Earth 2 Fan Fiction

Trivia

This is just some trivia I gathered while taking breaks from building this site.
(So the breaks got to be a little long. Sue me. I had fun. :-)

All of the following information is true as of April 6, 2002.

I don't know about anyone else, but a few of the answers below surprised the heck out of me.

This is just for fun, to satisfy any passing curiosity.

I ended up mentioning myself a number of times, which was not intentional. Please don't think me pretentious.
(Okay, insert your favorite joke here.)

Basics

Although the information on this site is displayed in HTML, I keep it in an Access database. (If I were a real programmer, I suppose I would build a web interface with said database, but I don't feel like it.) It has six tables, and the web of relationships among them is monstrous. But enough of that.

By necessity, I list "an author" as any entity which wrote a story, poem or filk. So Ann Brill White is an author, John White is an author, and the team of Ann and John White is yet another author. Anything else gets far too nutty.

So bear this in mind as I just throw out the following. I have in my little database...

173 authors, only 25 of whom are actually groups of people collaborating.

639 stories, 90 poems and 23 filks, for a total of 752 works.

24 crossovers.

There are 47 series or groups of stories, consisting of 189 different works.

There have been 2 April Fool's works, 1 Halloween story, and 16 Christmas works.

Who has written the most individual works, regardless of size?

That honor goes to Nicole Mayer by a mile, who has written a whopping 56 stories by herself -- for I'm not including stories which Nicole co-wrote with others (and she helped me write a novel and is an active Tumbler)! That number becomes even more amazing when you realize that it's not padded with tiny poems or filks, as Nicole only writes stories.

The remaining top 10 are:

Okay, so who has written the most of each type of work?

Stories

Well, for stories of course, it's still Nicole with 56. Here's the rest of the Top 10:

Please keep in mind that Leontien Bosch also wrote about 10 issues of News Pacifica as Slimy Grendler, so she's actually around the 24 mark.

Poems

As incredible as it may seem, only 19 authors have bothered to write Earth 2 poetry! It seems like there should be at least three times as many.

The most is 13 poems, by three different people: myself (most of which are limericks), Lisa Kohles and L.E. Beglin. The rest of the top 10:

Filks

Only 11 authors have bothered to write Earth 2 filks (10, when you consider that the set of "Ann & John White" are each listed separately). Again, it seems like there should be more.

The most is 4 filks by L.E. Beglin, although Ann White comes in higher at 5 when you combine her work with what she co-wrote with John. The rest:

Anne Wochner deserves a special mention here, as she claims to have written many more filks than what she has published. They are all part of her Earth 2 operetta which she is still writing. When that comes out, she's basically just going to wallop the rest of us.

But which author has the highest Earth 2 word count?

I have no idea. Storing word counts would be impossible, but to hazard a guess, I'd say the top two would be Nicole Mayer and myself.

Nicole has Tumbled more than I have and has written many more works than me, including some sizable ones such as "Devon, Alone," "Auryn," "G889 Wars," "Legends" and "The Ulitmate Betrayal." The second CYOJ novel was 150,000 words, so divide that by 3 and that's a cool 50,000 for Nicole. A quick perusal of Nicole's site and some math places her word count over 320,000, but that's the roughest of estimates based on file sizes, plus guesses as to her Tumbling and the stories she's donated to various zines. (I'm not pretending to be scientific about this.)

I also wrote one-third of the second CYOJ novel, plus two other novels solo -- the first CYOJ at 60,000 words and my third DW/E2 crossover at 120,000. "Heroes," "Retrospective," and my first two crossovers were about 30,000 words each. In total, I'm somewhere around the 370,000-word mark for E2 fan fiction.

I can't think of anyone else who has written the same volume as the two of us, but I'm not sure which of us has written more. If anyone has any other thoughts on who has a high word count (I know Amanda does, somewhere around 200,000 words), let me know.

As an interesting aside, I'm curious to know which authors have written Earth 2 fan fiction novels (I define a novel as a single work of at least 50,000 words). I know Nicole, Amanda and I aren't the only ones. E-mail me with info.

Update April 9, 2002:

I got some feedback, so here's a chart of known Earth 2 fan novels:

What other trivia about authors is there for me to know? You must tell me. You must! You must!

Well, I'm glad you asked.

As far as I know, the most number of people to collaborate on a single story is 8, and those were the 8 people who made up Robin-A-Tumble Team #3: Maggie C., Echo Hayes, Amanda Kragten, Nicole Mayer, Douglas Neman, Tracey Price, Sue Sadler and Sarah Watkins.

I do, however, have a couple of authors listed as simply "Round Robin Group 1" and "Round Robin Group 2." These authors were in the list when I took this project over, and I have no idea who was in them. Also, I know that Percy posted synopses of the Earth 2 role-playing game, and there is no way I could have, or would, keep track of how many authors were writing that story at the time.

The person listed as a collaborative author the most is me, but that's only because I posted a couple of "Finish-the-story" challenges which a number of others took me up on. Other names which appear several times as collaborating authors are Nicole Mayer, Amanda Kragten, Maggie C., Ellie Jones, Elizabeth Heckert, Chris Eldredge and Nancy. (Sorry, I can't really count them easily.) There are several variations of the Margaret/Ellie/Elizabeth/Nancy/Chris tag team!

21 individual authors are also listed as collaborators in another author name. (I can count that easily because that's a specific piece of information I store.)

