Book #1 of 2024: Force Over Distance

(This fic doesn't have a cover, so I'm borrowing a fanart of it by xenharmonica/coattailsofdoom on Tumblr.)

Force Over Distance by CleanWhiteRoom.

I'm so happy I can count this as book #1 of the year! It's a fanfic, but my rule of counting fanfics in my book count is that they have to be at least as long as multiple books to be counted. This one is about 400,000 words long, the length of 4-5 books.

Force Over Distance is Stargate: Universe fanfic. If you're not familiar with Stargate, there was a movie, then a TV series (Stargate: SG1), then another TV series (Stargate Atlantis), then finally Stargate: Universe.

The Stargate fandom has strong feelings about Universe for multiple reasons: Some say it was the cause of the much beloved Atlantis getting canceled. But mostly I think it's because Universe was so different than the first two shows.

Both SG1 and Atlantis were "bright, shiny" shows: Happy, light, positive, with very very very clearly defined good guys and bad guys. (They both dealt with some dark and serious themes sometimes, but overall both were light with humor mixed in.)

Universe was the polar opposite of them. Dark (literally and otherwise, it mostly took place in a dimly lit ship with death and doom around every corner). Serious. And the characters couldn't be more grey -- it was impossible to say who was a good guy and who was a bad guy. They all had their own motives.

While I like SG1 and love Atlantis, Universe is one of my favorite TV shows of all time. So when I heard about this fanfic, I was interested. When I saw it available in ebook format, I snatched it right up.

Universe was canceled in the middle of season 2 (on a major cliffhanger...), and this fic starts just before that cliffhanger. The two main characters (Colonel Young and Dr. Rush) hate each other to the point that each has attempted to kill the other previously. Their motives are realistic, and they're believable characters both in the show and this story.

Over the long, long course of the story, the characters come to understand each other, like each other, become friends with each other, and then become even closer. It's a slow, believable process though (it took 100,000 words just for them to stop hating each other!). While by the end of the story they're sleeping with each other, it's never explicit written out in detail.

The plot of this massive fic feels just like a (really, really, REALLY) long episode of the show. Rush bonds with the ship's computer (as happened in the show), and then the story just continues from there. The crew traveling on Destiny (the ship) as various alien species try to hunt them down and the crew works on trying to get home to Earth.

All of the characters from the show appear in this story, and as with Young and Rush, their voices and characters were perfect. I heard all the characters' voices from the show from their very first spoken word.

In 400,000 words, there were almost no editing issues (maybe four total). There was a very minor issue with translating the fic into ebook format (I think that's the cause): Some of the smart quotations marks were curled the wrong way.

The one real issue I had with this book was one that has cropped up in other books and fics as well: Overuse of the word "murmured". I was so distracted by it that I did something I have never done before: I edited the ebook to changed all instances of "murmured" into "said" (there were 580-something uses of the word). Said is such a nice, neutral, non-distracting word!

Unfortunately in the last 20% of the book, even "whispered" seemed really overused (I did a search, that word came up 590-something times). Everyone whispered, breathed, "spoke so quietly the words barely carried", things like that. In a military battle, normal conversation, all the time.

By the last 5%, we got lines like this:

"Really?" the word was almost inaudible.

"Hi," she said soundlessly.

"I know." The words are without sound.

I wonder why authors do that? Does speaking quietly seem to impart more emotion to a scene? It was so illogical that it was distracting.

The other issue isn't a real issue at all. Stargate: Universe is a dark show. Characters are endlessly injured, the ship is always this close to being destroyed, it's 100% doom and gloom 100% of the time. As this fic was a perfect fit for the show, the darkness and seriousness and doom and gloom got to be a bit much. I love the show, but this fic took me 30+ hours to read. When everything is bad bad bad for that long... it just got to be a lot to read.

I had thought about pausing in the middle to read a different book, but I hadn't been able to put this story down. I think if I had read it chapter by chapter as it was published instead of all at once, it might have been better.

Still, all in all, this was an amazing fanfic.

The ending was rough, but in a good way. I spent the last two hours of reading it crying. I stayed up late last night to finish it because I just couldn't spend today crying.

I feel like I need more time to process the ending to decide what I think about it (something that rarely happens for me with books), but here are my thoughts right now.



If you don't know Stargate, "Ascension" is a process that allows beings to be able to separate from their physical bodies and to live eternally as pure energy in a superior plane. It's nearly impossible to do. A race of aliens called the Ancients would spend their entire lives trying to get into a state that would let them Ascend.

Through three-quarters of the book, Destiny was getting Dr. Rush ready to Ascend, so it's no surprise that that happened to him in the end. But the question was what would happen to Col. Young. There was no way in the world he would ever be able to Ascend.

Rush wanted to do something that would destroy the ship but would bring three characters who died during the Universe TV show back to life. Young wanted to stay on the ship, to die with it and with Rush. Rush was not okay with that plan and tricked him through the stargate and forced him back to Earth with the rest of the crew.

So at that point I thought the ending would be Rush questionably Ascended (we the reader never knowing if it worked or not) and Young left alone and miserable to live out his days.

But through a believable loophole, Rush was able to come back and take Young with him, and so the two lived out eternity as non-physical beings, able to travel the galaxy together. No more pain, no more exhaustion, no more danger. (Grr, I'm tearing up just writing that. No more crying!)

It was as much as a happy ending that could happen. The story was so long and so dark that I think we needed that much of an okay ending. I think if the story had ended with Young alone on Earth, just waiting to die (or most likely killing himself) it would have been too much.

So I think I'm okay with the ending? Or like it? It's just hard to figure it out right now. It's too new and raw.

End spoilers.


All in all, this was one amazing fic. It gave the TV show story a conclusion. You can find most of the fic on AO3, though the author is in the process of rewriting it, so there are currently only 40-something chapters up (of 60 or so). The author has written other Stargate fanfics as long as this one, but they're not back online yet. I'll certainly be reading them once they are.

If anyone wants a copy of the ebook version, just leave a comment and let me know. It might be better to wait for the rewritten version to be ready though. The author is getting new chapters online fast (multiple per day so far).