Fanfiction

[Gen.Mannerheim]

You should. It's really really good. A dwarf steals some gold from three ladies and, been spurned in love, uses his bitterness to craft the gold into a master ring which he can use to bend servants to his will and dominate all life. He also makes a helmet that can make him invisible. So...yeah, pretty influential to the fantasy genre. Also introduced the concept of the leitmotif, which is employed pretty heavily in modern day film scoring, most notably in the Lord of the Rings movies.

Imagining the big bad Sauron is secretly a grumpy dwarf hiding in his tower almost made me spill my tea laughing.

 

[sophie]

Imagining the big bad Sauron is secretly a grumpy dwarf hiding in his tower almost made me spill my tea laughing.

Oh yeah, and the hero Siegfried has to recover the ring (which was stolen from Alberich by Loge and Wotan in order to pay the giants Fasolt and Fafner for building Valhalla) and throw it back into the Rhine from whence it came. Also the Ring is cursed by Alberich so that "until it should return to him, whoever does not possess it will desire it, and whoever possesses it will live in anxiety and will eventually be killed and robbed of it by its next owner."

So yeah, the comparisons: really, REALLY uncanny.

 

[Akka]

So we see 3 common criteria in all of these definitions:
It is 1) a piece of fiction that 2) employs characters/locations/concepts from already-existent works of art and 3) is written by someone who is a fan of the work, rather than the original author.

Is that the definition you are using? Because from where I'm standing, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Grendel, The Aeneid, and Paradise Lost all seem to fit that definition quite remarkably well.

The guidelines are here, but the emphasis on some aspects isn't.
The main point, I'd say, is that "employing characters/locations/concepts" is just too nebulous. EVERYTHING could be considered as "fanfiction" if we just start to go by "concepts". I'd say Fanfiction needs to directly refer to a specific work and use enough of it as a core feature. A book on Ancient Greece is not a fanfiction of Homer because Perseus makes a brief apparition in it either.
I'd consider fanfiction something which central point is to reuse the settings and/or characters of another work to tell a story (usually to the taste of the writer).
If the setting/characters are not the core of the work, then I'd say it's more an homage than a fanfic. If it's about being humorous, then it's pastiche. If it's being humorous about the working of the reference, then it's parody.

It's also heavily implied that it's amateur work (as in "not professional", not "bad", though it's bad most of the time). Because if it's professional, then it most of the time requires the author's consent or face author's rights infringements.

Wagner is pretty notable for being a composer who wrote both the music and the libretti for his operas himself. He's famous for the way he wove music, words, staging, and story into a singular artistic whole. More than pretty much any other composer, neither his music nor his plot can really be experienced to in isolation while still achieving full appreciation of the work.

You should. It's really really good. A dwarf steals some gold from three ladies and, been spurned in love, uses his bitterness to craft the gold into a master ring which he can use to bend servants to his will and dominate all life. He also makes a helmet that can make him invisible. So...yeah, pretty influential to the fantasy genre. Also introduced the concept of the leitmotif, which is employed pretty heavily in modern day film scoring, most notably in the Lord of the Rings movies.

I trust your word it's good. I just don't see myself going to the opera anytime soon, the medium has little interest to me. Unless I start to date a pretty girl who wants to drag me in one, chances are slim I'll ever bother with it.

 

[sophie]

The guidelines are here, but the emphasis on some aspects isn't.
The main point, I'd say, is that "employing characters/locations/concepts" is just too nebulous. EVERYTHING could be considered as "fanfiction" if we just start to go by "concepts". I'd say Fanfiction needs to directly refer to a specific work and use enough of it as a core feature. A book on Ancient Greece is not a fanfiction of Homer because Perseus makes a brief apparition in it either.
I'd consider fanfiction something which central point is to reuse the settings and/or characters of another work to tell a story (usually to the taste of the writer).
If the setting/characters are not the core of the work, then I'd say it's more an homage than a fanfic. If it's about being humorous, then it's pastiche. If it's being humorous about the working of the reference, then it's parody.

A book on Ancient Greece (assuming you mean an academic/informative text on the subject of Ancient Greece) isn't a fanfiction per the definition I laid down above because it isn't fiction. And all four of the texts I listed do use fictional figures and locations from other texts as central elements of their stories:

Der Ring des Nibelungeng, as I said, is a retelling of das Nibelunglied
Grendel is the story of Beowulf retold from the perspective of Grendel
The Aeneid is a Roman mary-sue insertion into the Iliad/Odyssey canon
Paradise Lost is the world' s first Satan/God slashfic

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I guess I'll go outside with the kite fliers as I pretty much have no time for it. Doctor Who since 2005 has been essentially fan fiction made for TV, and it just demonstrates that even when it's handled about as professionally as can be it still has a penchant for devolving into self-referential piffle. Some of it's good, but fans of things just don't make good creators as they're too concerned with creating something that has all the tropes of the thing they already like.

