Can’t stop the signal
Interesting comments on fanfic from Teresa Nielsen Hayden. My favorite bit:
Personally, I’m convinced that the legends of the Holy Grail are fanfic about the Eucharist.
Going in a similar direction, The Da Vinci Code is Bible fanfic, which is based on Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which is more or less an analysis of Biblical subtext in medieval France, and then when you consider the New Testament itself was written approximately 80 A.D., and the Judas fangirls and…
Yeah, I’ll stop now.
Jareo news goes mainstream
Sci-Fi Wire has a news item on it, complete with quotes from Lucasfilm’s Lynne Hale:
“We recently found out about the book, and the author has agreed to cease and desist,” Hale said in an interview. “There’s nothing more that we have to say.” Asked whether Jareo had removed the listing, Hale added: “Yes. … She was happy to do it.”
“You offend me.”
No matter how cruel it may be, I just can’t look away from the Lori Jareo all-fandom bender. (Yes, the Amazon listing is still up.)
On the mocking end of things, Jareo’s Ryoo Naberrie is sporked, then the Another Hope press release.
Meanwhile on the analysis end, there’s interesting post on fanfic and copyright from Tilted Windmill and a theory that WordTech published the book to make a statement about copyright. I’m not so sure, but at this point, who knows?
Lightsabers and shit
And now for something completely different: Jedi Breakfast.
Lori Jareo: Fandom’s sacrifical lamb?
The feedback is getting more and more cut-throat, but having been aware and reporting on this since Thursday, I’m over it; the entire situation is just getting sadder and sadder.
Not only does Lori Jareo claim to have a journalism degree, but her huband and WordTech partner/co-founder Kevin Walzer used to work for the Associated Press, the world’s largest news organization, according to an article about WordTech Communications in Poets & Writers magazine. Journalism is not a field that is typically ignorant of copyright law – why did it not occur to either of them that publishing a work explicitly set in a galaxy they did not own was a bad idea?
Although Amazon has yet to remove the listing for Another Hope, they did delete the many ‘reviews’ that did not address the actual work. And perhaps most disturbingly of all, the sales rank has jumped from #35,860 on Saturday to #13,371 on Sunday. (For comparison, the sales ranks of the latest licensed fiction releases, Republic Commando:Triple Zero and Outbound Flight, are fluxuating in the 1000 range.)
I expect Another Hope will be gone by Monday evening (though I said that about Friday as well.) The message left on the website earlier leads me to believe that LFL has served a C&D and is leaving the business end to WordTech for the moment.
But that’s just more of the same. Whatever they were thinking back in July 2005, they know better now; thenaberriegirls.com no longer works at all.
Anyway, the best post today is this thoughtful analysis of the situation by Chris Meadows.
Meanwhile, Playing in George’s Sandbox, a thread at TFN’s FanFic forum, explores (in-between yet more outrage) the possible repercussions for the SW fanfic community in general. In short: Don’t go flushing your WIPs down the toilet quite yet.
Yes, Jareo did something phenomenally stupid, but demonizing the woman more isn’t going to help anyone. She knows. We all know. All we can do it wait and see, and I expect Jareo, WordTech and the Print-On-Demand industry, not Star Wars fandom, to take the brunt of the fallout.
From the Blogside
Dan Wallace considers species sterotyping in the GFFA with Gamorreans Drive Like This, but Gotals Drive Like This.
Pablo Hidalgo on the many faces behind Vader’s mask.
Rynne has some thoughts on alternate universe stories paralleling canon.
Lazypadawan on evil Star Wars characters and where Vader fits in.
Since it’s a slow week for the usual meta, let’s check out some of the various Livejournal communities:
This is actually from last year, but interesting nonetheless: At Popculture_sw, Kireina_michiru compiles a list of Star Wars references from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
And ot100, a fic community for original trilogy drabbles, has been relaunched.
Your Lori Jareo update
Mediabistro’s publishing blog GalleyCat: I Bet She Finds Our Lack of Faith Disturbing
As predicted by our own Zeynep, Teresa Nielsen Hayden on Making Light: Annals of short-lived phenomena: Star Wars fanfic on Amazon.
And just before I went to post this, Star Wars author Karen Traviss schools us on how one says ‘death wish’ in Mando
This infringement will not be tolerated.
The saga of Lori Jareo is over… Or is it? We don’t know what’s going on beyond the scenes, but the Lucasfilm lawyers must have finally gotten through, since her book site (thenaberriegirls.com) vanished this afternoon and was replaced with the following statement:
Thank you for your interest in Another Hope. The book has been removed from the Books in Print database and will be removed from book distribution channels effective Tuesday, April 24, 2006.
And the fandom outrage keeps rolling in… Another Hope is still up on Amazon, but certainly not for long. Not that I would recommend buying it – if you must read the thing beyond Amazon’s preview pages, ask around for copies of the PDF.
Can open, worms everywhere
News of the self-publishing fanfic writer Lori Jareo has spread. Behold, the power of the internet:
John Scalzi: The 2006 Stupidest FanFic Writer Award Gets Retired Early. Don’t miss this one.
Lee Goldberg: No HOPE for this Fanficcer. Goldberg is rather infamous for being outspoken against fanfic, but this is one case where both sides can agree.
And… you knew it was coming…
Fandom Wank: The wank is strong in this one.
More to come? I’d bet on it.