Derivative work and fanfiction (was EP298: The Things)

[jrderego]

As for the story itself, it was interesting, if drawn out a little longer than seemed necessary.  What interested me more, though, was the question of where one draws the line between reinterpretation as a legitimate literary device and fan fiction.  We've seen it here on EP before (EP083, Daniel Schwabauer's War of the Worlds-inspired Ulla), and it turns up time to time both in genre fiction and mainstream works.  Is it the transformative nature of the derivative work?  I'm not really involved in the fanfic community, but I understand that there's plenty of transformative work in that field.  Is it the age of the original work (after all, you don't see Gregory Maguire writing a grittier reinterpretation of Harry Potter), or its notibility?  In this case, stories like this one would seem to fall on the borderline at best.  A part of me is concerned that maybe it's just a question of the professional "cred" of the writer -- if you're an established writer with some published work under your belt you can write and publish things that for anyone else would be rendered unpublishable by the "fanfiction" label.  Any thoughts?

::NOTE:: Looks like Jeff said it much more succinctly while I typed this up

It's annoying to see this story with these accolades, and it's not because it's a bad story. It's not. In fact the POV prism it puts the Campbell story through is an interesting one, and the insights of "THE THING" are ... well ... they're way cliched, but still well done. No complaints there. What I do complain about is that it takes the characters created by John W. Campbell, reimagined by Howard Hawks (less so) and John Carpenter (moreso) and uses them as a big chunk of the storytelling element. It also leans heavily on the audience's knowledge of those characters and the events at an antarctic base to make the story have any sort of narrative clarity. That's as damn near a textbook definition of fanfic as it gets.

What annoys me (getting back on track) is that this story was nominated by the fan community who have evolved to see no greater intrinsic value in originally created works as they do in derivative works. I guess that's why there are shelves of Trek, Wars, and Halo, and other media novels that outsell new works. It's not so much that the writers of original material aren't good enough is that's the so-called fans don't see the difference between a China Mieville novel and a Star Trek novel.

I hope Universal, who owns the rights to The Thing, raises a fuss.

It's interesting that I didn't find it derivative. Maybe that's because I didn't really like the film, which seemed coarse and sensationalistic, while this seemed sophisticated and insightful. If anything, this story feels as though it came first, with the rest devolving towards some mass market common denominator.

Derivative isn't some subjective measure. This story could not exist without "Who Goes There" or "The Thing". The entire dramatic presentation, characters, motivation, setting, etc... is derived from that story and that film.

[eytanz]

What annoys me (getting back on track) is that this story was nominated by the fan community who have evolved to see no greater intrinsic value in originally created works as they do in derivative works. I guess that's why there are shelves of Trek, Wars, and Halo, and other media novels that outsell new works. It's not so much that the writers of original material aren't good enough is that's the so-called fans don't see the difference between a China Mieville novel and a Star Trek novel.

This is a very interesting discussion - interesting enough that I'm considering splitting it to its own thread except that I find it difficult to figure out what goes there and what stays here. Anyway. I definitely see your point, but I'm wondering if what you're describing is a collapse of an artificial value system that deserves to die. "Originality" is a modern virtue, an artifact of the late 19th century and early 20th century. Many of our classics are derivative - In the days of oral traditions, almost every story was derivative. Most of Shakespeare's play are derivative. The brothers Grimm made their mark retelling folk tales. What was important, for most of human history, is not how original a story was but how well it was told.

If a writer of a Star Trek novel can create something as well written and as engaging as the better Mieville novels, why should readers see a difference there, just because Mieville got to name the main characters?

I'm not saying that originality is not valuable - it is. But I think it's at most a secondary attribute of a story's quality. When comparing two stories that are equally well-written, the author of the original one deserves the metaphorical cookie (mmm... metaphorical cookies...). But I'd much rather read a well-written derivative work than a poorly written original one.

[Dem]

As for the story itself, it was interesting, if drawn out a little longer than seemed necessary.  What interested me more, though, was the question of where one draws the line between reinterpretation as a legitimate literary device and fan fiction.  We've seen it here on EP before (EP083, Daniel Schwabauer's War of the Worlds-inspired Ulla), and it turns up time to time both in genre fiction and mainstream works.  Is it the transformative nature of the derivative work?  I'm not really involved in the fanfic community, but I understand that there's plenty of transformative work in that field.  Is it the age of the original work (after all, you don't see Gregory Maguire writing a grittier reinterpretation of Harry Potter), or its notibility?  In this case, stories like this one would seem to fall on the borderline at best.  A part of me is concerned that maybe it's just a question of the professional "cred" of the writer -- if you're an established writer with some published work under your belt you can write and publish things that for anyone else would be rendered unpublishable by the "fanfiction" label.  Any thoughts?

::NOTE:: Looks like Jeff said it much more succinctly while I typed this up

It's annoying to see this story with these accolades, and it's not because it's a bad story. It's not. In fact the POV prism it puts the Campbell story through is an interesting one, and the insights of "THE THING" are ... well ... they're way cliched, but still well done. No complaints there. What I do complain about is that it takes the characters created by John W. Campbell, reimagined by Howard Hawks (less so) and John Carpenter (moreso) and uses them as a big chunk of the storytelling element. It also leans heavily on the audience's knowledge of those characters and the events at an antarctic base to make the story have any sort of narrative clarity. That's as damn near a textbook definition of fanfic as it gets.

What annoys me (getting back on track) is that this story was nominated by the fan community who have evolved to see no greater intrinsic value in originally created works as they do in derivative works. I guess that's why there are shelves of Trek, Wars, and Halo, and other media novels that outsell new works. It's not so much that the writers of original material aren't good enough is that's the so-called fans don't see the difference between a China Mieville novel and a Star Trek novel.

I hope Universal, who owns the rights to The Thing, raises a fuss.

It's interesting that I didn't find it derivative. Maybe that's because I didn't really like the film, which seemed coarse and sensationalistic, while this seemed sophisticated and insightful. If anything, this story feels as though it came first, with the rest devolving towards some mass market common denominator.

