#the uncle paperbacks

[rallamajoop]

The Man from UNCLE Novels in Zine History and Fanon

@man-from-uncle-slash-recs

So, I happened upon this very interesting discussion about older zine fic, where someone wondered if some of the stranger fixations of the era might come from the influence of the novels, and thought, ooh, I can answer this one! I'm actually quoted earlier in the post, but since then I've gone and got hold of digital copies of the entire Man from UNCLE paperback library, and boy do I ever have thoughts on the subject! (You can find some reviews here, and some more general analysis here, but I’ll stick to what’s really relevant below)

I'm not going to reblog the whole discussion because it's already so long it's getting unwieldy (though you should totally read it), but to summarise: early UNCLE zine fic a) tended to portray Napoleon as a wildly OOC sadistic asshole, and b) was weirdly fixated on kink and torture (yes, even by fanfic standards). To quote one of the final comments:

@wansti-me

Do you think the officially published novels had a greater impact on the early fiction as they could be easily reread many times? Seeing an episode once or reading a book several times might have had a different impact?

Short answer: the tie-in novels definitely had a massive impact on fandom, and that is certainly one of the reasons why (see the full discussion for others). It’s easy to forget how different being fannish was in the days before home video, but UNCLE fandom went decades before the show even reappeared in repeats.

The importance of the novels to the fandom of that era was so massive that I can cite actual published sources that talk about their impact (chiefly Cynthia Walker of that other UNCLE book). But the simplest proof I can offer is to list some popular fanon that comes not from the show -- not even from the official writers notes -- but was invented wholesale by the novels. For example, you may well have seen older fic try to tell you:

Napoleon is known for his infamously good ‘Solo Luck’. (Actually, no-one in the show ever comments on Napoleon’s luck, even in passing)

Napoleon owns a yacht called the 'Pursang’ (The notes do mention his owning a yacht, but it’s never named)

Napoleon’s title is 'Chief Enforcement Agent’ (Mentioned in some versions of the writers’ notes, but never once used in the show)

THRUSH stands for “Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity” (THRUSH was never presented as any sort of acronym in either the notes or the show,  and title cards don’t even bother to render it all caps)

UNCLE Section VIII is titled 'Research and Development’ (It’s possible this comes from some version of the notes, but every official version I’ve ever seen names this Section 'Camouflage and Deception’ instead)

Napoleon and Illya while away their time on stake-outs playing word-games like Botticelli and Superghost (If this ever happens in the show, I have not caught it)

UNCLE agents apartments are protected by special security systems (Logical enough, but never even alluded to in the series)

UNCLE agents are required to move regularly for security reasons (Nope, the only description of their apartments I can find anywhere makes them sound pretty permanent)

You get the idea. In fact, all but the last one on that list comes from just one author, David McDaniel -- the most prolific and by far the most popular of the paperback authors (and not without reason, as he's also, IMHO, the only one who could write IC dialogue worth a damn).

It's much harder to demonstrate how much impact the novels might have had on Napoleon’s characterisation -- and in any case, @olderthannetfic is dead right that bashing one half of your OTP is a very strange but very real fandom tradition, and in no way unique to old muncle fic. That said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of the OOCness can be traced to the novels. See, other than McDaniels, most of these writers varied from 'bad' to 'so, so bad'. Like, 'have these people actually watched the show at all?' levels of bad.

One of the more popular books is The Assassination Affair by J. Holly Hunter (longer review here), which I gather has some popularity with hurt/comfort fans since it revolves around Napoleon being graphically tortured by the villain, then slowly recovering over the second half of the story. Thing is, the Napoleon in this story is kind of a prick. He’s regularly impatient and snappish, he’s hideously rude and dismissive to the story's teenaged innocent, and at one point, he even attempts to scare her away by leering at her as sexually/threateningly as possible. Holly clearly knows Napoleon is supposed to be suave and charming, but doesn’t have the skill make Napoleon’s actual behaviour back this up. Quoting my own review: In fact, having read (barely a couple of chapters of) this thing, I'm starting to wonder how much of the worse characterisation I've occasionally seen in fic in this fandom took this as their inspiration.

Hunter isn't the only writer to portray Napoleon as a vicious lech either -- Harry Whittington writes a Napoleon who spends a whole paragraph drooling over a captured female agent who's been stripped, tied down, and is about to be tortured, then insults her for letting herself get captured for most of the next scene. Seriously, words can scarcely convey the depths of my contempt for Whittington’s ‘writing’. He is vile. But he still managed to publish one novel and several short stories in the UNCLE series, and got in early enough that you can find clear tells of his influence in other authors who followed.

The other thing that stands out about tie-in stories is their obsession with misery and torture. In fact, the first two novels were so grim that, according to Walker, the publisher had second thoughts after their release, and thereafter went out of his way to find authors who could inject a little more levity into the series (if with mixed success). If you’re really interested in some specifics, I got into that in the opening of my reviews post, but suffice to say that outside of McDaniel’s work, it’d be pretty easy for a fan with only hazy memories of the show to get the impression that ‘dark and twisted’ was exactly the aesthetic they should be aiming for.

I’d emphasise here that I’m largely speculating -- I didn’t join the fandom until 2015, and would still have been in school at the peak of the the zine era. There’s no easy way to prove what influence the novels might have had on early fanfic characterisation in any case (though people who were there might have some more useful impressions to share). Still, if older zine fic had a real problem with characterising Napoleon as the lovable guy we all know from the show, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if some of the tie-in novels were one of the key sources we have to blame.