Worlds colliding

[rivkat]

This article about the English translation of a Russian fan novel written from the perspective of the bad guys in The Lord of the Rings got me to click over.  Laura Miller expresses some weird uncertainty over whether it's fan fiction even though it's noncommercial (the translation, that is) and pretty clearly transformative, I guess so that she can anoint it as close to real literature and not just unlikely romance, whereas my reaction was: dude's on LJ!  Of course it's fan fiction! 

I also wonder what it will be like compared to Jacqueline Carey's spectacular Sundering duology, her version of LoTR from the bad guys' perspective.  From Miller's summary, sounds like Carey cares more about gender politics.

Comments

[cofax7]

Yeah, I saw the links to that begin to pop up over the weekend, and I don't see why anyone doesn't think it's fanfic. Because it was published originally in Russian? wtf?

[rivkat]

From what I understand, it was commercially published in Russia, and one might draw a line between that and fan fiction.

[saraht]

Oh, don't be silly! It can't be fanfic--she respects it!

[epershand]

Evidently it's not fan fiction because it isn't a romance written by a teenage girl. I'm startled to find out that so much of what I read no longer qualifies as fan fiction according to Laura Miller's arbitration...

[flywoman.livejournal.com]

I'm excited to get the rec for the Sundering novels! There's plenty of respected commercial "fanfic" out there - seems like no problem as long as there are no pesky copyright issues. For example, I just picked up a copy of The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason, which Publishers Weekly calls "a fantastic first novel."

[rivkat]

Yeah, I liked those books a lot. Couldn't get into Carey's others, though.