Derivative isn't some subjective measure. This story could not exist without "Who Goes There" or "The Thing". The entire dramatic presentation, characters, motivation, setting, etc... is derived from that story and that film.

I'm not saying 'derivative' is a subjective measure. Obviously it isn't, you can only derive a thing from another thing. My feeling about it is necessarily subjective but that's not the issue either. I think we might be arguing on the same side here.

[jrderego]

I've been puzzling over this comment for a few hours now…

If a writer of a Star Trek novel can create something as well written and as engaging as the better Mieville novels, why should readers see a difference there, just because Mieville got to name the main characters?

And my off the cuff answer is --

"Because the writer of the Star Trek novel didn't create anything."

But even that isn't a good answer, it's flip and turns the whole thing into a black and white issue, and as anyone who's been on the forum for more than a year knows, Eytanz and I see eye to eye on just about nothing, but he makes a good point. If a Star Trek book is as well written as a China Meiville book, what's the difference? That's probably a pretty common paradigm in the fan community. I like Star Trek, so a Star Trek book that's well written is pretty much the same, product wise, as some other book by some other dude/dudette on the shelf.

I suggest it even goes one step further --

Not only do I like Star Trek, but I'm comfortable with Star Trek, I feel like i already know the characters, how the world works, what the politics and religions are, I can open this book and I'll more than likely be spending a few hours with characters I already know and love in an adventure that's virtually indistinguishable in tone and style and pacing and description and continuity as all of the other Star Trek books. Heck, that being the case I as a consumer may not choose some new piece of work with a catchy cover (or not) when I can buy this Star Trek book and spend a few comfortable hours in my chair spending quality time with Spock and McCoy, or Picard and Data, or Worf and Quark, or whoever.

Mind you, there's absolutely nothing inherently wrong with this paradigm.

I like Star Trek, have since the first episode I saw (which was the Space Hippies one "The Way to Eden"). But when I see a Star Trek book on the shelf I don't see an author, I see a brand, and there's a difference.

Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek and everyone else who writes Star Trek stuff is just rearranging the elements he sweated out. Now, in the case of Star Trek, it was a TV show, and that's a collaborative effort (goes the the later shows too who owe plenty to Brandon Braga and others… but even they aren't creators of Star Trek, Roddenberry is), so I'm not talking about the TV show(s) or movies at all, but the books that come from it, those aren't collaborative.

But back to the original question:

If a writer of a Star Trek novel can create something as well written and as engaging as the better Mieville novels, why should readers see a difference there, just because Mieville got to name the main characters?

A writer of a Star Trek novel cannot create something as well written and as engaging as a novel by another author because the Star Trek author isn't writing a novel, they are working in a brand, they are following a dictated outline from Paramount pictures that states what can and can't occur in the story, what politics have to exist, what religions are present, how they behave, how the characters behave, the writer of the Star Trek book isn't writing a novel, they are filling in the novel equivalent of Mad Libs, and having a dozen editors employed by Paramount review and edit and ensure that the story doesn't harm The Brand.

China Meiville doesn't just name characters. He must create the world, politics, religion, technology, personalities, styles, idioms, predicaments, solutions, offspring, history, future, transition, and hell even the smell, of every single thing in his book(s).

Even when original books fail -- and they do, often -- they are still creations and not brands. You'll NEVER remember who wrote a Star Trek book that you didn't like, but it's virtually impossible to dislike a Star Trek book because the publisher and Paramount spends a ton of money to make sure that the book falls in line with the Star Trek brand, and if you like Star Trek, you like the brand. The Brand (not just Star Trek) will almost always outsell an original work too because it's comfortable.

Now, I'm trying to look at this issue as a fan and not a writer, but it's really really hard to separate myself that way partly because I am not a fan.

But, as a writer what i see is, through the process of media consolidation, the rise of free fiction and non-paying markets (which I think is great, by the way), and since the explosion of post-Star Wars merchandizing the rise of tie in novels that have pushed more and more authors off the shelves to make space for Star Wars, Star Trek, Halo, etc... Publishers like Tor, who haven't been gobbled up, or forced (yet) out of business are competing for customers with multimedia empires who can afford to release a new Star Trek/Star Wars/Halo/Buffy book every week for a year, hell every DAY for a year until the market gets smaller, and smaller, and smaller and even name authors are getting pulled in to write Star Trek books because the advances they used to get to create new worlds are gone, because the publishers who used to have the money to pay them for those new worlds, don't, because the books don't sell nearly as well as The Brand.

And for the most part it's been a really quiet usurpation. It started with the paper magazines and the smaller science fiction/fantasy presses, most of those are gone now. The few that hang on like Asimov's and Analog have fewer subscribers than Escape Artists has listeners. They won't last. Nor will Tor, or Baen, Daw, Del Rey, unless they land a brand to subsidize their other authors.

The fan community is so wedded to their Brands that they'll buy the licensed books, the comic tie ins, to the expense of being able to experience other, new, worlds created by other people, because, after all, if it's good and I'm comfortable with it, what's the problem? 

So that brings me back to The Things, which is nominated by the fan community, for one of the most prestigious awards given in the field today. The Things which takes every single aspect of its being from a 1956 John W. Campbell story, and a 1956 Howard Hawks film, and a 1986 John Carpenter film (regarded as one of the absolute best pieces of filmed science fiction ever made) and it tells a new(ish) story. And this story that leaves all of the heavy intellectual lifting to the audience's pre-existing experience with the media properties is put on the same stage as three other stories where the writers had to create every single thing down to the character's name and smell, is wrong.

