tons of feelings (not all remotely good) to be dealt with, not only b/n Allegra and childhood pal (played by Jay R. Ferguson), but also b/n childhood pal and his partner in arms smuggling (played by a -- wait for it -- deliciously evil Alan Cumming) as well as between Allegra and a married TX Congressman with whom she has a delightfully unconventional sexual relationship. Oh, and also: Kim Dickinson is there as the ambitious chief of police, as are Allegra Edwards as a smart as shit camgirl whose partner is somehow involved in everything (maybe) and Edi Gathegi as Allegra's lawyer. The eighth episode is one of my favorite hours of TV of all time, and the show is just magnificent from start to finish.

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: It's streaming on Fubo and Amazon Prime.
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FANDOM NAME: Mac McCorkle series, by Ross Thomas

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: This four-book series starts with Thomas' first book, The Cold War Swap, which came out in 1966 and won him the Edgar for best novel. It ends with Twilight at Mac's Place, published in 1990. Over the course of the 24 years the series incorporates, Mac and Mike Padillo, his partner in bar ownership and, also, a spy (it's never directly said, but it's clear he works for the CIA, usually unhappily), move from Bonn, Germany to DC together, encountering things like: exploding bars, escapes from East Germany, African leaders plotting their own assassinations, lots of kidnappings and, oh yeah, Padillo's "death". Mac and Padillo are the only consistent things in one another's lives, and their relationship is just as weird and comfortable and wry and secretly adoring as one would expect from the best of series about a couple of dudes who spend more than a quarter century quietly, utterly devoted to one another.

As an added bonus, Thomas is a phenomenal writer -- I strongly urge anyone who is remotely into smart detective-y stuff, particularly with Cold War commentary thrown in, to give the books a try. IMO the second (Cast a Yellow Shadow) is the best one, but they all have their virtues (the third, The Backup Men, is very much focused on Mac's and Padillo's relationship, even as it pretends it's about oil and assassination).

WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: Far from how things were when I first discovered Thomas and had to scour used bookstores to track down his work, the whole series has now been reissued, so they can now be found anywhere you care to look -- they're even on Audible now!