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Have you ever watched
Criminal Minds? If the answer is no, then you should. It's
probably the best police procedural out there and an
unashamedly clever show. If the answer is yes, then imagine
that just down the hall - Down the Hall - from the BAU
there's another Unit. Only this one deals with the REALLY
weird cases: the anomalies, the floridly bizarre, the sort
of case that the rest of the Bureau prefers to have
plausible deniability on. That's the Shadow Unit.
A TV show - the love
child of Criminal Minds, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, X-Files and
more - that was written by such speculative fiction
luminaries as Emma Bull, Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette. A
TV show that never made it to our screens but that is
available online.
Stephen Reyes is the
head, if not quite the heart, of Shadow Unit. He's the one
who first noticed what he calls 'The Anomaly", although so
far it has lived up to its name in defying his attempts to
categorize it. All he knows is that it enters through a
crack in the host caused by trauma, it gives them amazing
abilities and it drives them to commit atrocities - killing
is the least of it what it can make them do. Most members of
the Shadow Unit know that through bitter personal
experience, and that is why they just as dedicated as Reyes
to capturing those afflicted with the anomaly. Daphne Worth
saw it in action and will never be the same. Hafidha Gates
lost her life to it in a lot of ways. As for Solomon
Todd...no one is ever quite sure where the truth ends and a
good story begins with him.
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They've seen what the
Anomaly can do, they've seen what it leaves behind. If it
takes creating a whole new behavioural science in order to
profile the Anomaly then they'll do it. Because there's no
one else out there who will.
The Shadow Unit is what
I want to see on my TV - solid mythology, a convincingly
constructed world, character arcs, STORY arcs, fast paced
narratives, brilliantly sympathetic characters, consistency
and accountability to the characters - and don't see nearly
often enough. It's strange that the story I am most
confident won't be jerked around by egos or petitions, that
will treat the characters and storylines with respect, is
actually a very well-written fanfic for a show that only
aired in Emma Bull's
head.
...which rather makes me
imagine her and the rest of the crew in her basement
watching old episodes projected onto the wall by Emma Bull's
brain. I'm seeing Red Bulls and popcorn with jalapeños. But
I digress.
I could honestly hold
forth for pages about the richness of the Shadow Unit world,
the almost cinematographic quality of the writing and the
complexity of the character interactions. But I won't. Trust
me, you'll enjoy it far more if you discover it for
yourself. I will say that Shadow Unit is probably one of the
better parapsychology thrillers I've read in a long time.
The pacing is top-notch, revelations and twists are dropped
carefully into the narrative at measured intervals and keep
the tension building without ever overloading the reader.
There's a certain moral ambiguity underlying it all too,
since the victims of the Anomaly include the killers as much
as the corpses. They have to be stopped, but it's not as
simple as good guys and bad guys here. That's something that
the writers convey through the narrative and naturally
arising character interactions, never falling prey to the
urge to toss a moral clue-hammer into the story to make sure
we get it. We get it anyway. Most importantly of all? You
can tell the writers enjoyed putting fingers to keyboard on
this project.
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It's free to read
online, although the authors do ask that you donate if you
enjoyed the episodes, so why don't you go and have a look?
I don't often gush about
books. A side-effect of being a writer myself is that I tend
to be analytical - I'd have delayed that confrontation for
another two pages, where did THAT come from, oh, I see what
they did there and it links back nicely the earlier
confrontation* - but I'm gushing now. This is very, very
good.
Go read.
www.shadowunit. org
*It's less criticism of
the author I'm reading - or the show I watch - and more an
ongoing attempt to absorb what works with plot structure and
narrative into my own brain. |