In what way is nuWho equivalent to fanfiction? It's like nuTrek - a modern take on a classic series by people who are clueless about what made the original so good and enduring. If I'd been in charge of modern Who, Clara wouldn't have lasted beyond her first episode (actually, that story never would have been made; if I were in charge, Paul McGann would have had his series in 1996, without the American-influenced nonsense, so Classic Who would have continued without the severe dumbing-down that happened later).

None of this sentence is too difficult for me to grasp (though your histrionic-aggressive problem is still puzzling) but I don't see where Vincour expressed his desire about "or write it himself" so from where does this "obvious" part comes from ?

People search out fanfiction because they are looking for more of whatever series/movie/book, etc. they're interested in. Vincour has expressed frustration at not being able to find what he was looking for. One of the obvious solutions is that if he doesn't like what he's found, he could try writing it himself. Since he has taken part in the Iron Pen short story competitions I run (on an extremely irregular basis now, admittedly), I know he is capable of writing well.

I'm offering encouragement, not orders.

I don't really see how fanfiction is more comfortable to start in, actually.

What part of the word "some" is hard to understand? Some people prefer familiar surroundings when they try something new. It's like that for some aspiring writers. Keep in mind that not all fanfic writers aspire to become professionals. Fanfic is a hobby for them - one they do for fun, and enjoy sharing with others. Such people might later decide to try creating an original milieu in which to write, and maybe they might try to have it published. If so, I wish them success. If not, I don't judge.

My own goals are to improve my storytelling abilities, and to fill in the gaps for my benefit and for the benefit of like-minded fans. It's a hobby for me, and one I enjoy. It's not likely to turn into a job, which is what happened with my needlework - that began as a hobby, but later turned into a seasonal job that went on for over a decade.


I didn't even watch Capaldi's last season for free online, never mind spend the $$ to subscribe to the channel it's on in Canada. I was so disgusted with the previous season that I didn't feel like wasting any more money on it. I've got my Classic Who collection and a shelf full of novels - most of which I've read, but many I haven't yet.

And there's always Classic Whovian fanfiction at the Teaspoon and an Open Mind website. Of course some of it's awful, some of it is just the author's wish-fulfillment/Mary Sue fantasies... but I look at it as a hunt for the good stuff.

That brings up a good question. Is historical fiction also fanfiction?

Take the Outlander series for example (which I haven't read tbh but both my sisters love). It seems to use the historical superstructure of the 45 Rebellion and filters it through the lens of Sir Walter Scott's heavily romanticized Scottish culture to add a sense of weight and authority to what really amounts to a modern day Dime Store romance novel. Many of the supporting characters are real, but rewritten in ways that fits the authors needs.

I started reading the first Outlander novel last night (after having seen the series twice so far on Netflix).

I have mixed feelings about Outlander. It didn't get favorable comments on TrekBBS, but then I've come to realize that most people on that site wouldn't know good historical fiction (or at least be able to recognize the parts of some series that are good, vs. the parts that are bad) if it bit them in the posterior. There are some elements of Outlander that are good - the sheer grubbiness of the setting is one part of why it feels more authentic to me than that silly nonsense that is the Reign TV series (about young Mary, Queen of Scots). Reign is dumbed-down crap, and the only reason that it was even a tiny bit watchable is because Megan Follows is such an excellent actress. Everything else? Please. The costumes are wrong, the dance scenes are ridiculous, the "history" is just made-up nonsense.

I have to confess that I don't know enough Scottish history to list the historical errors in Outlander, although there are probably a lot of things that were changed or tweaked for the sake of storyline or "artistic license". I'll be honest: I enjoy this series because I like men in kilts. The actor who plays Jamie is very nice to look at, has a pleasing voice, and the show is a romantic adventure story that may bear some resemblance to real history at times.

And the thing about Outlander is that it began as fanfiction. Diana Gabaldon is a Doctor Who fan who really likes Jamie McCrimmon (one of the most popular of the Classic Who companions; he was with the Second Doctor in the late '60s and returned as a guest character twice more, during the Fifth and Sixth Doctor eras). Jamie Fraser of Outlander is essentially Gabaldon's version of Jamie McCrimmon, post-Second Doctor. She even sent a copy of her book to Frazier Hines, the actor who played Jamie McCrimmon; he later appeared as a guest character on the show.

There are some Outlander fanfic stories on fanfiction.net, and I'm following a few of them. They're fun to read when I'm either between forum posts (CFC isn't the only forum where I hang out), or in the wee hours when I usually read for awhile before going to sleep.

The latest season starts this coming Sunday, and I'm looking forward to it. This series is basically historical fantasy (the mystic time travel through the stones is what prevents this from being considered historical fiction or science fiction).

