THE FELLIP NECTAR STAND Meet the Author Series: Captain Hornblower

Author: LeatherGirl

Disclaimer: I do not own Farscape or anything associated with Farscape. All commentary is unedited and direct from the author.

Thanks to Captain Hornblower for appearing at the stand! Be sure to read his award-winning fanfic “Alas, Babylon” found at many of the places listed at the end of this interview.

*****

[Pilot arranges four flasks across the bar filled to the brim with Raslac. The Bartender nods and Pilot simultaneously chugs down all four flasks. He smiles and orders more. Captain Hornblower enters into the stand. He rolls his eyes. He approaches Pilot.]

Pilot: [Slaps a hand onto Captain Hornblower’s back, surprising the Scaper.] “Great. Let’s get started.” [Pilot leads the good captain to a booth in the far corner. Drinks are brought to the table. Captain Hornblower glances down at his drink and is surprised.]

Captain Hornblower: “Mountain Dew?” [Takes a sip. The drink is incredibly thirst-quenching…far better than the Earth version. Except it’s purple.]

Pilot: “Good, huh? The Uncharted Territories is unpredictable. Tell me, who is Captain Hornblower?”

Captain Hornblower: “Ian K. is my real name. Ian is my first name, K. is the first
letter of my last name. I am a teacher who currently lives in Orlando, Florida. I graduated from the University of Central Florida with a BA in History and a minor in Political Science. I hope to go to grad school next year to be on track for a Masters, and someday a PHD in History. Writing is a hobby of mine, but I do intend to write some books someday, including a series of science fiction novels I have thought about writing.”

Pilot: [Raises eyebrows.] “You Scapers are much more intelligent than we thought. Where did you come up with your ideas for your fanfics?”

Captain Hornblower: “It depends. Some were inspired by reading other books or seeing
other movies, others were inspired by the show. Others just came to me from the out of the blue. Perhaps the most remarkable inspiration came for the third story I wrote, ‘A Past Revealed’. The whole story just hit me right after I watched ‘The Way We Weren't’ for the first time. I just thought about what it would be like for Aeryn to have a child, with John, of course, and for that child to accidentally see the vid of her killing that
Pilot. I sat down and wrote it in an hour. Others have taken me weeks to plan out and write.”

Pilot: [Leans forward and places all four arms under his chin.] “The whole fanfic concept is relatively new to me. Moya and I only work with emotions and sensory to communicate. What is your motivation or inspiration for writing these fanfics?”

Captain Hornblower: “Three things really come to mind. One is that Farscape has such a
compelling group of characters, and I like to get into those characters and write about what I think they might do or say if this or that happened. The second thing is that I am sort of practicing with my writing technique for when I sit down and write my own books someday. Finally, I really like to write about the human condition, and I think you will see that in most of my stories. I like to write about people's motives, feelings, emotions. 
Those qualities that make us all human.”

Pilot: “Human condition? Maybe you can tell us what a human such as John Crichton is really supposed to be like.” [Takes sips from all four flasks with each arm.] “What fanfics have you written anyway?”

