I'll never understand why my favorite stories always include the ones where the hero (or heros) suffer the most to achieve their goals. With that in mind, one of my personal favorite blog fiction I'd read was called, Madia: Life in Bear Country. While the concept was based on an Australian TV show with a near cult like following, the blog fiction was original characters and plots.
The backstory was that a mysterious disease killed all the adults in the time frame of a couple weeks. Only those younger than 18 survived. As you can imagine, total societal collapse followed. The blog picked up a couple months following that event. Madia was living with a group of kids in a school. She would "blog" - write in her diary-, the events she witnessed. It even came complete with a podcast where you could listen to her read her diary.
It was great. Right off the bat there were problems in beary country. No medicine was left. Some other group of kids had stolen their fuel. Supplies were always low. I skipped ahead a bit and found that Madia's tribe fueded and lost with another "tribe" who eventually kidnapped her. There was even a sequal it it's 160 episodes. I never got around to finishing and starting the other.
Well, I am really kicking myself. You may have noticed that I linked to it via my forums, instead of the site. The reason being that when I finally got around to finishing reading it, It no longer exists! There's only shadows of it. There's nothing left but blank links to it's feed. (see here and here)
What I did find was, the "Chronicles of Shelby Rivers" by Marsha . So I emailed Marsha and asked if the Chronicles were meant to be the replacement for Madia. I couldn't help but notice how similar the stories were. (unfortunately, the perspective was switched to 3rd person limited and was no longer-really- blog fiction). I never received an answer back.
Now it gets even weirder. As you may have noticed, the link I gave above was to a Google Cache. I looked back at beartribenet.com, and now, even The Chronicles are gone!!! Doh!!! All that's left appears to be home videos. I left a comment on the site asking her about her writings and am still awaiting a response. As of now, the comment is still awaiting "moderation".
What is going on? I don't know. All I know is, I'm really kicking myself for not finishing.
What is going on in Bear Country?
Labels: Blog Fiction, Life in Bear Country |
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6 comments:
I thought nothing on the web ever went away.
Yeah, but I don't know where to get the google cache for all those pages. If there was a copy someplace, that would be cool.
Try this:
http://web.archive.org/web/20061207040938rn_1/www.beartribenet.com/log/
It looks like transcripts were once available in book form through Lulu but apparently no more.
Beartribenet.com no longer exists. The domain name changed to marshaloftis.com.
I stumbled across your blog. I am trying to get people to remove the old links to the old story.
Madie's Bear Tribe Journals is being rewritten. I have changed the title, setting and some of the character names. This is my second attempt at a rewrite. I started the first rewrite before the old website went away. You are free to look at the current story at http://journal.marshaloftis.com
Marsha,
Thanks for letting me know the new address. I am so excited that you've posted the original story as well as the in progress rewrite. As you can see from the post, I really enjoyed the original. I'll be looking forward to seeing the rewrite.
You are not the only person to send me emails about the story. I meant to repost them months ago but my husband retired and we moved to Tennessee. I have been busy trying to settle in to my new home and job. Books 1 and 2 of Madie's Beartribe journals have been posted in Scribd PDF format. You should be able to read a little and come back later. The website will know where you left off.
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