Reading this thread, it really seems to me that the difference between screenwriting and fanfiction seems to be an arbitrary line of quality and ownership.

Not quite. There is plenty of professional material that falls into the professional category because it's legally sanctioned and the author was paid. So even though Sonni Cooper's novel Black Fire (an early Star Trek novel published in the '80s) started out as fanfiction published by an amateur writer in an amateur fanzine, Sonni Cooper submitted the story to Pocket Books and an edited version was accepted for professional publication. I've got copies of both versions of the story. So Sonni Cooper is an example of a fanfic writer who turned pro.

We've all mentioned pro stuff we don't like. There's a lot of it that's just crap - worse quality than some of the really bad fanfic. Legally, the nuDune novels are professional. Quality-wise, they're worse than most of the bad Dune fanfic I've ever read. KJA/BH have demonstrated that they are not fans, since real fans would have treated the source material with much more respect than these two did. Kevin J. Anderson has made it really clear that he only cares if his books make $$$$$$, and if the Classic Dune fans don't like them, too damn bad - we're just a bunch of "Talifans" (his word).

 

[Akka]

A book on Ancient Greece (assuming you mean an academic/informative text on the subject of Ancient Greece) isn't a fanfiction per the definition I laid down above because it isn't fiction.

Perseus isn't fiction ?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

In what way is nuWho equivalent to fanfiction? It's like nuTrek - a modern take on a classic series by people who are clueless about what made the original so good and enduring. If I'd been in charge of modern Who, Clara wouldn't have lasted beyond her first episode (actually, that story never would have been made; if I were in charge, Paul McGann would have had his series in 1996, without the American-influenced nonsense, so Classic Who would have continued without the severe dumbing-down that happened later).

Well the two showrunners since 2005 are two of the more prominent "superfans" from the 90s, who invited other such superfans to write for, and act in, the series, as well as some newer fan writers. Including adapting some of the "fanfiction" novels from the early 90s into TV episodes. It's also crammed full of continuity references and returning enemies from the 60s, and "Daleks vs Cybermen!!" stories and basically everything you'd expect from fanfiction. And of course none of larger or more radical style and format alterations that the original show actually underwent, because it's basically a homage to it (and Buffy for some reason), so nothing that daring is ever likely to happen with it in its current form.

 

[sophie]

Perseus isn't fiction ?

You know what fiction is, yes?

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

why it feels more authentic to me than that silly nonsense that is the Reign TV series (about young Mary, Queen of Scots). Reign is dumbed-down crap, and the only reason that it was even a tiny bit watchable is because Megan Follows is such an excellent actress. Everything else? Please. The costumes are wrong, the dance scenes are ridiculous, the "history" is just made-up nonsense.

Back in school, a bunch of my history grad colleagues decided to try and turn Reign into a drinking game. We didn't even make it to the third episode...

I enjoy this series because I like men in kilts.

And that's kinda the shows whole point. And I don't mean that as a criticism at all. The show/book knows its audience. It story revolves around a strong, independent, and beautiful woman surrounded by both ruggedly handsome Scotsmen and well groomed Englishmen who uses her intelligence to become a major player in her story. Every show has to know and understand why their audience is here. It is a shows job to present their "hook" in logical and entertaining ways, and when the "fan service" becomes too obvious you start running into problems.

If I had a quibble, what little of the show I've seen makes Claire(?) a little too good at knowing all the things, dispensing doctoral levels of medical knowledge at the same knowing minute details about a historical period.

And the thing about Outlander is that it began as fanfiction. Diana Gabaldon is a Doctor Who fan who really likes Jamie McCrimmon (one of the most popular of the Classic Who companions; he was with the Second Doctor in the late '60s and returned as a guest character twice more, during the Fifth and Sixth Doctor eras). Jamie Fraser of Outlander is essentially Gabaldon's version of Jamie McCrimmon, post-Second Doctor. She even sent a copy of her book to Frazier Hines, the actor who played Jamie McCrimmon; he later appeared as a guest character on the show.

This makes a lot of sense.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Well the two showrunners since 2005 are two of the more prominent "superfans" from the 90s, who invited other such superfans to write for, and act in, the series, as well as some newer fan writers. Including adapting some of the "fanfiction" novels from the early 90s into TV episodes.

What "fanfiction novels"?

There seems to be some confusion in this thread about tie-in novels. Any professionally-published Star Trek novel, Doctor Who novel, or (fill in the franchise) is by legal definition not fanfiction. It might have begun as fanfiction, but at some point it was submitted to a publisher, who decided to buy it. At that point it's no longer fanfiction. It's pro fiction, the author is paid, the manuscript goes through the usual process of editing and revision, and at some point it's in the bookstores.