Captain Hornblower: “I have so far written 7 Farscape stories, and 2 Farscape/Babylon 5
crossover stories (one of which is currently being written and published in installments at the Farscape bboard). There were really two stories that were my first stories. The first 
one I actually sat down and wrote was ‘Visitor From the Past’, but at the time it was actually called ‘Changes in Friendship and Love’. This was the story about an old comrade of Aeryn's being brought aboard Moya, and Aeryn being confronted by the contempt that this old friend has for her now that Aeryn is no longer a Peacekeeper. I wrote the story, but was not really satisfied with it, so I put it aside for revisions. Then, I sat down to write ‘The Rescue’, which is a story about Aeryn being captured by Peacekeepers and Crichton having to rescue her. This is really what I consider to be my
first one. After I finished this one, I submitted it to several fanfic archives, and jedikatie's Dominar's Domain was the first to publish it, followed by others. That's when I went back to revise ‘Changes in Friendship and Love’, and changed its name to ‘Visitor From the Past’. I still think that story is my weakest, though not bad for my first outing. My other stories are the before mentioned ‘A Past Revealed’, ‘Skin Deep’ which has D'Argo dying and Aeryn having to do some pretty compromising things to save him, ‘Home For Christmas’ Crichton tries to explain to Aeryn why Christmas is important to humans, ‘Time Shift’ Aeryn shifts through time back to an earlier time on Moya, and ‘The Face of Fear’ which has Moya's crew confront their deepest fears when they enter a mysterious nebula. My two Farscape/Babylon 5 stories, so far, are ‘Alas, Babylon’ and 
‘Flying Colours’, the one I'm working on now. These are both stories which combine
characters and places from both shows in different ways, but they are two parts of the same overall saga. I was very pleased, by the way, when ‘Alas, Babylon’ won the Fanfic Award for Best Crossover story. Whenever I write a story, I post it in installments at the Farscape bboard first. Then, when the story is finished, I post it at the Farscape Fanfic
Library and submit it to several fanfic sites. I always submit it to the Dominar's Domain first since jedikatie was the first to publish one of my stories. Other sites that have my stories are the Void Into the Uncharted Territories, John and Aeryn-Opposites Attract, among others.” [Refreshes his parched mouth with another drink of Mountain Dew.]

Pilot: “That’s an incredible amount of work. What is the hardest part of writing your fanfic?”

Captain Hornblower: “It depends on the story. Each one that I have written has had its
own unique difficulties. For the crossover stories, the hard part is combining the two shows' universes together in believable, logical ways. If you don't do it right, it comes off as stupid and unbelievable. If a reader doesn't believe in the story, they won't invest the time into reading it. The other stories have each presented their own challenges. The one's I remember in particular are ‘Time Shift’ and ‘Skin Deep’. For ‘Time 
Shift’, the problem was the technical stuff related to time travel. I'm no physicist, so I don't know time travel all that well. I really had to muster all of the knowledge I did have, mainly from a lot of sci-fi over the years, to put together a believable time travel scenario for the story. ‘Skin Deep’ was difficult for entirely different reasons. My purpose for this story was really to explore Aeryn's dignity, and human dignity in general. I wanted to have Aeryn be faced with having to degrade herself to save a comrade…two comrades in fact, as the story progresses, but still come out with her dignity intact. I really believe that dignity does not run just skin deep, thus the inspiration for my title, and that's why I wrote the story. The hard part was doing it while hoping that the readers
got what my intention was. If examined on the surface, the readers could have thought that I was exploring some perverse sexual fantasies I may have about Aeryn, but that's not what the story is about at all. I took precautions, warning the readers before hand when I posted it on the bboard that this story was going to have some explicit and controversial 
material, and asking them to examine it with an open mind. Luckily, I was pleased to
see that the readers did get the premise. It just goes to show how wise and astute the bboard members really are.”

Pilot: “Communication. I know this all too well. I can never get the crew on Moya to understand anything…and when they do, it’s too late.” [Shakes head in disgust.] “Tell me, from your own collection of fanfics, do you have a favorite fanfic, scene, or perhaps a quote?”

Captain Hornblower: [Rubs chin thoughtfully before answering.] “That depends again on various aspects of the story and different terms of favorite, I guess you could say. The most fun one to write was ‘The Face of Fear’, but I think my most powerful one is ‘Skin Deep’. I really love the scenes between Aeryn and her son in ‘A Past Revealed’, but I
love the epic battle between the Peacekeepers and the Earth ships in ‘Alas, Babylon’. If I had to pick one favorite, from a strictly personal point of view in terms of developing my craft, it would be the one I am doing now, ‘Flying Colours’. That's mainly because I have created several original characters for this story, and that's always a milestone for a writer. I've created original characters before: Sartog in ‘Skin Deep’ and Jenon Klato in
‘Time Shift’, but never as central characters to a story before. Creating and developing the characters of Captain McGregor and Commander Grant for ‘Flying Colours’ has really been a labor of love for me.”

Pilot: “Enjoying what you do is the essence of life. What drives you to write fanfic? What makes it enjoyable and worthwhile to you?”