I can imagine a future, a near future, where the Hugo list appears and all four of the short stories, novella, and novel categories are filled with media tie in novels, because that's what fans are comfortable with, and soon that's all there will be. Those of us who grew up reading science fiction before the media tie in frenzy are getting old and starting to die leaving a generation who are perfectly comfortable grabbing a handful of new Star Trek novels at the local Target because this is the world in which they've been raised. Then, maybe when you have kids who are starting to read and show an interest in science fiction you can give them The Complete Starfleet Library, and they can dream in other people's dreams exactly the same comfortable way you did. And all the writers who would be thinking of new worlds to take you and new people for you to meet are instead writing about Captain Kirk, and Geordi LaForge, and The Borg, because they don't know any different and if they did there was no one to publish and no one to read it anyway.

Maybe I'm like that last Tyrannosaurus waving his little nearly useless arms at the incoming comet, and my concern might amount to a teaspoon of crude oil ten billion years from now, but at least I can say that I said something.

[eytanz]

So, I had to think quite a bit about my own response here. And I'm not sure I have a satisfactory one. So let me try to break it down into a few points.

First, let me say that when it comes down to my own tastes, I actually share the prejudice against derivative works, especially when it's a franchise like Star Trek novels. I don't read Star Trek novels, or Star Wars novels, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels or comics. There's a part of me that sees them on the shelfs at the local bookstore and immediately percieves them as inferior. The question I posed was as much directed at myself as it was at you.

Second, I haven't yet listened to this episode of EP (I'm about a month behind on all three EA podcasts), but I've tried reading this story before. And failed, as I found it totally impossible to understand, perhaps because I am not familiar with The Thing (I remember switching on a television once, when I was around ten years old or so, which was showing it as a late night movie, about halfway through. I watched about 5 minutes of it before I couldn't take it anymore, and had nightmares for days afterwards; I never wanted to return to it as an adult). So, I share your opinion that it is not a stand alone story.

However, I am not very familiar with the voting guidelines for the Hugos. It is a short story, and one that apparently a large enough subsegment of the community really likes. Does the fact that it is not universal in its appeal, and the fact that it is derivative, against the Hugo guidelines in any way? I suspect not. I'm very happy to discuss the subjective merits of stories and trends, but I'm not very happy passing judgement on the tastes of other people, so I'm not going to comment any further on this.

I understand, and share, many of your concerns on the state of commercial publishing. What I'm not sure is how this story fits into it. This isn't the case of a licensed branded property. This is part of a far older tradition, the tradition of taking an existing work and reimagining it. I agree that this particular example is only partially successful, but I think, inherently, that it is different than a franchise. The basic difference from my perspective was that this work was not comissioned by the owners of the rights of the original story - it was created on its own merits, by someone who was inspired by the original material and moved to create something based on it. I think that as long as people write based on their own inspirations, whatever those may be, rather than according to a pre-established contract, they are engaged in the same endeavour as the people whose inspiration leads them to create a world from scratch.

[jrderego]

Second, I haven't yet listened to this episode of EP (I'm about a month behind on all three EA podcasts), but I've tried reading this story before. And failed, as I found it totally impossible to understand, perhaps because I am not familiar with The Thing (I remember switching on a television once, when I was around ten years old or so, which was showing it as a late night movie, about halfway through. I watched about 5 minutes of it before I couldn't take it anymore, and had nightmares for days afterwards; I never wanted to return to it as an adult). So, I share your opinion that it is not a stand alone story.

It's not a bad listen, as I said in the opening comment, the idea is inventive if cliched, and it's well written, but it requires the listener to have more than a passing knowledge of the events of Who Goes There/The Thing to be comprehensible.

However, I am not very familiar with the voting guidelines for the Hugos. It is a short story, and one that apparently a large enough subsegment of the community really likes. Does the fact that it is not universal in its appeal, and the fact that it is derivative, against the Hugo guidelines in any way? I suspect not. I'm very happy to discuss the subjective merits of stories and trends, but I'm not very happy passing judgement on the tastes of other people, so I'm not going to comment any further on this.

It doesn't go against the guidelines that I can see. But you'd think the fan community would realize they were voting for fan fiction and not do it.

I understand, and share, many of your concerns on the state of commercial publishing. What I'm not sure is how this story fits into it. This isn't the case of a licensed branded property. This is part of a far older tradition, the tradition of taking an existing work and reimagining it.

I agree that doing so is a tradition, especially with fairy tales.

I agree that this particular example is only partially successful, but I think, inherently, that it is different than a franchise. The basic difference from my perspective was that this work was not comissioned by the owners of the rights of the original story - it was created on its own merits, by someone who was inspired by the original material and moved to create something based on it.

Then that person should have taken his or her inspiration and created something instead of playing in someone else's sandbox.

I think that as long as people write based on their own inspirations, whatever those may be, rather than according to a pre-established contract, they are engaged in the same endeavour as the people whose inspiration leads them to create a world from scratch.

We'll probably disagree on this. What I see as plaigarism at worst and fanfic at best you see as "engaging in the same endeavor as creators of original works" I have a different stake as a writer than as a consumer, and that colors my perspective differently. I see stuff like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and all of the subgrenre of theft that that book created and it pushes me even further away from the genre, the fans, and the whole enchilada of genre fiction.

Fun discussion. You may enjoy reading the original Who Goes There, linked earlier in the thread if you didn't like the film version. It's a good novella. Campbell had a good ear for language and captured the 50's "infiltrating communism" mindset really well. 

[jrderego]

As for the subjectivity of something derivative.  There are degrees.  Some people can, and do, pull apart every story into neat little categories.  TV Tropes wouldn't exist and have such a following if they didn't.  but the usefulness of this exercise to me is futile, and often reeks of arrogant elitism to me.  Every story can be seen as derivative of some other work, even JR DeRego's Union Dues stories.  I feel that a story should be judged on its own worth, regardless of what influenced it.  That all said, when a specific work is referenced, it does fall into the fanfic category, as did this one.   

It isn't a question of influence, influence and derivation are different things, it's a question of using the exact creations of another person to tell a similar story in the same world with the same problems and the same resolutions as that original work. Dr. Pepper may have influenced the creation of Coca Cola, but Vanilla Coke is a derivative of Coca Cola. See the difference?