There are some authors whose writing careers are nothing but tie-in novels. Yeah, they're looked down on by some other authors as "hacks" who can't make a go of their own original universes, but on the other hand, if they're good at creating more stories for these franchises, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. It makes money for the copyright holders and whichever studios may be involved, and keeps the franchise in the fans' minds until the next movie or series comes along. For many years, books such as these were the only new Star Trek material we had. Modern ST audiences are so damned spoiled; they never had to wait over 10 years between new series, movies, or fan films, not knowing if there would even be any more in the first place.

It's also crammed full of continuity references and returning enemies from the 60s, and "Daleks vs Cybermen!!" stories and basically everything you'd expect from fanfiction. And of course none of larger or more radical style and format alterations that the original show actually underwent, because it's basically a homage to it (and Buffy for some reason), so nothing that daring is ever likely to happen with it in its current form.

Newsflash: Daleks have been a recurring part of the show since the second story back in 1963. The Cybermen debuted during the First Doctor era, as well. I'll admit that I don't care for them in the same story, but whatever. It's nice when there's a reference to Classic Who. One reason I've come to dislike nuWho so much is the increasingly prevalent attitude that the series itself started in 2005 and nothing of importance happened before that.

Forpetessake, the showrunner didn't even do the most obvious thing of all during the stories that involved Clara and Coal Hill School, and have any references to Ian or Barbara (two of the First Doctor's original companions). They were teachers at that school, and Ian was still involved as the headmaster. Granted, the actor is really elderly now, but did they even ask William Russell if he'd be interested in appearing or even recording an announcement that could have been made over the school's PA system in the background? What a golden opportunity that was, to connect the newest Doctor with the First Doctor, and they totally blew it.


I have no idea what you mean by Buffy, since I never watched that show. My objection to nuWho is that the companions are all contemporary 21st-century people, and they're all about "me-me-me" - no sense of wonder or understanding of what an incredible privilege they've been given, to travel with the Doctor and see times and places most other humans of this era could never imagine.

The new Doctor is accompanied by a new showrunner and new companion. I have no preconceived ideas about the actress, since I've never seen anything she's been in. I'll give the show a chance, but it's going to have to be mighty impressive to keep me watching.

Back in school, a bunch of my history grad colleagues decided to try and turn Reign into a drinking game. We didn't even make it to the third episode...

Megan Follows is a well-respected Canadian actress (her best-known role is Anne of Green Gables), and I'm impressed at the way she was able to keep a consistent accent in Reign (it's not even close to her normal accent), as well as a straight face in the midst of all the nonsense of this show.

And that's kinda the shows whole point. And I don't mean that as a criticism at all. The show/book knows its audience. It story revolves around a strong, independent, and beautiful woman surrounded by both ruggedly handsome Scotsmen and well groomed Englishmen who uses her intelligence to become a major player in her story. Every show has to know and understand why their audience is here. It is a shows job to present their "hook" in logical and entertaining ways, and when the "fan service" becomes too obvious you start running into problems.

If I had a quibble, what little of the show I've seen makes Claire(?) a little too good at knowing all the things, dispensing doctoral levels of medical knowledge at the same knowing minute details about a historical period.

It's so obvious that Claire Fraser is a Mary Sue avatar for Diana Gabaldon herself. She was obsessed with the Doctor Who actor who played Jamie McCrimmon, and this is her way of getting her wish-fulfillment of a relationship with Jamie McCrimmon. So that's why Claire is too good at her job, too independent-minded (although many women were of necessity during World War II; I recommend watching the UK series Tenko for examples of very strong women who had to learn to rely on themselves during wartime), and too knowledgeable.

Of course some of this can be waved away by saying that Claire would have picked up knowledge and skills from the doctors she worked with; as a nurse working on the front line, the normal protocols would have had to be thrown out the window. People had to do what was necessary, not what was mandated on a list of permissible actions set down by bureaucrats who were never in a war situation.

The first novel explains Claire's knowledge of herbs and roots and flowers by saying her hobby is botany, and that she acquired her independent ways due to traveling the world with her Uncle Lambert from the age of 5 through adulthood.

It's a bit iffier about her historical knowledge. Claire's husband Frank is a historian who specializes in Scottish history and he's obsessed with tracking down his own ancestors - one of whom includes "Black" Jack Randall. The roles of Frank and Jack are played by the same actor. Frank has some romantic notion that Black Jack is a dashing hero, but when Claire goes back in time, she finds that Black Jack was really an incredibly cruel, ruthless <unmentionable due to forum rules>... and she doesn't dare allow him to be killed, no matter how much he deserves it. Her reason is that if Black Jack is killed before fathering the child who in turn is another link in the genealogical chain of people between 1743 and the 20th century, Frank will never be born.

The book does say that Claire finds Frank's obsession with history to be somewhat boring, which is why she knows some things but not others. She would be familiar with at least some of the facts that her husband was most interested in, which is why she would know some of the dates and events leading up to the Battle of Culloden.

