I have a confession.
I don’t really like serialised fiction. I want all the story at my own reading pace. Which perhaps makes me a less than ideal person for reviewing Tansy Rayner Roberts’ new Patreon backed Musketeer Space.
But a) I have been a fan of Tansy’s writing since Siren Beat, b) I love the Three Musketeers and c )I love it when people adapt or rework classic stories.
So I had mixed feelings going into reading chapter one Musketeer Space Part I: Reasons To Hate Moths. I can’t stand reading longer stories on the laptop so I used the dotEpub extension to render Tansy’s post into a form I could take to my reader.
So what to review. You can of course read it yourself, it’s free and you don’t need to be a backer/patron. Not much point in outlining the plot so I will tell you what I like so far. This chapter covers the story up to the meeting with Rochefort or as is the case here Ro.
I like the gender swap which is going to be a major feature of the work. Dana D'Artagnan is our protagonist and she flies a Dart, a small one person spacecraft. Musketeers fly the Musket class ships if my memory serves me. Tansy does great fan service with hat tips to the original work like the references to Meung Station and the yellow paintwork of D'Artagnan’s Dart being referred to as Buttercup in colour.
I think Tansy has managed to capture the essence of a good Musketeer reworking - the carefree and gutsy attitude of the young D'Artagnan and the humour in the situations that D'Artagnan’s attitude gets her into. It’s a well known story in pop culture and half the fun is seeing/trying to guess how Tansy is going to handle certain scenes and characters. By the end of the 13 pages I was hooked, I can’t wait till the next one :). Ro is dastardly and D'Artagnan has the exuberance of youth with all the danger that entails. I picture Ro being played by Geena Davis for some reason and D'Artagnan, perhaps a crew cut Natalie Portman.
I may have been converted to serialised fiction.
You can support Tansy here and read the story here Musketeer Space Part I: Reasons To Hate Moths.
Artwork by Grant Watson of the Angriest
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