My stories are inspired by comic books, certainly, but I am not deriving the stories by copying Spider Man storylines, writing fiction using the characters from The Green Lantern, or pasting my own words over the panels of Miracle Man, and passing it off as my own creation. We both agree that this is fanfic, does that make us elitist? What irks me is that other writers who labored over real new stories with real new ideas were passed over by fans more than likely because they have fond memories of John Carpenter's The Thing. And it's not fair to them.

[eytanz]

We'll probably disagree on this. What I see as plaigarism at worst and fanfic at best you see as "engaging in the same endeavor as creators of original works" I have a different stake as a writer than as a consumer, and that colors my perspective differently. I see stuff like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and all of the subgrenre of theft that that book created and it pushes me even further away from the genre, the fans, and the whole enchilada of genre fiction.

Plagiarism is when you take someone else's ideas and present them as your own. As I tell my students, it's not plagiarism if you acknowledge your sources. Of course, whether it's interesting or not is a different question. A derivative work must have something to say above and beyond being derivative. But so must every other work.

Where you and I almost certainly differ is that I think that the notion of "theft" has no place here - excepting, of course, cases of genuine plagiarism, where a work is either copied or modified without attribution. When a writer creates a story and releases it to the public, they cannot expect the public to just be a passive readership and never take inspiration from their words. And why would they ever want to?

(Well, one possible answer to that last question is of course because ownership of the idea equals ownership of the income stream it generates. But that means that the writer in question views their work as a brand, just like the publishers of the aforementioned Star Trek books, and it is the original author that diminishes the value of their own work, then.)

[Gamercow]

It isn't a question of influence, influence and derivation are different things, it's a question of using the exact creations of another person to tell a similar story in the same world with the same problems and the same resolutions as that original work.

When looked at in this light, you're limiting derivative works to knockoffs and fanfics, which does make derivative a subjective term.  And I see your point about being irked that a strictly non-original work being nominated for the Hugo.  

[Sgarre1]

Happy this will be split off so I won't bore too many people who just want to talk about the story itself and not the issues it raises by merely existing as an award winner.  As always, I apologize beforehand for the endless tangenting:

I understand, and share, many of your concerns on the state of commercial publishing. What I'm not sure is how this story fits into it. This isn't the case of a licensed branded property. This is part of a far older tradition, the tradition of taking an existing work and reimagining it.

Well, but it IS a specific property - this isn't an homage or something, where someone writes a similar scenario to a classic but tweaks it just slightly so that it is *not* the actual property - if this author had wanted to write their take on "The Thing" but changed details just enough - set it in Greenland, made the "Macready" character female, posited a different origin for  the "thing" like it seeps out of the ground or something, and then hung a big old lantern on it by having it all happen at the Campbell MacReady Air Force Base - well, that's an homage and a love letter and that's fine.  I'd judge something like that fairly lightly because, well, hey, the author is as much as saying "hey, I love this story and I've thought about it a lot and here's an interesting take on it" - but I also wouldn't vote for it to win an award (except maybe "best homage" or something) because it's only somewhat original.

And if "Who Goes There?" was in public domain (not sure about that - it was published in 1938 but Wikipedia has a link to the full text online at some site, and they're usually pretty good about that stuff), then, yeah, hey, go for it, use Macready and the lot.  But Macready and the lot and the setting etc. *from the original story* - not details that intimate Macready is like Kurt Russell's Macready, or that the story is taking place in the Antarctic (the original takes place in the Arctic) or during the 80's (technically, you probably even couldn't intimate it was the version from THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD and that it was a giant walking carrot that looked like James Arness, or that the story was taking place in the 1950s instead of the 1930s) .  And if the author felt they *absolutely couldn't* tell their story, couldn't compose their idea, *without* those details...  well, I'd think to myself "your idea likely isn't too inventive anyway" and I'd say something along the lines of "you need to talk to the rights holders, then."

I have not listened to this story yet, but I will.  What I wonder is, what was the original publication source and were the rights pursued at all?  There was a book, fairly recently, that was an anthology homage to Richard Matheson and it had current writers "adding to" classic Matheson stories (HELL HOUSE, "Prey", etc.) with Stephen King doing a kind-of sequel to "Duel".  I find that prospect both intriguing and nauseating - not that it damages the integrity of the original in any way, but I know the way these things work and Stephen King, no matter what a big fan of Matheson he is, did not spontaneously write a continuation of "Duel" and then, lo and behold, other people did similar works as well and, boy howdy, we've got us an anthology!  Somebody crunched the numbers, bought  the rights, and then said to some top authors "write me a continuation of a Matheson story you love".  Technically and legally, nothing wrong with that, but it is kind of a "professional fan fic" and, more specifically, fan fic for something that the original writer never conceived of as needing or requiring extra material in the first place (unlike, say, DOCTOR WHO novels, or STAR WARS novels, which are built as serial universes by their original creators or production format).  Matheson is still alive and I'm sure he signed off on it, so, as I said, legally it's okay.  And he could care less at this point about those stories.  But my perception is, yeah, lesser works.  I have two anthologies of KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER stories to go through at some point soon.  I *LOVE* Carl Kolchak, Jeff Rice's character and the conception Darren McGavin (and, coincidentally, Matheson as screenwriter) brought to him.  But I'm actually filled with trepidation at reading these books, whereas if I was still 12 years old I'd be in heaven - because I've gotten older, I understand something about writers and writing now, the integrity (a bad word, nowadays, it seems) of the craft and the art, and I seriously doubt how good they *could* be - and even if some are good, they'll always kind of be "second best" to the original.

Heck, I've had some pretty good riffs on Pod People from INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and the Creature from CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON waiting in my notebooks for years, but I rarely felt it was okay to do something about them.  Some ideas aren't yours to use, unless you put in enough work to make them enough "yours", if that makes any sense.