I've only read the first chapter of the first novel, though; this is another case of "see the show, then read the book". I wanted to see if the show was interesting enough to warrant spending the $$$ on the novel series, which is pretty pricey on the Canadian Amazon website.


But it really is so incredibly hypocritical of Gabaldon to rant and whine about people writing Outlander fanfic, when that series is basically X-rated alt-Doctor Who fanfic that was tweaked just enough to avoid charges of copyright infringement. As has been said online, who knows what the Doctor Who actor would have made of reading the sexually-explicit scenes between Jamie and Claire, and later on between Jamie and Black Jack Randall, knowing that he himself was who the author had in mind as she was writing the character of Jamie Fraser?

 

[Commodore]

Fanfiction - Yay or Nay?

Nay. Some of it is good, but not nearly enough for me to justify supporting the concept.

Is its bad reputation justified?

Yes. So much of it is just so poorly written at best and downright disturbing and disgusting at worst (I'm thinking of a certain Warhammer 40k fanfic that I shall not name here)

Have you ever read good fanfiction? If so, what was it?

I think the best fanfic that I remember reading was a series of stories that attempted to explain what happened after Homeworld 2. It's been a long time since I read it so I don't remember much, but I do remember that I liked it a lot.

Rowling or Martin?

Didn't read either one. I did see the Harry Potter movies though and didn't hate them, so I guess I'll go with Rowling.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Nay. Some of it is good, but not nearly enough for me to justify supporting the concept.

Well, it's a good thing that nobody else needs your permission, with the exception of producing fanfic based on anything you might personally create.

It's mind-croggling that there seems to be this impression that fanfic is a new thing that's only been around since the internet. It's been around for decades, at the very least.

I just did a quick estimate of Star Trek stories available on fanfiction.net. It's not an exact count since the site itself estimates the number, but there are at least 28,500 Star Trek stories on that website. That doesn't include the crossovers, which are a separate category. Interestingly, the category with the most stories is Star Trek: Voyager.

So I'm having a hard time believing that of all those thousands of stories, that not one of them would appeal to the average Star Trek fan. Granted, some are awful, some have a good premise but the technical skills of the writer are awful (bad mechanics are enough to make me close the tab on that story without reading any further), and some have pairings or situations that don't appeal to me. But the rest are at least adequate stories, and some of them are pretty damn good.

 

[Commodore]

Well, it's a good thing that nobody else needs your permission, with the exception of producing fanfic based on anything you might personally create.

I guess I just don't see the point of it from a reader's standpoint. I mean, I see what the writers get out of it, but for me if it's not an "official" part of the overall narrative of a fictional universe, then I just can't get into it. I guess it has something to do with knowing that what I'm reading isn't going to have any impact at all on the narrative.

 

[Ryika]

I guess I just don't see the point of it from a reader's standpoint. I mean, I see what the writers get out of it, but for me if it's not an "official" part of the overall narrative of a fictional universe, then I just can't get into it. I guess it has something to do with knowing that what I'm reading isn't going to have any impact at all on the narrative.

Do you apply this to Extended Universes of official series that don't belong to the main continuity, too?

 

[Commodore]

Do you apply this to Extended Universes of official series that don't belong to the main continuity, too?

Depends on whether or not they are declared "canon" by the owners of the IP. Of course this does cause some problems when stories I love and were once canon, are suddenly banished to the retconium (looking at you Disney).

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Depends on whether or not they are declared "canon" by the owners of the IP. Of course this does cause some problems when stories I love and were once canon, are suddenly banished to the retconium (looking at you Disney).

So you need a corporate stamp of legitimacy to tell you which stories are good and which ones aren't?

I'm not much for indulging in the later Star Wars novels, but from what I hear, the Timothy Zahn books are considered quite good. If the copyright holders suddenly decided tomorrow that all these novels were to be pulled off the market, confiscated from convention sellers, banned from being listed on eBay and every other website that sells or trades books... would that mean they had suddenly ceased to be good, well-written stories?


Should we ban all Heinlein and Bradbury novels that don't conform to current planetary science? There's not a hell of a lot left of their bodies of work that would stand up to current science, unless you reclassify them as fantasy. That's okay for Bradbury, since he himself identified his work as fantasy, but Heinlein wrote stories about colonies on the Moon, Mars, and some of Jupiter's moons - based on what was known at the time he wrote them. So that would leave Farenheit 451 and "There Will Come Soft Rains" for Bradbury and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for Heinlein (possibly a few others; I haven't read all of Heinlein's works).

 

[Commodore]

So you need a corporate stamp of legitimacy to tell you which stories are good and which ones aren't?

