Title: After the Vault
Author: Nutzoide
Rating: M
Genre: Sci-Fi/Adventure
DLP Category: Games - Fallout
Pairing: Various, OC/OC
Chapters: 18
Words: 232,997 (ff.net)
Updated: November 30, 2010
Published: June 29, 2008
Status: Complete
Summary: Out in what remained of the central US of A, a girl crawled crying from her hole in the ground. On a blasted and too-bright surface, how could she survive? Find out in... After the Vault!
Link: Fanfiction
Authors Site

A story I stumbled across some time ago and was reminded of with the recent attention brought to the New California Dreaming fic. After doing a cursory scan of the Game subsection, the almost recommended and searching for both the authors name and the story's title I was surprised to find nothing and so I shall include this for what I hope will be DLP's enjoyment.

This is essentially an original story placed in the fallout universe. It was one of the first Fallout fanfiction I ever encountered and so I will admit my memories may be somewhat biased in favour of it. Nonetheless I feel it is Library worthy and thus submit it for DLP's perusal and examination.


Checked by Minion, February 11, 2017

 

Wow. That was a good Fallout story. It's much better than New California Dreaming.

The characters are well developed; they aren't cardboard cut outs. Chopper is particularly complicated. Abigail's character growth through the fic is gradual and pleasing. She starts off as a sheltered vault-girl who's lost and bewildered in the Wastelands. Her skills are used, grown, and expanded throughout.

Abigail also isn't a little miss perfect, nor is she just an angsty character who were supposed to feel sympathy for [though she is partly that]. She makes mistakes. She isn't instantly accepting of mutants. She falls down and her team mates have to pick up the pieces more than once.

The setting is well realised. It's easy to imagine these characters trekking through the post-nuclear mid-west of the USA. One gripe with the setting is that there were no obvious American landmarks, and the futuristic 50's Americana which is so strong in the games was largely missing here. Abigail spends some time in the ruins of a city, but it's never clear which one it is.

Perhaps the biggest let down is the plot. There's no driving force behind it until the very end. For much of the fic I knew I was reading a well crafted story, but it wasn't a compelling one. I never felt that "I have to read just one more chapter to find out what happens next!" which I get from favourite fics. The plot is Abigail's character growth and the things that happen to her which push that growth. It's only half of a good plot, imo. So in that respect, I found the story a little lacking. I could have stopped reading halfway through and not felt any urge to return to the story. It came together in the end, though.

That said, this is better than almost all of the other tripe out there. It loses half a point for the weak, character driven plot, which rounds down to 4/5.

I recommend that you give this a try. After the Vault and New California Dreaming are like night and day. NCD's characters are shallow, unfunny cliches in comparison.