This whole conversation is kind of funny because I seriously come at it from 3 directions.  On the one hand, I've always been a big fan of SF Bay area audio collage artists Negativland, who have been doing huge audio collages on their radio show OVER THE EDGE since the early 1980s.  They were some of the first to realize that digital reproduction was going to mean a complete collapse of copyright as then existed (infinite perfect copies capable of being created at the touch of a button) and were talking about it long before most homes had computers.  It didn't help and the whole situation became a mess.  Their conception that the days before copyright were a paradise of creativity (and hell for original creators) are attractive and hold a lot of merit - but for better or worse we don't live in that world anymore and, if we go back (as we seem to be doing , despite the best efforts of lawmakers, DRM, Disney buying Congressmen hand over fist to rewrite The Digital Millenium Copyright Act so that Mickey Mouse will never, ever enter public domain, etc.) it will create drastic shifts in the creative arts for good AND ill (which isn't, of course, a reason to not do it, but I think we should be smart enough to try to foresee some of those problems ahead of time).  It won't all be candy and cake and freedom ringing eternally, though.  (Evangelical Christians would have every right to publish a HARRY POTTER book where his dissolute, demonic lifestyle eventually sends him to hell.  Any why not - nobody owns anything, man).

On the second hand, my dear departed sister was one of the biggest lights in fan-publication just previous to the rise of the internet (for those of you old enough, think the classic genre fanzine approach of the 70s melded with the DIY self-production fanzine aesthetic of the 80s/90s).  She was very big on three things - genre fan writing should try to have higher standards than the "publish it just because" approach (the internet has eliminated this), fanzine packaging could and should be better than it was (again, the internet killed that) and, most importantly, fanzines should never be created for profit but the cost should only be based on the production cost divided by the print run.  Fan authors should not get paid because they didn't create these ideas, they were only borrowing them.  If I can handle the rather terrible emotional task, by the end of this year I need to sort through her genre fanzine related holdings currently in storage, as the University of Iowa has offered to take possession of her papers into their Media Studies department and name a collection after her.  Pretty good for a fan writer who's biggest claim to professional fame was that she was offered the job of writing one of the tie-in novels for the TV show FOREVER KNIGHT.

And on the third hand (anyone remember "Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up?" on TWILIGHT ZONE?) - I've been struggling extra hard with rights issues for PSEUDOPOD under a big push to make an attempt to buy previously published stories by name authors.  As Ben warned me, it's a bit of a slog because figuring out what is protected and what isn't, and who one has to contact for rights, and how much they want for those rights (even meager little requests like ours) - well, it's an endless tangle and if I wished for anything at all it would be an internationally maintained website that tracked publication rights for everything everywhere (like that's going to happen).  Because I can't bring myself to do what Stephen Jones (editor of the annual MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR anthologies) was bemoaning a lot of print on demand publishers doing (circa his 2004 - 7 years ago! - introduction to that year's volume) - acting as if copyright didn't exist anymore and that authors didn't have rights and that it was more expedient to take a chance and make a profit and see if they come after you anyway.  Rights are a pain in the ass to deal with, and cost precludes publication in some cases (but that is an author's right as well) but it must be hewed to.  I just sometimes wish agents didn't exist, is all...

So, Jrdrego, consider me a sad little ankylosaur next to your Rex, hunkering down for the big crash that will kill me and usher in a bright new world where no one owns anything and no one ever gets paid for anything either. Which I guess is okay, because people won't live in bodies anymore either, so authors won't have to buy food, and SKYNET will love us all.

[eytanz]

Happy this will be split off so I won't bore too many people who just want to talk about the story itself and not the issues it raises by merely existing as an award winner.  As always, I apologize beforehand for the endless tangenting:

I understand, and share, many of your concerns on the state of commercial publishing. What I'm not sure is how this story fits into it. This isn't the case of a licensed branded property. This is part of a far older tradition, the tradition of taking an existing work and reimagining it.

Well, but it IS a specific property

It is not a specific property in the sense that jrderego brought up, specifically because of what you are saying - it wasn't created by the right holders.

- this isn't an homage or something, where someone writes a similar scenario to a classic but tweaks it just slightly so that it is *not* the actual property - if this author had wanted to write their take on "The Thing" but changed details just enough - set it in Greenland, made the "Macready" character female, posited a different origin for  the "thing" like it seeps out of the ground or something, and then hung a big old lantern on it by having it all happen at the Campbell MacReady Air Force Base - well, that's an homage and a love letter and that's fine.  I'd judge something like that fairly lightly because, well, hey, the author is as much as saying "hey, I love this story and I've thought about it a lot and here's an interesting take on it" -

Well, we can draw the lines between "fan fiction" and "homage" and "re-imagining" and "derivative work" whereever we like. I'm not concerned about the terminology. The fact is that (based on what I can glean from people's reactions, given that I'm not familiar with the source material) - this work directly references an existing work (which is the 1980s movie, not the story it was based on), does not change any of the details - but adds something to it. You seem to be saying that if it had been more transformative of its original material, then it would have been more acceptable to you. Does that mean you find it totally unacceptable?

but I also wouldn't vote for it to win an award (except maybe "best homage" or something) because it's only somewhat original.

But the Hugos are not an award for originality. Moving beyond this specific case - I understand (and agree with) the fact that you value originality. What I am curious about is - why are you (and jderego) seem to value it to the extent you are valuing it? Originality adds something tangible, certainly - but is it really crucial?

And if "Who Goes There?" was in public domain (not sure about that - it was published in 1938 but Wikipedia has a link to the full text online at some site, and they're usually pretty good about that stuff), then, yeah, hey, go for it, use Macready and the lot.  But Macready and the lot and the setting etc. *from the original story* - not details that intimate Macready is like Kurt Russell's Macready, or that the story is taking place in the Antarctic (the original takes place in the Arctic) or during the 80's (technically, you probably even couldn't intimate it was the version from THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD and that it was a giant walking carrot that looked like James Arness, or that the story was taking place in the 1950s instead of the 1930s) .  And if the author felt they *absolutely couldn't* tell their story, couldn't compose their idea, *without* those details...  well, I'd think to myself "your idea likely isn't too inventive anyway" and I'd say something along the lines of "you need to talk to the rights holders, then."