Not which stories are good or not, but which ones are actually part of the universe. If it's not officially part of the universe, then reading it just feels like a waste of time to me, even if it may be well written. In fact, the feeling is worse especially if it's well written because then I really want it to be part of the universe, but it's not which makes me regret reading it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Not which stories are good or not, but which ones are actually part of the universe. If it's not officially part of the universe, then reading it just feels like a waste of time to me, even if it may be well written. In fact, the feeling is worse especially if it's well written because then I really want it to be part of the universe, but it's not which makes me regret reading it.

Greg Cox is one of the most popular of the current batch of authors writing TV/movie tie-in books, and he's been at this for a long time. His novels are the only new Star Trek ones I buy - with the price of books what they are (as in insanely expensive even for used copies) and having run out of shelf space years ago, I've had to become much pickier about my reading material.

Cox wrote three novels about Khan Noonian Singh - as both prequel and sequel to "Space Seed" and The Wrath of Khan movie. Do they conform to every detail of the TV episode and movie? Nope. They add to them, enhance them, and even manage to explain how the hell Khan could "remember" Chekov's face, when Walter Koenig hadn't even joined the cast when that episode was aired. Yes, I wish these novels had been considered canon when it came time for JJ Abrams to put out that piece of crap that was the second nuTrek movie, but it wasn't. Abrams didn't even stay faithful to "Space Seed", for that matter.

Does any of this take away from my enjoyment of Cox's books? Not at all.


Ditto for Federation, by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens. This novel is what the movies Generations/First Contact should have been. The characterization of Zephram Cochrane was spot-on, and the meeting between Kirk and Picard was across time and the event horizon of a black hole, not some stupid "nexus" where the inhabitants could spend eternity with the people they loved most... and Kirk's eternity was with some woman we've never heard of before? If the producers had paid even the slightest bit of attention to canon, they'd have hired a Joan Collins lookalike, paid Harlan Ellison $$$$$$ to use the character of Edith Keeler, and the movie would have turned out a bit more palatable than it was. And Deanna Troi wouldn't have crashed the damn ship into the side of a planet.

It's frustrating to watch the cartoonish Romulans on the Next Gen shows, after being spoiled by Diane Duane's excellent novels. Her take on the Romulans explains why and how they split away from the Vulcans to colonize a different star system and why there are some basic differences between the two. Her version of Romulan society is nuanced, and her Romulan characters are individual people, not cookie-cutter aliens who all have the same ridiculous bowl-cut hairstyle and the insanely wide shoulder padded uniforms and the crazy facial bone structure.

Yeah, I wish Duane's Romulans had been used instead of those stupid things that are considered canon... but does the fact that Duane's Rihannsu are not the TV show's Romulans take away from Duane's skill as a storyteller who is widely considered among the best of the early ST novelists?

Not a bit. And she's one of the pro authors who got her start writing fanfiction.


I'm surprised that so many people in this thread seem to have an antipathy for fanfiction. I wonder how many are the same people who can keep track of multiple timelines for their favorite superhero comics or game characters?


Canon isn't everything. According to canon, there are three different versions of what happened to Atlantis (in Classic Doctor Who). In nuWho, the entire Matt Smith era needs a flowchart to keep track of everything, since the showrunner and his staff kept writing themselves into a corner and would get out of it by having the Doctor say, "I lied. The Doctor always lies." And then they'd wander off in some other direction until they wrote themselves into another corner.


I'll take a well-planned fanfic series over that mess any day.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

What "fanfiction novels"?

There seems to be some confusion in this thread about tie-in novels. Any professionally-published Star Trek novel, Doctor Who novel, or (fill in the franchise) is by legal definition not fanfiction. It might have begun as fanfiction, but at some point it was submitted to a publisher, who decided to buy it. At that point it's no longer fanfiction. It's pro fiction, the author is paid, the manuscript goes through the usual process of editing and revision, and at some point it's in the bookstores.

It's still essentially fan fiction. I mean my whole point started by saying that the current TV series is essentially fan fiction, and that's 100% official too. It's fiction written by fans. It may be of a higher quality than the worst of it, but it has all the same hallmarks.

There are some authors whose writing careers are nothing but tie-in novels. Yeah, they're looked down on by some other authors as "hacks" who can't make a go of their own original universes, but on the other hand, if they're good at creating more stories for these franchises, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. It makes money for the copyright holders and whichever studios may be involved, and keeps the franchise in the fans' minds until the next movie or series comes along. For many years, books such as these were the only new Star Trek material we had. Modern ST audiences are so damned spoiled; they never had to wait over 10 years between new series, movies, or fan films, not knowing if there would even be any more in the first place.

Yes, I understand why it exists and what function it serves and why it appeals to some people. I'm happy for them to enjoy it. I however, am not interested in it and what I know of it doesn't appeal to me.

