Between Life and Death by Loulou Harris Author's Note

Most literary tastes and influences have their defining moments; one of my own came about four years ago when I read Italo Calvino's novel "If on a winter's night a traveller". It is a strange little book but it has its devotees amongst admirers of postmodern literature (which include, perhaps predictably, the semiologist Umberto Eco). It is a fiction about fictions; the main subject of the novel is in fact, The Novel; those who read it, create it, analyse it are the story's main characters. More than being a fiction in it's own right, it is a debate about the 20th-century novel.

When I entered once again the world of "Blake's 7" fandom, specifically via the medium of the Internet "Blake's 7" mailing list and saw the debates which ranged about both "Blake's 7" but more intriguingly, about the fan-written fiction, I realised that in the fifteen years since "Blake's 7" ended, an entire genre had developed, with its own subgenres and even surrounding subculture. Yet another example of the the fragmentation of literature. I thought about the way Calvino had dealt with his chosen genre in "If on a winter's night a traveller" and couldn't resist the thought of trying to do the same with the world of B7, the fans, the writers and the fiction.

So that is the idea which turned into "Between life and death". If there is anything about it which is clever or amusing then it will probably turn out to have been one of Calvino's ideas. I make no apology for the potentially frustrating structure of the novel, which is entirely based on Calvino's own work and I think, rather intentional.

Many of the polemical ideas in "Between life and death" come from discussions between myself and other devotees of the series, theories bashed out in the pubs and sandwich bars of Oxford. My friend and co-editor Reba Bandyopadhyay as well as Sarah Lloyd, a doctoral student of English lit, bounced ideas around which form part of the dialogues therein. In some cases I have quoted them directly; even giving Reba's words to a character named after her. Pat Fenech, an email aquiantance from the Internet Blake's 7 mailing list also made a contribution and similarly, has a character named after her vocalize Pat's ideas.

All other characters are entirely fictional and any resemblance to existing persons, living or dead, are coincidental. I had to put that in because I have a feeling that some of the things I thought I was inventing are more realistic than I might have imagined. Well, isn't it the case that truth is often stranger than fiction?

I can't believe I ended on such a cliche.

Loulou Harris
Oxford, October 1996