At 01:36 PM 9/6/98 PDT, you wrote:

And just worthless. SI fics aren't even worth being read.

If you don't want to read it, don't read it, gubby.  Don't come crying to us.

How is the tired Foreign Exchange Student angle 'SI'? It's a less direct 
form of a straight SI. The author is inserting his world view, 
perspective, and culture into where it doesn't belong. 

No.  A foreign exchange student, if done correctly, can change the whole
way a person thinks of a universe.  For example: Greg Sandborn's _Nabiki:
New Horizons_

NNH should be pointless according to you as well.

In the scale of 'SI-ness', the Foreign Exchange Student premise rates a 
3 out of 4, a straight SI being a 4 and inserting North American 
cultural references being a 1. Anything past a 2 is worthless.

Who made this up?  And what constitutes as a 2, then?

You could do this exploration much more effectively without resorting to 
an SI--but then, the point is that you want to write an SI. The 
'exploring the less talked about characters' is nonsense.

Then "Roses of Shadow" (Lawson) is nonsense, since it talks about Kodachi
mainly.  "Nabiki: New Horizons" is nonsense, since it talks about Nabiki.

But let's see... you've just said an SI is pointless, and the "exploring
less talked about characters" is nonsense.  Which means you're telling him
not to write anymore because *you* don't want him to.

You've just contradicted yourself too.  So your C&C is pointless.

He's just trying to break up a stereotype about SI fics (which is well
deserved...)



----------------------
Jonathan Ng
jonathan@worldy.com
alternate address: jonathan_ng@my-dejanews.com
Organizing Editor of Ficsation magazine

     "It feels like ten kilos of life in a five-kilo box."  His voice
gained in strength and lightened in tone.  "I can only feel a trickle now,
like dust motes floating in a sunbeam, one by one, just moving through me,
but it's just so right there's no describing it.  It tickles a bit, feels
like a first kiss or the jolt you feel when the flux in sabacc just makes
your hand better than what you were already betting." - Two Jedi trainees
discussing the Force

	-Excerpt from I, Jedi, P.96, (c) Michael Stackpole