Saotendo became a serious anime fan in May of 1998, and has already produced several nicely-written short stories. At least one of these nearly made me die of laughter, and I liked the others as well. Given that there is no official Saotendo Fan Fiction web page, I decided to create an unofficial one, but it has the author's approval, making it unofficially official. ^_^
All files are in HTML.
Short Stories
These are clever stories! They're so short, I hesitate to give them an introduction for fear of spoiling them for you. Have fun reading them!
This is the begining of a longer work, a "what if" story that works from the premise: What if Ranma had remained a girl, in order to stay friends with Akane?
If you like this idea, Saotendo's friend Carly Shields aka Akane-chan is writing a story called "No Need For Fianc�es" built on the same premise. They decided together to write the same plot, concurrently... so you can compare the two and see what each one has done. See Akane-chan's site, linked below and also on the bar to the left.
The first three of Saotendo's stories (Firstborn, Counting Chickens, and Goodbye Akane) are what I call "short-shorts", meaning stories of less than 3,000 words (The exact number depends on who gives the definition). In fan circles these are called "spamfics", but to me a spamfic is usually more of a joke, written off the cuff, and (normally) without a great deal of care in the writing. Saotendo's stories are well written and fit the mold of a true short-short, so I use that term. (Yeah, call me a snob!) ^_^
Stories like this are not easy to do well. You can't develop a coherent plot in 3,000 words or less; the most you can hope to do is hoodwink the readers or surprise them in some way. Yes, this does lend itself to jokes, but not all short-shorts are funny. Some are downright weird, scary, even horrifying.
Saotendo is very good at these stories. I've written a dozen of them myself, mostly for the Tai-Pan fanzine, so I know what I'm talking about. ^_^
If you're curious about short-shorts, check out "Microcosmic Tales" edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander (DAW Books, 1992, ISBN 0-88677-532-9) or "50 Short Science Fiction Tales" edited by Isaac Asimov and Groff Conklin (Collier Books, 1963, ISBN 0-02-016390-8). Also check out back issues of the science fiction magazine Pulphouse; they used to print one of these every issue, on the back page. I don't know if they still do, or even if they still exist.