Perhaps they should have - hell, perhaps they did, I don't know. That's an argument for the rights holders and their lawyers. I don't see why I or you, as readers - and why the people nominating the Hugos, who are also readers - should care about that one way or another.

And on the third hand (anyone remember "Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up?" on TWILIGHT ZONE?) - I've been struggling extra hard with rights issues for PSEUDOPOD under a big push to make an attempt to buy previously published stories by name authors.

Chopping a long discussion by you here, which I don't have much to say about - but I should say, this is a totally different kettle of fish. Pseudopod is a distributer, not an author. Your responsibilities are totally different.

So, Jrdrego, consider me a sad little ankylosaur next to your Rex, hunkering down for the big crash that will kill me and usher in a bright new world where no one owns anything and no one ever gets paid for anything either. Which I guess is okay, because people won't live in bodies anymore either, so authors won't have to buy food, and SKYNET will love us all.

I'm assuming you mean me here, not jrderego, as you and he are arguing on the same side. But then, maybe you don't mean me, since I most certainly was not proposing a ridiculous strawman. Authors should get paid. Their rights should be respected. And if an author wishes to enforce those rights on people writing fan fiction and other derivative works, that's entirely their right. It is something that authors, literary agents, publishers, and distributors should very much be concerned with and about. That is a totally different argument than whether said fan fiction and derivative works has artistic merit, and as far as readers and award nominators go, that should be what matters.

[jrderego]

I'm assuming you mean me here, not jrderego, as you and he are arguing on the same side. But then, maybe you don't mean me, since I most certainly was not proposing a ridiculous strawman. Authors should get paid. Their rights should be respected. And if an author wishes to enforce those rights on people writing fan fiction and other derivative works, that's entirely their right. It is something that authors, literary agents, publishers, and distributors should very much be concerned with and about. That is a totally different argument than whether said fan fiction and derivative works has artistic merit, and as far as readers and award nominators go, that should be what matters.

He meant me, Sgarre sees the same comet hurdling towards the Earth, he just has a different extinction outcome prediction. In essence we agree, though our details differ. I used the T-Rex comment earlier:

Maybe I'm like that last Tyrannosaurus waving his little nearly useless arms at the incoming comet, and my concern might amount to a teaspoon of crude oil ten billion years from now, but at least I can say that I said something.

Just a quick FYI, the original story is a REALLY GOOD READ (I know, I keep harping on it) and it should be read by everyone -- at least participating in this discussion so we all have a common footing to state our case. If you read that and listen to The Things, you'll see how much of the original was taken into the new. And as I've said several times now, I liked The Things, I thought it was well done, but it can't stand alone without the original material to give it context, characters, and event.

[eytanz]

I'm assuming you mean me here, not jrderego, as you and he are arguing on the same side. But then, maybe you don't mean me, since I most certainly was not proposing a ridiculous strawman. Authors should get paid. Their rights should be respected. And if an author wishes to enforce those rights on people writing fan fiction and other derivative works, that's entirely their right. It is something that authors, literary agents, publishers, and distributors should very much be concerned with and about. That is a totally different argument than whether said fan fiction and derivative works has artistic merit, and as far as readers and award nominators go, that should be what matters.

He meant me, Sgarre sees the same comet hurdling towards the Earth, he just has a different extinction outcome prediction

You're right, my apologies to you both.

[jrderego]

I'm assuming you mean me here, not jrderego, as you and he are arguing on the same side. But then, maybe you don't mean me, since I most certainly was not proposing a ridiculous strawman. Authors should get paid. Their rights should be respected. And if an author wishes to enforce those rights on people writing fan fiction and other derivative works, that's entirely their right. It is something that authors, literary agents, publishers, and distributors should very much be concerned with and about. That is a totally different argument than whether said fan fiction and derivative works has artistic merit, and as far as readers and award nominators go, that should be what matters.

He meant me, Sgarre sees the same comet hurdling towards the Earth, he just has a different extinction outcome prediction

You're right, my apologies to you both.

Totally not necessary.

[jrderego]

And if "Who Goes There?" was in public domain (not sure about that - it was published in 1938 but Wikipedia has a link to the full text online at some site, and they're usually pretty good about that stuff), then, yeah, hey, go for it, use Macready and the lot.  But Macready and the lot and the setting etc. *from the original story* - not details that intimate Macready is like Kurt Russell's Macready, or that the story is taking place in the Antarctic (the original takes place in the Arctic) or during the 80's (technically, you probably even couldn't intimate it was the version from THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD and that it was a giant walking carrot that looked like James Arness, or that the story was taking place in the 1950s instead of the 1930s) .  And if the author felt they *absolutely couldn't* tell their story, couldn't compose their idea, *without* those details...  well, I'd think to myself "your idea likely isn't too inventive anyway" and I'd say something along the lines of "you need to talk to the rights holders, then."

Campbell's story is set at the South Pole, here's how he describes MacReady, which is eerily how he looked and acted in Carpenter's film so it's impossible for me to separate the two. I saw the film a year or so before i read the story, so I always pictured him as Kurt Russell... but the description is uncanny --

Moving from the smoke-blued background, McReady was a figure from some forgotten myth, a looming, bronze statue that held life, and walked. Six-feet-four inches he stood as he halted beside the table, and, with a characteristic glance upward to assure himself of room under the lower ceiling beam, straightened. His rough, clashingly orange windproof jacket he still had on, yet on his huge frame it did not seem misplaced. Even here, four feet beneath the drift-wind that droned across the Antarctic waste above the ceiling, the cold of the frozen continent leaked in, and gave meaning to the harshness of the man. And he was bronze – his great red-bronze beard, the heavy hair that matched it. The gnarled, corded hands gripping, relaxing, gripping relaxing on the table planks were bronze. Even the deep-sunken eyes beneath heavy brows were bronzed.