Captain Hornblower: [Slightly surprised by the wisdom of Pilot.] “Its an escape from the real world. It gives me a creative outlet to express myself, while helping me to shut out the everyday stressors of work and paying bills, etc. Plus, I really love to entertain and enlighten people, and that's why I love to get feedback to my stories when I post 
them at the Farscape bboard. That's why I post them there in installments first, to hear directly from the readers so they can tell me ‘this is great’ or ‘this sucks’, especially since the readers at the bboard are always polite and respectful in their critiques.”

Pilot: [Chuckles.] “I like the bboard scapers. Great partiers. Are there any more fanfics in the works?”

Captain Hornblower: “I actually have a whole list of story ideas I want to someday pursue. Currently the list is up to 11 story ideas, most of which I will someday, hopefully, turn into fanfics. Sometimes, I come up with an idea, put it on the list, then reconsider it and place it under a category that I call ‘Mothballs’, meaning I may someday tweak them into workable ideas or just read the idea and laugh at it. Some of those are really fahrbot ideas, as Rygel would say. I think one was a crossover story for Farscape and the old Wonder Woman series. How stupid is that? Other story ideas I definitely will pursue. There is actually one story that I started a long time ago, but never finished called ‘Rats in a Maze’, where these highly advanced aliens capture Crichton and Aeryn and put them in a big simulation to experiment on them. I ran into a block on where exactly to go with that one. Someday, when I get time, I hope to work out the story and finish it. The Farscape/Babylon 5 Crossover Saga, as I call it, will actually have 
three more stories after ‘Flying Colours’. I have the whole saga divided into five books. Book One is ‘Alas, Babylon’, which has been written, and Book Two is ‘Flying Colours’, the one I am writing now. The last three books will be called ‘Invasion’, ‘The Glorious Cause’, and ‘Brave New World’, and I already have the general idea for the storylines for all three. After I finish ‘Flying Colours’, I'm going to go back to pure Farscape stories 
for a while, with plans to work on Book Three of the Crossover saga next summer. I even have a Farscape story written that I have never published. I don't know if I ever will. I might sometime, call it Ian K.'s lost story dug out of his vault, or something like that.”

Pilot: “Mothballs? Surely another human language defect. Do you have any words of wisdom for other fanfic writers out in the universe?”

Captain Hornblower: “Three things. One, write what you feel. Be yourself when you
write. Don't try to emulate Shakespeare, unless you are a dead old English playwright. Two, Keep it real. Don't take off too far into the world of the bizarre. Keep yourself grounded, otherwise you will loose the readers. And if you loose them, what's the point of writing a story. Which brings us to three. Always be good to your readers. Without the readers, who would want to be writers.”

Pilot: “Maybe I should start writing…it seems to be a concept I have not experienced yet. Thank you Captain Hornblower for meeting with me. I truly enjoy the Scapers I do meet at the stand. Quite a unique species.”

[Captain Hornblower and Pilot drink into the night, relaxing and exchanging stories of pastimes.]

*****

Works by the author: “The Rescue”, “Visitor From the Past”, “A Past Revealed”, “Skin Deep”, “Home for Christmas”, “Time Shift”, “The Face of Fear”, “Alas, Babylon”, and “Flying Colours”.

Places you can find the author’s work: Dominar’s Domain, Void Into the Uncharted Territories, John and Aeryn-Opposites Attract, Farscape FanFic Library, among others.

How you can contact the author: Post on the Farscape bboard: attention Captain Hornblower.

Author’s website: None right now. I hope to someday have a whole web site archive for sci-fi movies and TV info, with a special Farscape page and a special page for my fanfic. Right now, that’s pie in the sky.

Awards won: Farscape FanFic Awards 2001-Best Crossover Award for “Alas, Babylon”.

Extra comments by Captain Hornblower:

To my loyal readers: Thanks for tuning in to my stories. You make it all worthwhile.

To LeatherGirl: Thanks for hosting the Farscape FanFic Awards 2001 and for putting all the work you did into it.

To jedikatie: Thanks for being the first to publish one of my stories on the web, and for continuing to support my work.