My first fanfic typesetting project: Brian Randallʼs “The Pillars of Shen-Lung”

Completion Date

October 2006

Author

Brian Randall (durandall)

Work

Various

Fandom

Various

Binding

PoD paperback (6 in x 9 in)

Font

Titles and body text set with Gentium version 1.02

Some decorative glyphs from Code2000

Cover text in ITC Braganza

Software

XeLaTeX (book class)

⊕ The cover image was derived from a photo of a monument in Hyderabad, manipulated to have dragon heads. The font used is ITC Braganza.

⊕ For example, Forging and Temperance begins with an outline, and then the words “This is a story, and itʼs one youʼve seen before. No, really. Scroll back a few lines. Yes, thatʼs part of it.” In the book, I placed the outline across a two-page spread, and then changed the opening on the next page to say “Turn back a page.” instead of “Scroll back a few lines.” I first tried typesetting fanfics for print in 2006, when I was in university. My friend Brian had a number of completed shorter works, which when combined, made about 320 pages worth of material. I converted the fics to LaTeX and collaborated with Brian on a few changes to fit the medium.

The overall title is derived from the annotations about the connection between Compass Points and Sky and Shore. The fics included are:

• Compass Points
• Sky and Shore with the annotations given as end-notes
• The Plain Okonomiyaki trilogy reformatted as a three-chapter fic with new titles provided by the author: Plain Okonomiyaki, The Journey There, and On the Road
• The Blunt Force Trauma of Suzumiya Haruhi
• Forging and Temperance

Sometimes I was creative with chapter numbering. Compass Points includes four side-stories, each of which is named after a compass direction. Therefore, these stories received the “numbers” N, W, E, and S. For reasons I no longer recall, I chose to use I Ching hexgrams (which I selected with Brianʼs assistance) for the chapters of The Blunt Force Trauma of Suzumiya Haruhi.

⊕ I picked margins to get the maximum text on each page. In retrospect, I had a lot to learn about book design.

Once the formatting was how I wanted it, I printed off a couple of copies using a print-on-demand service. I sent one to Brian. Some years later, I met up with him in person, and he autographed my copy.