Age-resisting endurance of the metal spoke in the cragged heavy outlines of his face, and the mellow tones of the heavy voice. “Norris and Blair agree on one thing, that animal we found was not-terrestrial in origin. Norris fears there may be danger in that; Blair says there is none.

that's from - http://www.scaryforkids.com/who-goes-there-by-john-w-campbell/

[Sgarre1]

Well, we can draw the lines between "fan fiction" and "homage" and "re-imagining" and "derivative work" whereever we like. I'm not concerned about the terminology. The fact is that (based on what I can glean from people's reactions, given that I'm not familiar with the source material) - this work directly references an existing work (which is the 1980s movie, not the story it was based on), does not change any of the details - but adds something to it. You seem to be saying that if it had been more transformative of its original material, then it would have been more acceptable to you. Does that mean you find it totally unacceptable?

Sorry, didn't mean to get technical or anything (you missed "pastiche" in that dismissive hand waving, though).  And, no, of course not - other than not having listened to it yet, why would finding it less acceptable than something in which an author put a little more thought into the framing (that "transformative" aspect) automatically entail that I'd find it totally unacceptable?  I thought I'd made it clear, I just think given its status relative to the other work, it would carry an eternal asterix.

I understand (and agree with) the fact that you value originality. What I am curious about is - why are you (and jderego) seem to value it to the extent you are valuing it? Originality adds something tangible, certainly - but is it really crucial?

Duchamp and Lichtenstein would say no, of course, as most probably would the cast of OVER THE EDGE as well.  But within that transformative status of collage and appropriation (putting aside readymades for a moment, as this story isn't that - technically, a readymade of a story *would* be plagiarism) is exactly what this seems to be missing - transformation.  This story (as far as I can tell from the comments) isn't detourning the contents of Campbell's story (or Carpenter's film of that story - if that detail of it being a version truer to Carpenter's take, I find that the most troubling aspect of this), just expanding upon them in an interesting way (the bugaboo in that sentence, of course, is the "just").  Which is fine, but is a bit presumptuous on the part of the second author.  Still, as an homage, taken in good fun as an offering laid at the feet of the loved original, not a terrible crime.  Since the piece could never have existed without the original, it cannot simply play the "can't everything just be judged on its own?" card, since there never was an "on its own" for the story. But even getting this deep into it makes me sound like I think this is very important - it really isn't - I, and others, feel the piece's existence in relation to another work is an inextricable aspect that must be considered when looking at it critically.  Past that, we're into aesthetic specifics and subjectivity.

Perhaps they should have - hell, perhaps they did, I don't know. That's an argument for the rights holders and their lawyers. I don't see why I or you, as readers - and why the people nominating the Hugos, who are also readers - should care about that one way or another.

I was following the thought to a logical end.  The specific rights are of no specific importance.  The piece's existence in relationship to another, as I just said above, is (at least I feel) inextricable (yeah, I know, just waving another word around) from the piece and thus are of general importance when discussing it.

Chopping a long discussion by you here, which I don't have much to say about - but I should say, this is a totally different kettle of fish. Pseudopod is a distributor, not an author. Your responsibilities are totally different.

Yes, I realize that.  My point, at the top of the chopped stuff, was that I'm coming at this topic from 3 very distinct directions - a pretty long-standing understanding that, for good or ill, the rights situations for artistic works are undergoing massive, and unavoidable, changes due to new technology; a long-standing personal relationship, deeper than most people's, with the concept of fan fic (which, in truth, I am eternally in conflict over and which, as I showed, has not gone unexplored in my and, my close family's, musings - check out the book TEXTUAL POACHERS sometime for some prime quotes the author got from my sister); and finally, just recently being made awfully re-aware of the technical reality and symbolic meaning of creator's rights - my responsibilities opened me up to the philosophical aspects of this as well - thus, why I brought it up.

I'm assuming you mean me here, not jrderego, as you and he are arguing on the same side. But then, maybe you don't mean me, since I most certainly was not proposing a ridiculous strawman. Authors should get paid. Their rights should be respected. And if an author wishes to enforce those rights on people writing fan fiction and other derivative works, that's entirely their right. It is something that authors, literary agents, publishers, and distributors should very much be concerned with and about. That is a totally different argument than whether said fan fiction and derivative works has artistic merit, and as far as readers and award nominators go, that should be what matters.

No, as we cleared up, I did mean Jrderego.  Neither was I proposing a strawman (give me a little credit - if I was going to build a scarecrow I'd at least give it a head, right?) - I was, as we used to say in the old days, ribbing you.  See, as I thought the first of the three hands implied, I actually am kind of familiar with the whole "the internet is transforming the way we interact with creative works" approach - I see a lot of merit in it but still find a lot of it naively optimistic (hence, I get to be the dinosaur). The reason why you might be confused as to whose side I'm on is because I'm not really on a "side" - it's a very complicated issue and a perfect confluence of events and personal history has placed me right at a conflicted crossroads regarding it - right where this story fits (and for the record, I think the original story is solid SF pulp and both films are aces).  This is me piecing together a bunch of thoughts into a a formula or stance that, however creaky, works for me.

