Club Jade is a mailing list and community started in 1995 for discussion of Star Wars novels. Although originally discussion of Timothy Zahn's novels and the character of Mara Jade were the group's main focus, CJ has expanded to include all of Star Wars and recently, to become a more general list related to the sci-fi/fantasy genre as a whole. Over the years, CJ members have formed close friendships both online and in real life.

Not really, no. If that's what you're looking for, try Jade Crusades. Although we will update the blog with any pertinent Mara or Expanded Universe information we come across, that's not our only focus by any means.

That would seem to be one of the few occupations to which elitist snobs are suited... but it's not true of Club Jade.

What is true is that Club Jade encourages its members to interact like grown-ups, to observe personal boundaries when confronted with celebrities, to make appropriate use of capitalization and punctuation in online chats, and so forth. And it's also true that Club Jaders tend to react with a certain amount of exasperation when fans (including its own members) don't act this way, especially in public.

And then there's the matter of language barriers, and how misinterpreted remarks can linger for years as part of a club's reputation. Let's take a quick trip down memory lane...

Many years back, when the term "fanboy" was originated, it was largely a derogatory term. It referred to adolescent male fans who were long on enthusiasm, short on hygiene, inadequately socialized, and prone to analytical excesses such as endless debates over whether the Enterprise or the Battlestar Galactica was more formidable.

However, over the years, many fans adopted the term without ever realizing that it had been created with unfavorable connotations. ("I'm a fan, I'm a boy... I must be a fanboy.") It then became inevitable that fans who called themselves fanboys would overhear other fans making disparaging remarks about fanboys and assume that they were being insulted rather than realizing that different fannish dialects were being employed.

Such was the case in a few early instances of Club Jade interacting with other fans, and hard feelings have lingered ever since... despite the fact that most fans, including those who refer to themselves as fanboys, would have been appalled by the behavior of the fans being disparaged.

A scorn of fanboys would suggest that a group defines itself in some narrow and lofty fashion, but Club Jade's own members come from every sort of SF&F fandom. One member may be a Lord of the Rings purist who has never seen the Jackson, Bakshi, or Rankin-Bass adaptations, the next an anthropologist who loves flesh-eating zombie movies and slashfic (though not in the same stories, we hope). Still, that stuff about being grown-ups, observing boundaries, and chatting online in something with more than a passing resemblance to English gets continued support.

What is your official position on the prequels/Han shooting first/insert issue here?

CJ was not originally a closed group. However, certain abuses led the leadership to close off list membership to all but those who are sponsored by existing members. Also, over the years we have developed something of a strange slant, and not everyone feels comfortable or fits in.

Members can change their e-mail address, go on digest, set your account to no mail, and read list archives at pairlist. You will need your pairlist password to log in and change settings.

You need to be nominated by at least 4 current members. Coming to one of our IRC chats is a good first step. Chat is held every Wednesday at 10pm Eastern on irc.holonet.org in #clubjade.

Almost every rule we have came out of a real incident, I'm sad to say.

A weblog is a type of website that posts links and commentary on a regular (often daily) basis. There are many types of weblogs - some are more like journals, some focus on certain subjects, some post humourous content, and most combine many of these features.

CJ started a weblog because we wanted to share a little of CJ's feel and interests with the public. We've been holed up in our mailing list since 1997, and it's getting kind of musty in there. The people who post on the CJ blog are member volunteers, and we look for information and writing that is of interest to our members.

Of course not! Everyone is welcome to read and participate in comment discussion. We only ask that you are respectful of your fellow posters.

CJ's interest in fanfic - Star Wars fanfic anyway - has waned quite a bit over the years. Fan fiction is no longer a main focus or group activity.

We are no longer accepting submissions from non-members. It's not personal - CJ is an an old-school archive, and hand-coding stories is no fun at all!

For a long time we accepted fanfic submissions, and it was up to the authors to provide us with new chapters. If they never finished the story or sent it to us, there's really not much we can do. We've tried to make sure that author contact information is up to date on all stories, but there's only so much we can do.