KJ

I finished A Dance with Dragons. Here are some thoughts, at varying levels of coherence, in no particular order.

( Can't do this without massive spoilers. Proceed with caution! ) Let's just say it had better not be another six years. If we don't get the answers to these questions and more until 2017, I might die.

More later, perhaps, when I've had some time to digest. I am happy to theorize about any or all of the above, or just randomly squee about the fact that this book exists and we finally got to read it. Share your thoughts, if you have them!

I finished my re-read of A Feast for Crows last night, and I'll have more to say later, but what caught my eye was the author's note.

In which GRRM promised to have A Dance with Dragons out within a year.

Ha ha ha ha. Ha. Ha. Ha?

Sigh.

So I finally got around to checking LJ this evening, only to discover that George R.R. Martin has posted this.

But then... that means.... It can't be. It can't mean that the book is done. Can it? CAN IT???!!!!!

Must not get my hopes up must not get my hopes up must not get my hopes up oh damn too late.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that GRRM has now gotten involved in this lastest fanfic discussion, since he's voiced loud opposition to fanfiction in the past, and Diana Gabaldon was published in the last collection he edited. (Which, possibly ironically, is the book I'm reading right now. Just for the cherry on the "authors who are connected with fic, pro and con" sundae, Naomi Novik is in it, too.) On the whole, his arguments are more reasoned than hers -- at least he doesn't compare us to a bunch of violent criminals -- but there is one point that I absolutely must take issue with.

Furthermore, we HAVE to do it. That's something no one addressed, in those thousand comments about Diana's blog. There was a lot of talk about copyright, and whether or not fan fiction was illegal, whether it was fair use [...] but no one mentioned one crucial aspect of copyright law -- a copyright MUST BE DEFENDED. If someone infringes on your copyright, and you are aware of the infringement, and you do not defend your copyright, the law assumes that you have abandoned it.

I allow that this would be a really strong argument against allowing fanfic if it were true. But guess what? It isn't.

This particular misconception comes up a lot in debates about fanfic. While it is generally true of trademarks -- if you don't defend them and keep people from using them as generic terms, you can lose them; that's what happened to xerox and kleenex and aspirin, for example, and that's why Google fights against the use of "to google" as a lower-cased verb -- it is not at all true of copyright. As of 1978, in the United States, any creative work placed into a fixed form is, at that point, copyrighted to the original creator. This is true regardless of whether the creator asserts copyright on the work, registers the copyright with the Library of Congress, or defends against unauthorized use. That copyright is yours, and nothing save the passage of time (as of now, 70 years after your death) or your decision to sell the copyright to someone else or release it into the public domain can change that.

I can understand why published authors might be queasy about fanfic, and I don't really judge anyone for disallowing it (practical issues with attempting to do so aside). But I don't think it's too much to ask them to base their positions on actual facts.

Edited to add a link to this beautiful defense of fic, a list of what fanfic is and is not that rings perfectly true to me. Strongly recommended.

I've probably done this before, but not in awhile, and I'm feeling like a distraction. So...

Post one of my fandoms and the number of any of these questions (as many or few as you like) and I'll tell you the answer!

Note #1: "All" is absolutely an option.
Note #2: Fandom choice is wide open. If you pick something I really don't know well enough, I'll let you know and you can pick a fall-back.

1. The first character I fell in love with:
2. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now:
3. The character everyone else loves that I don’t:
4. The character I love that everyone else hates:
5. The character I would shag anytime:
6. The character I'd want to be like:
7. The character I'd slap:
8. A pairing that I love:
9. A pairing that I despise:
10. Favorite character:
11. What are my five favorite things about the fandom.
12. What are my five least favorite things about the fandom.
13. Who are my five favorite characters.
14. Who are my five least favorite characters.
15. What are my five favorite pairings.
16. What are my five least favorite pairings.
17. Which character are you most like.
18. What is my deep, dark fandom secret.

I can't believe I forgot A Song of Ice and Fire and the Temeraire book series. Both relatively recent finds, both reaching the pinnacles of great fannish love.

As long as I'm here, I should probably also mention The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. The first series, particularly, are among my all-time favorite books; I can re-read them essentially without limit. There's another universe I've vaguely thought about writing fic for, although no bunny has ever quite broken through to that level. Also the Narnia books, the Outlander series by Diana Gabeldon, Charles de Lint's Newford series, and Guy Gavriel Kay generally. And the Wild Cards series for awhile, although I stopped reading those around Book 7. The first three are on my re-read pile, though. And I might pick up the new one coming out soon. Another author whose books I read and re-read is Olivia Goldsmith. I know, one of these things is not like the others. But they're like popcorn, or potato chips -- I pick them up, and before I know it I've eaten the entire book. The First Wives Club and Fashionably Late, particularly.

Also The Sandman comics, and Love and Rockets, and Strangers in Paradise (which I should probably have given up long ago, but I can't bring myself to stop. I still haven't read the final volume), and Finder by Carla Speed MacNeil, which is an independent comic that I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who loves stories. More recently, I've started reading manga -- I devoured Death Note whole, and am following Fruits Basket and One Piece (in print; I am resisting the world of scanlations because I don't like reading comic pages on the computer, I find it really awkward).

I'm sure I could think of more if I pushed myself and browsed my bookshelves some more, but for the sake of sparing all your Friends pages I'll stop now.

So you've probably all heard by now that Robert Jordan, writer of the never-ending Wheel of Time series, has passed away. I never read any of the series, but I feel for all of you who'll never really know how it would have ended.

Is it bad that my first thought was "damn, if that happens to George R.R. Martin, I think I may keel over and die"? He'd better have a detailed written outline somewhere, is all I'm saying.