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Camera Shy was the third and final Jenny Everywhere short story published by Scott Sanford in 2008 (although a fourth was completed and only released a decade later). It was notable for being written in the first person from the point of view of Jenny herself.
Contents
Plot
While in bed, Jenny Everywhere gets a harried phone call from Ulysses Dumas, a musician she rescued from the Vampire King some time before, who says he needs her help with something and makes her an appointment at the Faux Fur End next evening, when the band Umlaut will be playing.
There, she quickly guesses that Dumas has turned into a vampire himself, despite his beating around the bush. He eventually explains his problem: due to vampires being invisible in mirrors, some models of cameras cannot see him, hindering his career as a performer. With Jenny called away on another adventure (“it's raining frogs at the mosque again”), she promises to get back to him. Later, back home, she discusses Dumas's unlikely problem with her roommate Kim.
Two days later, as the parody band Dörx is playing at the Faux Fur End, Jenny goes to meet Dumas a second time, in the company of Kim. She suggests that he create a stage persona involving elaborate make-up, so that the cameras will pick up the body paint even if they can't see his actual skin — telling him that it's been done before on the musical scene.
Worldbuilding
Jenny Everywhere
- The Jenny featured in this story is the one previously seen in PROSE: Parallax. She gets her income from being a professional music reviewer (or, as she puts it, “I get paid to tell musicians they suck”), although she says this is purely something she does for the money, and she would primarily describe herself as an adventurer. She also once describes herself as a superhero. She is roommates with Kim.
Universes
- The story begins in the home universe of Kim. Vampires are not known to the wider public but are apparently fairly common.
Other
- The night prior to the beginning of this story, Jenny was “out until past dawn saving the Internet from the Eye of Tripoli”.
- Kim displays the ability to turn into a swarm of bats.
Continuity
- This story's Jenny previously appeared in another short story by Scott Sanford, PROSE: Parallax, alongside Kim.
- Sanford's later multi-part serial PROSE: Paying It Forward saw Cha Ni reminding this same incarnation of Jenny of the Eye of Tripoli affair.
- Jenny mentions the Greek god Pan, who another Jenny met in COMIC: Holiday Pandemonium.
Behind the scenes
Background
When republishing the story on Dreamwidth in 2021, Scott Sanford appended some commentary looking back at the story:
| When I rediscovered this I found that it was a much better story than I’d remembered it being. Light and quick, yes, but that works well for Jenny Everywhere adventures.
This is clearly the same Jenny as in Parallax, now with a much more pleasant challenge. She would approve. And she’s living with Kim, a situation which I imagine must involve an interesting story itself. This is the last of my stories to survive from this period. I know there were other pieces started but unless there are hidden files lost in an old hard drive archive somewhere, not even the notes survive. It’s too bad; I know there were at least a few hundred words written about a child Jenny growing up on a farm and wondering about her mother’s old biplane hidden behind the barn… But we leave off with Jenny feeling accomplished and relaxing over a beer. There are worse ways to wrap up a tale. |
| —Scott Sanford |
Among the minor changes made between the 2008 version of this story and its 2021 repost was the replacement of Ulysses Dumas' “knowing a guy at the Red Cross” with a mention of his knowing a guy “at a kosher butcher's”. This was presumably done to obviate the plot hole of how a vampire could get into a Red Cross building despite his allergy to crosses.
Read online
The story is available both Shy on Sanford's original Jenny Everywhere Google Site and on the author's Dreamwidth website. There, it was given some Author's Commentary.