My friend Warren Murphy, co-creator of THE DESTROYER books, has found a unique way of dealing with fanfic based on his work… he’s just edited & published a book of "Remo Williams" stories written by fans.
#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
My friend Warren Murphy, co-creator of THE DESTROYER books, has found a unique way of dealing with fanfic based on his work… he’s just edited & published a book of "Remo Williams" stories written by fans.
Never heard of the guy, but great!
kete
Marion Zimmer Bradley did the same thing 20 years ago with her Friends of Darkover books.
What a clever idea.
Never heard of Warren Murphy???
I have no response to that.
If you can’t beat ’em, pub ’em. Way to respect your fans.
Warren has something outrageous like 150 million books in print. Forge is reprinting Grandmaster soon, which is a great book. Check it out!
I think it’s a great idea.
I also think kete thinks rather highly of his own ignorance.
I talked to Warren about this project when he started putting it together a while back, and his desire was to do something for the fans, to give a little back to readers who’d supported him.
I don’t blame any author who cringes at the thought of fanfiction based on their work, but if you can get behind the idea, this is a great way to do it.
My objection is to usage without permission, not to fan-written fiction. So I have no problem with this kind of project at all.
I agree with you, Keith. This is fanfic done right… with the author’s consent and, in this case, active involvement.
Thanks for pointing this out, Lee! I still have all of the early books he wrote with Richard Sapir–through number 50-something, I think–but I haven’t thought about them in quite some time. It should be fun to catch up with what’s gone on since then.
Guyot, no everyone well-known in the US is a household name in Europe as well. The twelve paperbacks by WM issued between 1985 and 1990 that are listed with amazon Germany are all out of print and only available second hand.
Keith, first I’m a woman, second I’m not really a genre-reader. And I doubt that you’ll know most of the European writers known to me.
Umberto Eco, anyone? Italo Calvino? Milan Kundera? Max Frisch? No? Didn’t think so.
kete
Those are well-known writers, Kete, so I reckon most people on here have heard of them. Eco is a huge international bestseller and both he and Kundera have had films made based on their work.
The point wasn’t that you were ignorant of Warren Murphy, which is fine enough on its own, but that you seemed to be boasting of it, which is rather strange.
You consider stating the fact, “never heard of that guy” being a boast? You’re even stranger than I thought you were.
kete
I’m still scratching my head over the assumption that a roomful of writers doesn’t read.
Sorry, Kete, I misunderstood you. Didn’t mean to cast aspersions.
I’m the one who considered it a boast. Try to keep your American money-grubbing commercial ignoramuses straight.
I’m one of the guys Warren published and let me tell you, Warren is DA MAN! Talk about treating his fans with respect! Warren posts to his fans, writes letters, yes snail mail.
Because of his inspiration, I’m even working on my own series now.
http://www.thelastwitness.com
If no one has heard of Warren Murphy, they’re missing a lot of great storytelling!
Jerry
The Marion Zimmer Bradley example is not the best one around if one realizes the history of that incident. It ultimately cost her a book, when a fan accused her of plagiarism and Daw shelved her book. This was circa 1992. If he plans to publish anything else in that series, I’d avoid doing similar endeavors. Copyright and trademark law don’t require proof that it was knowingly stolen but just that people had access to the material. It is why people should really tell JKR to deny reading fan fiction.
The stories that we submitted became the property of Warren and the estate of the late Richard Sapir. Warren had us sign copyright agreements so that his copyright material isn’t in danger and as aspiring professional writers, we agreed.
Done more than 20 years ago by the Trek community (Star Trek: the New Voyages). And the stories there WERE fanfic by all standards of the term: written by amateurs with no expectation of publication, without permission, etc. They were gathered long after the fact and then edited into the book (and the following New Voyages 2). The editors were Marshak and Culbreath, who were possibly the most controversial published Trek authors ever.
Books like these rather undermine your position with respect to fanfic; here’s the fans doing exactly what you decry, and then someone comes along and collects the best of their work and pays them for it. AFTER they’ve “stolen” and been “lazy”.
This is of course exactly what *I* want to see happening. The Berne convention provides for the fact that I retain ownership of my stuff no matter how many ficcers play with it, so I don’t care what they do. In fact, I hope there’s lots of them, because they generate interest. They get people looking. And that’s more than half the battle.