Newsflash: Daleks have been a recurring part of the show since the second story back in 1963. The Cybermen debuted during the First Doctor era, as well. I'll admit that I don't care for them in the same story, but whatever. It's nice when there's a reference to Classic Who. One reason I've come to dislike nuWho so much is the increasingly prevalent attitude that the series itself started in 2005 and nothing of importance happened before that.

Newsflash: I know that (insert rolly eye emote). Does every discussion have to get so antagonistic so quickly? You even just said you don't care for them in the same story, so why such a strong reaction? It's an accepted trope of fanfiction that writers will often have two or more sets of recurring characters/groups teaming up is it not? That fanfiction writers like to play around with established lore in that way? Well that's why I said the TV show is like fanfiction.

Forpetessake, the showrunner didn't even do the most obvious thing of all during the stories that involved Clara and Coal Hill School, and have any references to Ian or Barbara (two of the First Doctor's original companions). They were teachers at that school, and Ian was still involved as the headmaster. Granted, the actor is really elderly now, but did they even ask William Russell if he'd be interested in appearing or even recording an announcement that could have been made over the school's PA system in the background? What a golden opportunity that was, to connect the newest Doctor with the First Doctor, and they totally blew it.

This is precisely the sort of thing I don't really care about, which probably explains why fanfiction doesn't appeal to me. Fanfiction is all about this sort of self-referential stuff and is the kind of thing certain types of fan care about a lot (the ones who write fanfiction). I mean... obviously fanfiction has a place and appeals to people and that's fine, but it's not for me.

I have no idea what you mean by Buffy, since I never watched that show. My objection to nuWho is that the companions are all contemporary 21st-century people, and they're all about "me-me-me" - no sense of wonder or understanding of what an incredible privilege they've been given, to travel with the Doctor and see times and places most other humans of this era could never imagine.

That's kind of exactly the Buffy thing. Constant wisecracking and pop-culture references from absolutely all the characters all the time.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It's still essentially fan fiction. I mean my whole point started by saying that the current TV series is essentially fan fiction, and that's 100% official too. It's fiction written by fans. It may be of a higher quality than the worst of it, but it has all the same hallmarks.

Wow. I'll be sure to pop over to the TrekLit forum at TrekBBS and tell some of these authors that even though they've been successful professionals for over 20 years, they're only writing "fanfic" and should really just be posting in the fanfiction forum there and we should stop paying for their books. I'm sure they'd totally agree with you and throw away their computers and go become plumbers or waiters or whatever it is they did for a living before they became full-time paid writers.

You do realize that not all TV/movie tie-in writers are actually fans of the franchise they write for, right? Some of them are just writers who work from a script and know very little about the series they're contracted for. Diane Carey was certainly no fan of any Star Trek series other than the Original Series, and she inserted her own political opinions and hobbies into the stories at every opportunity - whatever she liked to do (sailing), Kirk liked to do. Kirk also mysteriously acquired Diane Carey's political opinions. And she hated Voyager, and made it extremely obvious with the snarky, obnoxious way she wrote the Voyager novels assigned to her. She wove her own opinions into the characters' dialogue and inner thoughts, and it was so obviously disrespectful that she ended up fired. I actually think much less of her books than I think of the mess that some of the earliest Bantam novels were (some of which really did start out as fanfiction that was accepted for professional publication).

And before you ask why she would write for a series she didn't like, the answer is obvious: Most writers aren't in the position to turn down an assignment that will pay the rent, buy the groceries, pay the kid's tuition, etc., and they may be under contract for "X" number of books per year, or however long the contract is for. So she wrote the books she was contracted to write, but in her warped thinking, just because she had to write them, it didn't mean they had to be good ones. And since the publishing industry is so time-sensitive, they didn't have time to scrap her book and get someone else to write a Voyager novel for that slot.

Mind you, there are a couple of them whose books I absolutely will not buy, but that's because the authors themselves are jerks, not because they write bad books. I don't reward jerks by helping to put food on their table, which is why Christopher L. Bennett and David Mack have been banned from my bookshelves. And since Greg Cox has always been pleasant and friendly with the fans (even when disagreeing about something), he's earned a permanent spot on my bookshelves (of course I came to enjoy his writing many years before discovering that he posts on the same Star Trek forum I do).

Yes, I understand why it exists and what function it serves and why it appeals to some people. I'm happy for them to enjoy it. I however, am not interested in it and what I know of it doesn't appeal to me.

Groovy. You don't like it personally, and that's fine. Not everyone does. But at this point you're just denigrating a subgenre of writing for the sake of saying "I don't like it, therefore it's a bad form of writing, and anyone who writes tie-in novels is also just writing fanfiction" - even though I've already explained the difference between professional writers and amateur writers numerous times in this thread.

If you need a more immediate example: Kyriakos and Plotinus are professional writers. They get paid for their work. Plotinus happens to be a Doctor Who fan. If he were ever to write a Doctor Who tie-in novel and it was accepted for professional publication (ie. he got paid for it), it would be a professional work of fiction, not a fanfiction novel.