And putting aside specific copyright concerns, I don't think the idea of authors rights is dismissible from the conversation by just focusing on artistic merits - what I was trying to get across (in my usual clumsy, oafish gestures) was that there are certain aesthetic rights an author has and (assuming those rights have to synch up with some marker decided on in the real world) reversion to public domain is probably a good point to cut them off.  Before public domain, an author has a right to not have his specific creations used without his permission (as is done in traditional fan fic) unless the purpose is satire, of course.  And, of course, he doesn't have to exercise those rights if he doesn't want to (although the law may sometime force him to - as pointed out by Matt Groening back in 1991, he's not legally allowed to complain about a Bart Simpson anti-gay t-shirt if he doesn't pursue all other unofficial appropriations, even ones he likes, as well).  The homage seems to me the most trifling and forgivable violation of that aesthetic right, as it is well intentioned and, as I said before and feel strongly, always ties the work to its progenitor in some considered (and yes, diminished) sense.  So I guess the long drawn out answer would be - fan fic and derivative works, licensed or not, have artistic merit, but no matter how "good/better" they are, this merit always has an extra component that must be acknowledged and examined during critical evaluation.  And past that point my aesthetic/critical sense is not developed strongly enough to care too much about being able to justify it further.

Or we could all just not care because no one is paying us to be college professors.  Anyone ever read Dave Thompson's 1985 novel SUSPECTS, which weaves a series of studies of characters from various noir and suspense films into a vast family history all centered around...could it be George Bailey of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, or just an old man who fell asleep watching the Late Show again?  Its a great read - but it couldn't exist without the hard work, sweat and tears of literally dozens, if not hundreds, of others.  And that should get mentioned very time.

[Sgarre1]

Campbell's story is set at the South Pole, here's how he describes MacReady, which is eerily how he looked and acted in Carpenter's film so it's impossible for me to separate the two. I saw the film a year or so before i read the story, so I always pictured him as Kurt Russell... but the description is uncanny --

You're right - it even says "south magnetic pole".  FROM ANOTHER WORLD is definitely Arctic, though (the better to catch the Russkies sneaking in through our attic).

As for description - well, kind of.  The funny thing is that there's a strongly held belief amongst a certain stripe of fandom that MacReady is actually a young Doc Savage during the scientific training of his youth.  I don't find Russell as physically imposing as described (Snake Plissken always had a bit more of the wily, treacherous ambusher than the qualities of a bruiser).  And, of course, MacReady in Carpenter's film, his character, is much more insular, apathetic, and burnt out than Campbell's original, or at least it seems so to me.

[DKT]

There was a book, fairly recently, that was an anthology homage to Richard Matheson and it had current writers "adding to" classic Matheson stories (HELL HOUSE, "Prey", etc.) with Stephen King doing a kind-of sequel to "Duel".  I find that prospect both intriguing and nauseating - not that it damages the integrity of the original in any way, but I know the way these things work and Stephen King, no matter what a big fan of Matheson he is, did not spontaneously write a continuation of "Duel" and then, lo and behold, other people did similar works as well and, boy howdy, we've got us an anthology!  Somebody crunched the numbers, bought  the rights, and then said to some top authors "write me a continuation of a Matheson story you love".  

Kind of off-topic, but since you brought it up: the story mentioned was "Throttle", and it was written by King *and* Joe Hill. I believe it was originally released with Matheson's "Duel" in a book or audiobook titled Road Rage - but I can't remember if it was just in audio, or also in print. "Throttle" is not a sequel to "Duel". At best, it's an homage. It doesn't have any of the same characters, and only riffs off the road rage theme of "Duel" and a trucker intent on running people down. On its own, "Throttle" is a really good story.

Okay, gonna go read through the rest of this discussion now...

[Scattercat]

All I know is that if I ever acquire a fanbase of any kind, I'll go and found the fanfiction forum myself if I have to.  Remix culture fascinates me.  I may give out prizes for Best and/or Most Creative Slashfic.  (TakuXWisestStone doesn't count, in case anyone's looking to get a leg up.  Those two are practically married already.)

[olivaw]

My favourite piece of Fan Fic is Ilium, by Dan Simmons.
Yes, the award-winning bestseller. It's quite obviously Homeric fan-fic.

I mean, the narrator keeps on stopping to tell us how awesome the source material is; it's got a blatant Mary-Sue protagonist (who manages to get off with the Leading Lady); it's got a somewhat awkward cross-over with another major franchise, it's got the author's pet-interest sci-fi tropes all over the place, and it ends with the two most awesome characters from the story teaming up in an unlikely way to do something awesome.
(Hope I've got my spoiler etiquette right)

And these are the things we normally disparage in fan-fic.

But of course, the Iliad has been told and retold so many times now, that it seems to be 'expected'. Same with bible stories, King Arthur, Shakespeare, and the rest. Testament to their cultural impact, if nothing else.

Does it matter that we have moved on from telling stories about the world around us, through telling stories about people, to telling stories about stories? There's a model of human intelligence which posits that our key evolutionary advantage lies not in understanding tools, or the dumb forces of nature, but in understanding other humans - who understand us in turn, and try to outthink us, and a whole feedback cycle of greater inventivity results. I wonder if a story which understands other stories will have greater meteorite-dodging potential?

[stePH]

And on the third hand (anyone remember "Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up?" on TWILIGHT ZONE?) ...

No; personally I would have said "On the gripping hand...."

[matweller]

I apologize if this has already been addressed, but everything I have read here about fanfic has been from the author's perspective. I'd like to add that, as a reader/viewer/consumer I like good fanfic -- which I would define as "written in a similar style and true to the characters & universe established in the original work" -- because it gives me a chance to further explore a universe I already love. In these cases, I am in love with what has been created and the original author(s) could not possibly create enough to sate my interest. Not to mention, new authors often explore plot lines and new characters that the original author would be jealous that they didn't come up with themselves, and these can expand the universe in new and exciting directions. Just ask JC Hutchins about all of the fanfic related to Seventh Son(http://jchutchins.net/). He'll tell you in a heartbeat that he was both honored by the works his work inspired and appreciative of how it expanded and detailed what he started. There are also a number of Star Trek fanfic podcasts that I find VERY fun to listen to because they expand so much on what I know and love.

The crime to me as a consumer is when there is a re-boot or crucial changing of a universe that discounts the original material because to me what that says is the new authors had some good ideas for a story, but rather than take the time to build a universe around them, they grabbed someone else's brand and shoehorned their crap into that space so they could suck the original's fame-teat.