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 Fiancées" 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.