The first author listed alphabetically is A.J., and the last is Rebecca Jane Yoo.

One author is listed as "Unknown." This person has written only one story, "Special Forces."

All right, but how about some trivia regarding the works?

The first work alphabetically is "The 12 Days of Christmas" by L.E. Beglin, the last is "Your Old Men Shall Dream Dreams And Your Young Men Shall Have Visions Or Vice Versa" by Charles Mento.

The longest title of any work is also "Your Old Men Shall Dream Dreams And Your Young Men Shall Have Visions Or Vice Versa" by Charles Mento.

The shortest title is a four-way tie among "Ice" and "Sun" by A.J., "Mud" by EM, and "Wed" by Louise Coulthard.

The series with the most number of works is my set of Earth 2 Limericks, holding at 13 (and it'll be a full 22 when I get off my duff and finish them), followed closely by Judy Q's "The Planet, Our Home" at 12 and Lisa Ingram's "As G889 Turns" with 11.

Only 12 authors have written crossovers. Nicole has written the most number of crossover works, at 10 (8 of which are "The Witches of Eden"). Emma Pentland has written 6 crossovers with her "Earth 2 vs..." series, and I've written four crossovers.

Four works are listed as "Untitled."

Not counting "Untitled," the title which has been used the most is "Second Chances," by 4 different authors: Cathy Bolton, Amanda Kragten, Mary Brick and Monica Massaro.

"The Gift" and "Reflections" have each been used by 3 different authors.

"The Letter," "Outcasts," "New Beginnings," "I Will Not Forget You," "Forgiveness," "G889" and "Control" are some of the titles which have been used twice.

The word dream, in all its variations, has been used in 23 different titles. I couldn't find any higher than that. Other common words, in all their variations, are:

new (16)
moon (10)
journey (8)
alone (8, counting "Devon, Alone" only once)
chance (7)
promise (7)

Others which I thought would be common but really aren't are dawn, destiny, night, and reflection. (For night, I didn't count compound words such as nighttime.)

If you feel like chatting, you can read "Conversation" and "Conversations With an Idiot."

If you want to dim the lights, there's "Dark," "Dark & Light," "Darkness," "From the Darkness," and "Darkness Descends."

When faced with "Choices," you'll have to make a "Decision," or "Decisions."

If you want to get philosophical, you can answer the question, "Do You Believe in Angels?," "Do You Ever Dream of Me?," "Do You Know My Shadow?," or simply, "Do You Know?"

You can meet your "Destiny" or have your "Destiny Undone."

If you can't make up your mind, you can read "Movin' On" and "Moving On (But Not Really)." Related to these, I guess, is "The Journey Continues," "The Journy Concluded," "The Journey's End," and "The Neverending Journey."

"One Stormy Evening" is followed by "One Sunny Day," followed appropriately by "One Wedding or Two?"

I suppose "The Lesson" leads into "The Lessons We Learned" and "Things Learned."

If you want to get depressed, there's always "When Dreams Die" and "When Dreams Don't Come True."

There's the "Circle of Life," the "Circle of Women," "Full Circle," and just "The Circle."

If you're feeling crowded you can be "Alone," "Alone in the Earth," "Dying Alone," or "An Enemy Alone." If you joined "Devon, Alone," then you would be "Alone No Longer." Just remember that "Nothing is Alone" and "You Are Not Alone."

And if you want to be voyeuristic, there's "Confessions," "Gear Confessions" and "Nighttime Confessions."

How about the time line?

The top three places in the time line are almost dead even with each other. "N/A" has 149, and this is where you'll find most of your poems and filks. General stories set during Eden Advance's trek across the planet, with no set time, comes in right behind at 147, and stories set in New Pacifica or years after Earth 2 number 143.

The episode with the most number of stories is "All About Eve" with 47, but some of these may be "Thawing Devon" stories in disguise. "Thawing Devon" has 29 stories, and "Time Before Earth 2" has 39. There have been 26 stories about the Edenites reaching New Pacifica and/or meeting the colony ship.

The point in the time line with the least number of stories goes to "The Man Who Fell to Earth (2)" -- appropriately, it's a whopping 2. And that's only because I wrote a limerick and Slimy Grendler wrote a News Pacifica about that episode!

And how about a numbers rundown on those pesky Koba Awards?

There were 20 categories, but more than 20 winners because some ended in ties.

Nicole Mayer snagged the most at 4: Best Spy on Board Story, Best Parody, Best Drama, and Best Story That Doesn't Fit Any Other Category.

Ann Brill White had 3. Tara O'Shea also had 3, including Best Ever (which she shared with Vicky Nickerson, who had 2).

"The Wizard" by Ann Brill White and "Choices" by Tara O'Shea each won two awards. Two-for-one deals aren't bad!

Another winner which got a great deal was The Station Chronicles series, edited by Simon Kattenhorn. It hauled in 3 Koba Awards with a collection of 4 stories. That's not a bad percentage. It won Best Series, Simon's story "Heller and Beyond" won Best Time Before Earth 2 Story, and Mary Brick's "Martin Advance" won Best Morgan & Bess Story.

In addition to Mary Brick's individual award and participating in the winning series, she was also co-editor of the winning zine May the Journey Continue: The New PacifiCon '98 Fanzine. Deb Wilson, who won 1 individual award, was another co-editor. Robin Carter was the third.

Here's the complete list.

Is that it?

For now. If there is anything else about the stories which you would like to know, please e-mail me.

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