yuletide | 2021 Yuletide Promo Post

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:

FANDOM NAME:
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT:
WHERE CAN I FIND IT (optional):

(Bonus optional: What are you thinking of requesting for this?)

EDIT:

Useful tips (Not required, but helps people if they want to engage with your fandom!):

- Mention what form of media the canon is. Is it a comic miniseries? Is it a twenty season tv show? Is it a book? Is it a twitter feed?
- Is it standalone or part of a series?
- It's best to make each fandom its own entry with its own title in the subject line! That makes it easier for people to find/see what you're promoting! Don't worry about 'spam', that is the entire point of this entry and you're using it exactly as intended.

For reference, last year's promo post!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What It Is

Published in the late 1980s, this was a ten-book series of teen space-opera adventures (slim paperbacks again) written by a collective of authors under the joint pen name of Robyn Tallis. I used to compare these to Andre Norton; nowadays, what I should tell you is that they read a great deal like Sherwood Smith channeling a mix of Norton and Tom Swift - which is more accurate than you might expect, as Smith was in fact one of the Tallis collective and the direct author of several books in the series. Other series contributors included Bruce Coville, Mary Frances Zambreno, and Mageworlds authors Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald.

Why It's Worthy

Until very recently, it's always been something of a challenge to find good straight-ahead SF written specifically for younger readers (one reason so many of us who grew up in the late 20th century gravitated straight to the grownup shelves) - and a great deal of the better stuff (Miss Pickerell, the Mushroom Planet series, Danny Dunn) skewed strongly toward grade-school readers rather than teens.

The Planet Builders books were a rousing response to that problem. They're set on a recently settled colony world featuring ancient alien ruins, interesting fauna, but no apparent living civilized population. The core cast was a good-sized and interestingly varied ensemble of teen-agers - smart, hard-working, but restless enough to push the limits of their allowed freedoms. And while there were ongoing mysteries, the plots varied from book to book - exploration, industrial espionage, political intrigue, even some character-driven family drama. The pacing was brisk, the language crisp and modern, and the alien elements cleverly developed. If they'd been published anytime in the last three or four years, there'd be a TV series in development by now for the CW or Netflix. Even in their own day, they were popular for long enough to get the initial six-book contract extended to four additional volumes...but the series' original packager left the rights in a sufficient tangle that there's essentially no way to revive the books now. Well, except for fanfic....

Where To Find It

Sadly, per above note about the rights, these are long OP and unlikely to be reissued. As with the Diana Winthrop series, I'm supplying a link to the Goodreads series page and hoping to generate enough interest to support a nomination.

# Planet Builders series

Prompts & Possibilities

With as large a cast as there was in Planet Builders, not everyone got as much stage-time as they should have. Of all the lesser-used characters, I’m particularly fond of Daphne deVries, both because of her lively personality and because I’m also a big theater fan. Other characters I'd like to have seen more of include Noriko Wilder, Paul Riedel, and one of the kids' teachers, Dr. Rey "X-Ray" Ives.

That said, almost any story I can imagine would be greeted with delight, whether during canon (or even pre-canon or long afterward). Lost cities, clever plans gone amusingly and comic-disastrously (but not too painfully) wrong, gentle romance, swashbuckling space opera - these books had them all there, and this is really truly a case where I'm like Oliver Twist, and "please sir, may I have some more" will do very nicely indeed.

I'd never heard of these but they sound extremely up my alley, thanks! (Though not to get your hopes up--I don't write, so this is solely for reading purposes)

2021 Yuletide Promo Post

Planet Builders series - Robyn Tallis

Re: Planet Builders series - Robyn Tallis