I think it's been remarked on before in the forums -- in fact, I'd not be surprised to find that a full thread has been hashed out, rehashed, left in the fridge for a week, hashed again, and finally left out for the vultures to pick over.

But it's a fresh realization to me.

Reading through the recent Symphony works, I discovered that I like them more -- way more -- than I like the original UF. That's not to say I suddenly dislike the core stories... but the Symphony works, and, to a lesser degree, the whole Twilight arc, really seem to me to be more mature, more well-thought-out, and better-written than their counterparts.

In fact, what I'm noticing (and this is all My Opinion Only, here, obviously) is that, as the characters in the story get younger (Kate and Utena in SoS, Priss and Sylvie in Cybertron Dreams, etc), the story itself seems more mature, deals with more personal details than the original stories.

Or, put another way, the original UF stories -- and bear in mind that I've not yet found a specific place that I can point to and say, "Here. Here is where UF grew up." -- felt like flights of fantasy through the authors' wildest dreams, whereas the later works (especially recently) feel like something real, almost. As if it really happened.

I can't quite describe why I feel this way about the new pieces. Maybe it's because they've come down out of the stars. Instead of focusing on the Grand Scheme Of Things, they focus on a small set of characters, people with their likes, dislikes, feelings, adventures, emotions, the whole nine yards. I can identify with that much better than I can with, say, the Greatest Starfighter Pilot in the Galaxy. (Much as I would, in fact, like to be able to identify with said character... ;)

What this all boils down to, I suppose, is simply this: Thank you.

I've always liked UF. Now, I like it even more.

--sofaspud
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When you consider the sheer volume of works (Both in titles, series, and K-bytes) that EPU has produced over the last 10 some years, I'd be suprised if their writing style HADN"T matured. You simply can't write as much as they have without learning a few things along the way! That's also why you can't point to a single piece and state that "this is where EPU grew up", because there isn't one! Its been an ongoing process from the time they sat down with this wierd idea of "Hey, lets write ourselfs a story about Us" and first commited Undocumented Features to bytes to now.

Now, having both expressed our great love for the way the prose has continued to improve, If you'll get back to getting TotW 2-10 up, I'll be sending 2-11 to submissions@sofaspud.org in the next couple of days... And I'm about 20-30% through 2-12 as well.... :P

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Vaughn doesn't know I exist. I guess this explains why the rest of reality keeps ignoring me as well. >_<

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Whoa! What IS it?!