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George R.R. Martin has an interesting post up talking about Diana Gabaldon's recent post about fanfic.
Long story short, DG doesn't like fanfics of her universe, and many people on her blog lambasted her for it. GRRM also doesn't really like it, pretty much for the same reasons. They both had good points--I'm being very vague here, but most of it boils down to ownership and protecting it.
Personally?
If somehow my Eden Cycle stories made it big (peanut gallery: chee-yeah, right), I'd probably be tickled pink to hear fanfic being written in that universe. To be honest, it's a pretty big universe, and I'd even post a timeline/guidelines for people to work with, and guide them along the way. Apparently Marion Zimmer Bradley did the same with her Darkover universe at one point (until, as GRRM mentions, someone was a dick about it and ruined it for everyone). And George Lucas seems not to mind with the Star Wars universe, as long as it follows his guidelines.
Sure, I totally understand someone potentially ripping me off by making money off of something I didn't sanction. That's gonna happen at one point or another...you see it online with off-the-truck copies of movies, and you see it with compilation tapes made by music lovers. You do what you can to combat that.
The fact that someone would be tweaking my created universe, weirdly enough, is something I'd find fascinating. I'd be interested in seeing what they do, see if they possibly come up with something I should have thought of but didn't. That's why they call it a "world" or a "universe"...it's rarely a four-walled, boxed-in setting. It's a created reality that always has the potential of being expanded, transformed and twisted in one way or another.
As Major Kusanagi would say: "And where does the newborn go from here? The net is vast and infinite."
That's why I find good series with amazing universes some of my most favorite stories ever. JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series, Kate Elliott's Jaran books, Richard Paul Russo's Carlucci books, CJ Cherryh's Chanur books...hell, even Dave Sim's Cerebus series. The idea of creating such a huge world out of a single first idea just amazes and captivates me every time.
Sure, I may never get to the status of those series with my Eden Cycle universe, but since it's out there, I'd love to have fun with it, and if in turn someone else has fun with it, I'm glad to have brought a universe to someone else's imagination in the process. I'll deal with the problems that might come with that if and when they arrive.
Long story short, DG doesn't like fanfics of her universe, and many people on her blog lambasted her for it. GRRM also doesn't really like it, pretty much for the same reasons. They both had good points--I'm being very vague here, but most of it boils down to ownership and protecting it.
Personally?
If somehow my Eden Cycle stories made it big (peanut gallery: chee-yeah, right), I'd probably be tickled pink to hear fanfic being written in that universe. To be honest, it's a pretty big universe, and I'd even post a timeline/guidelines for people to work with, and guide them along the way. Apparently Marion Zimmer Bradley did the same with her Darkover universe at one point (until, as GRRM mentions, someone was a dick about it and ruined it for everyone). And George Lucas seems not to mind with the Star Wars universe, as long as it follows his guidelines.
Sure, I totally understand someone potentially ripping me off by making money off of something I didn't sanction. That's gonna happen at one point or another...you see it online with off-the-truck copies of movies, and you see it with compilation tapes made by music lovers. You do what you can to combat that.
The fact that someone would be tweaking my created universe, weirdly enough, is something I'd find fascinating. I'd be interested in seeing what they do, see if they possibly come up with something I should have thought of but didn't. That's why they call it a "world" or a "universe"...it's rarely a four-walled, boxed-in setting. It's a created reality that always has the potential of being expanded, transformed and twisted in one way or another.
As Major Kusanagi would say: "And where does the newborn go from here? The net is vast and infinite."
That's why I find good series with amazing universes some of my most favorite stories ever. JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series, Kate Elliott's Jaran books, Richard Paul Russo's Carlucci books, CJ Cherryh's Chanur books...hell, even Dave Sim's Cerebus series. The idea of creating such a huge world out of a single first idea just amazes and captivates me every time.
Sure, I may never get to the status of those series with my Eden Cycle universe, but since it's out there, I'd love to have fun with it, and if in turn someone else has fun with it, I'm glad to have brought a universe to someone else's imagination in the process. I'll deal with the problems that might come with that if and when they arrive.
