Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens next. According to the person I spoke with, Hasbro/Wizards should have something like a month to file a response. We'll see if that happens, or if there's some other development.
Most everyone I spoke to about it was very nostalgic for it and wanted to read it. From the accounts that I read, they range from really bad to surprisingly good, so I suspect your mileage will vary, depending on how you like your fantasy.
Well, now I want to dig out my copies to re-read, wherever they may be. Those were my covers, too. I remember quite enjoying them, but I was probably 12 or 13 when I read them.
I found myself wondering if there's also a line of thought about fan-created content and its interaction with fantasy worlds starting around 1960. That's right around the time Star Trek 'zines were getting revved up, and then LOTR hits the scene - Sword of Shannara isn't original fantasy so much as it is a fanfic of LOTR. (I re-read it maybe 2 years ago out of curiosity and was just boggled at how transparent it was.)
Lackey also actively encouraged fanworks of her series, from filks at conventions to short story tie-ins published in annual collections (still). (And some authors, like McCaffrey, went out of their way for a long time to tamp down on fan involvement, or try to control it.) There's something there about the borders between authors and fans being much more amorphous than it might appear.
Megan noted that she had read a couple over the years, and other people I spoke with definitely noted "hey, I should dig those back out!"
There's definitely a lot to say about fan culture providing a bit of a circular loop, especially with Star Trek. I know I've written about it in a couple of places (it'll be appearing in the Cosplay book), and things like fan fic and cosplay (predominantly driven my female fans!) provided an entirely new relationship to the source material than what we'd seen before.
There's also something to be said for shared universes: H.P. Lovecraft — despite his terrible qualities — encouraged other authors to write in the same universe and built up a really impressive mythos that'll really endure despite those qualities, and be repurposed by other authors in ways that he definitely didn't intend.
This is a little different than that, I think, given that it's driven by corporate marketing and planning, but i think the structures are pretty similar. Ultimately, they have the same goal: close interaction with the core stories.
Interesting read! I'll be curious to see how all of this pans out.
On a semi-related note, I've never read any of the Dragonlance books and I'm wondering if they're still worth visiting?
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens next. According to the person I spoke with, Hasbro/Wizards should have something like a month to file a response. We'll see if that happens, or if there's some other development.
Most everyone I spoke to about it was very nostalgic for it and wanted to read it. From the accounts that I read, they range from really bad to surprisingly good, so I suspect your mileage will vary, depending on how you like your fantasy.
Well, now I want to dig out my copies to re-read, wherever they may be. Those were my covers, too. I remember quite enjoying them, but I was probably 12 or 13 when I read them.
I found myself wondering if there's also a line of thought about fan-created content and its interaction with fantasy worlds starting around 1960. That's right around the time Star Trek 'zines were getting revved up, and then LOTR hits the scene - Sword of Shannara isn't original fantasy so much as it is a fanfic of LOTR. (I re-read it maybe 2 years ago out of curiosity and was just boggled at how transparent it was.)
Lackey also actively encouraged fanworks of her series, from filks at conventions to short story tie-ins published in annual collections (still). (And some authors, like McCaffrey, went out of their way for a long time to tamp down on fan involvement, or try to control it.) There's something there about the borders between authors and fans being much more amorphous than it might appear.
Megan noted that she had read a couple over the years, and other people I spoke with definitely noted "hey, I should dig those back out!"
There's definitely a lot to say about fan culture providing a bit of a circular loop, especially with Star Trek. I know I've written about it in a couple of places (it'll be appearing in the Cosplay book), and things like fan fic and cosplay (predominantly driven my female fans!) provided an entirely new relationship to the source material than what we'd seen before.
There's also something to be said for shared universes: H.P. Lovecraft — despite his terrible qualities — encouraged other authors to write in the same universe and built up a really impressive mythos that'll really endure despite those qualities, and be repurposed by other authors in ways that he definitely didn't intend.
This is a little different than that, I think, given that it's driven by corporate marketing and planning, but i think the structures are pretty similar. Ultimately, they have the same goal: close interaction with the core stories.