I, on the other hand, do write fanfiction. I've never been paid for any Star Trek story I wrote, any Doctor Who story I wrote, or any other series/franchise for which I've written stories, songs, poems, etc. I don't expect to be paid, either - for me it's a hobby. For the professional tie-in writers, it's their job, their livelihood, their career. I can walk away from my stories any time (and have, for the ones that turned into an unsalvageable mess). They can't, because they're under contract and $$$$$$ is involved, not to mention their professional reputations.

Newsflash: I know that (insert rolly eye emote). Does every discussion have to get so antagonistic so quickly? You even just said you don't care for them in the same story, so why such a strong reaction? It's an accepted trope of fanfiction that writers will often have two or more sets of recurring characters/groups teaming up is it not? That fanfiction writers like to play around with established lore in that way? Well that's why I said the TV show is like fanfiction.

You appear to think that just because the Daleks appeared in one story, they should never appear again. The first Dalek story back in 1963 simultaneously scared and amused the audience, and they became very popular - too popular at times, since one of the stories that was commissioned turned out to be 12 episodes long ("The Dalek Masterplan"). It must have been grating on the audience to go through 3 months of listening to Dalek voices, but OTOH, it was an interesting exercise in other ways. This is the story that had the first companion deaths, which is something nobody was expecting.

The only story in which both Daleks and Cybermen both appear that I liked was The Five Doctors. They pretty much both had to be there, since it was the 20th anniversary special. But it wasn't overdone; there were other monsters, villains, and several old companions were brought back, as well as three of the previous four Doctors.

The overdone stuff is in the nuWho stories, so put the blame on the self-indulgent twits running (ruining, in my opinion) the show during the last several years. I consider most of the Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi eras to be unwatchable, due to the unnecessarily convoluted plots that were so dumbed down that even a child should be able to spot the plot holes. And then there was Clara, the Companion Who Will Not Die. Holy crap, they killed her off multiple times, yet always wrote her back in. Now she's between sort-of death and permanent death, off in her own TARDIS, with her own immortal companion. That's what killed my enjoyment of the show - keeping an awful character around just because the producer/showrunner had a thing for the actress and insisted that Clara was really the main character and the Doctor was just her sidekick.

Well, thank goodness they're all gone now (please let them all be gone). I'm willing to give the new Doctor a chance, but they're going to have to work very hard to win me back as a viewer.

So yeah, I'll concede that there was a lot of shameless pandering to Clara fans in the Capaldi era (I've no objection to Capaldi himself as an actor; he just got stuck with abominable writing and an abominable companion).

But it's a mistake to assume that all franchises, shows, movies, comics, games, etc. are like this, or to assume that anything that references a previous work is "just fanfiction." The musical "West Side Story" is a modern adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet"; it's a powerfully-written musical, very raw in places, and has some mature themes. I've never seen anyone dismiss it as "Oh, that's just Shakespeare fanfiction."

This is precisely the sort of thing I don't really care about, which probably explains why fanfiction doesn't appeal to me. Fanfiction is all about this sort of self-referential stuff and is the kind of thing certain types of fan care about a lot (the ones who write fanfiction). I mean... obviously fanfiction has a place and appeals to people and that's fine, but it's not for me.

I guess I'm not picking up on precisely what you mean by "self-referential". Do you mean that everything on TV and fiction should be anthology style and absolutely no reference to anything that happened previously? If so, you must never watch any TV series, since they have to refer to what happened before, even if they're only addressing another character by name or referring to the boss they work for, the city (or other setting) they live in, etc. There are some exceptions, of course. The Twilight Zone's only bit of continuity from episode to episode was Rod Serling's voiceovers at the beginning and end.

That's kind of exactly the Buffy thing. Constant wisecracking and pop-culture references from absolutely all the characters all the time.

I'll take your word about Buffy. I never watched it. For one thing, how seriously am I supposed to take a show when the main character's name is "Buffy"? That's a name for a child, not a grown woman (and yeah, I get that Buffy was supposedly in high school, but the actress sure wasn't any teenager; she was previously on the soap opera "All My Children").

I don't remember the 21st century nuWho companions constantly wise-cracking and using pop culture references, at least not up until I stopped watching. My objection is merely that they were 21st-century women who displayed some really selfish attitudes at times. Rose didn't give a damn if she caused a temporal rift - she wanted to change history to save her father. Clara pretty much demanded that the Doctor bend to her wishes, demands, and schedule. They weren't like the Classic Companions, who got into the TARDIS and most of them never saw their homes again, or if they did, it wasn't always in the same century they left. Many ended up on alien planets, a few of them got married, and several of them died. They didn't tell the Doctor, "pick me up after work for that trip to the planet _____ you promised me, and don't you dare be late".