The Sonni Cooper ones are (or were, as I just bought them) on eBay. There are some that are available online now that previously were only available in print form. So it's not necessary to pay $$$ for them if you only want to read the stories and aren't interested in the illustrations, poetry, letters, and other extras. Be warned, though - some of them include slash stories, so if you don't like gay/lesbian/bi relationships, don't access those sites.
Are there any particular kinds of ST fanfic you like?
Just followed up on that which led me to a GREAT article by Jacqueline Lichtenberg on
the Fanlore page about the fanzine Infinite Diversity...
The point here is that Trekzine production requires just as much group effort from seasoned pros as from fen, as does sf-'zine work, and ultimately is the same as professional market work. The only difference is in CONTENT not skill. If you master Trek writing, you CAN go pro in any other field you want, simply by learning a new set of rules for what the product must look like. Don't be dismayed. The trekzine field is not being dominated by pros these days, but rather the reverse is happening. The pro-sf/ST market is becoming dominated by FANS - for once a fan always a fan.
Woot! She
did go ahead with "Doppelganger"!
Back in 1983 (or 1984? I'd have to check) I went to a con called Con-Version, in Calgary. The Guests of Honor were Bjo Trimble and Sonni Cooper. I remember the Sunday afternoon of that convention quite clearly... I was already ecstatic because I'd found a
hardcover copy of
The Darkover Concordance in absolutely *beautiful* condition in the dealers' room AND a couple of really nice pieces of artwork. I went to find my roommates, and discovered them sitting with Sonni Cooper, who was chatting about
Black Fire and signing autographs. So I got my copy of her book autographed, and she told us about this other novel she was writing, and that she really hoped would be acceptable; the only problem was that it involved RL people as characters, and getting all those releases and permissions signed would be difficult... She read a chapter of it to us, and damn, it was funny!
I'm not surprised that it never got professionally published, as it would have been a lawyer's nightmare. I'm glad it got published
somewhere.
Am I wrong in thinking that the days of this professional acceptance of fan fiction are in the past? I would love to be proven wrong.
I think it really depends on the original author/producer's outlook. George Lucas doesn't mind Star Wars fanfic; from what I understand, he only draws the line at X-rated stuff. And if anybody tries to infringe on his copyrights, of course.
Contrast that with the current holders of the copyrights to
Dune; they are so utterly paranoid/greedy, it's almost impossible to do any fan projects beyond fanfic they don't know about. A group of Spanish fans did an amateur film production of Dune - purely as a labor of love, never expected or wanted to make so much as a penny off it. They posted the trailer on YouTube, and were promptly threatened with all kinds of trouble unless they took it down and ceased all further production. The fans literally begged Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert to reconsider, but nope - I've seen photos and production sketches of some of the characters and costumes, but by the time I even knew about the trailer, it had been taken down. I can only hope these fans turned their talents to other productions, because from what I did see, they did a wonderful job with Dune.
Marion Zimmer Bradley's estate is another entity that hammers anybody who tries to publish Darkover fanfic these days. It wasn't always so; she used to actively encourage people to write in her universe(s). But all it took was one fan who wrote a story that MZB read - that was too similar to something MZB was already writing. The fan demanded co-author credit (and $$$$$)... and things got very nasty. The book was never written, which is a damn shame; it's one that would have filled in a part of the series that a lot of people would have loved to read. But after this incident, MZB demanded that no more Darkover fanfic would be tolerated, and if anybody had any stories sitting in a desk drawer at home, we were to either destroy them or rewrite them so they bore no resemblance at all to Darkover. Naturally I mentally told her where she could stuff her (and her estate's) demands on what I have in my desk drawers... but I also keep my Darkover fan stuff to myself, not wishing to incur The Wrath Of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Lawyers. Oddly enough they don't seem to mind the proliferation of Avalon fanfics all over the 'Net, and that series is still in progress!
What do I read? I publish fan fiction online as
TrekUnited Publishing so my reading is spoiled by having to speed scan pages for soft returns and change of font at the same time! This is especially annoying because I like what we publish and although I promise myself i will come back and read this sometime I rarely get the chance!
Short stories suit me best, but it has to have a balance between engaging characters and a significant plot - too much plot makes it space opera and not enough makes it talking heads. I particularly like clever stories that have a "twist in the tail" - something with the ending that makes you look back over the story and go, "ooooh! So that's why...!"
I like most eras because they all have great characters and open opportunities for extending the canon although I have a soft spot for TOS and Enterprise in particular. I can enjoy a story with OC's but this takes skill to build characters that are unique yet fit in canon, I can occasionally enjoy an alternate universe or a crossover but these are probably the hardest to get right.
K
I get my online fanfic fix at fanfiction.net, for the most part. I read mostly Voyager stories, although I recently found a terrific one in the TNG section about Tasha Yar's Academy years. I read very little DS9 fanfic, as that was never one of my favorite kinds of ST. As for Enterprise... I honestly can't stand that series. I never even saw the last couple of seasons - just couldn't stand it at all.
Alternate universes are fun, but definitely a challenge. As I said before in another thread, I'm currently writing a crossover between
Sliders and
The Handmaid's Tale. Juggling TEN different Sliders characters (the prime ones and their doubles) plus several Handmaid's Tale characters is the most complex fanfic I've ever tried - but judging by the results so far, I think I'll be able to pull it off. Try balancing a Sliders-type story with its requisite elements and characterizations with Margaret Atwood's writing style... the trick is not to let one get absorbed into the other and take over.
If it worked for Marion Zimmer Bradley and her Darkover fans (Bradley's earliest fanfic efforts are based on stories she read by C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner), why wouldn't it work for Trek fans?
Where do you think some of the best Trek authors got their early writers' training, anyway? Diane Duane got her start in fanfic. So did many others. And now they're professional writers - who have at times used earlier material and changed out the fanfic elements.
It wouldn't have taken Harlan Ellison very much rewriting to make City on the Edge of Forever into a non-Trek story, or even screenplay.
Bingo.
Hell, people have been rethinking stories forever. I have no doubt some Greek was listening to Homer reciting
The Iliad and thinking,
what if Helen and Achilles were 'shipped?
People will
always think of the "what if" scenario. We just write that stuff down, and present it to others. And in the meantime, it's a great way to develop chops.
Yikes - this reminds me of all the "what if" introductions found in the
Tudors section of fanfiction.net. Some of the pairings are utterly beyond bizarre - and so few of the authors can actually make them work in a coherent story.
