Homer loved fanfic, you know.

I was just going to leave this lie, because I find the arguments of Diana Gabaldon and other pro writers against fanfiction to be boring, untenable, offensive and deeply un-original, but there are some good posts being written by other people that really do merit linkage.

Via jonquil, Rudyard Kipling says you're full of crap, Diana, GRRM! Also see my comment and its thread in queering_holmes on fannishness in ancient Europe. I am dead serious.

cofax7's linkspam yesterday linked to Nick Matamas' post eviscerating some of George R. R. Martin's whackier anti-fanfic arguments, but check out the original linkpost too; cofax has a great few paragraphs of analysis between the links.

Hilarious and on-point as always, thefourthvine posts some good reasons for pros to fear fic and introduces Captain Copyright, who seriously needs to be a Yuletide fandom. Given the power dynamics involved, I think Captain Copyright's archnemesis is Fangirl; when Fanboy is introduced mid-series it throws the Captain into a dark night of his heroic soul.

Cat Valente has a great post from her midlist author's perspective dealing with some of the more abstract points involved (hint: she's for fic).

Last but not least, kaigou has a poll asking writers about writing fic, with follow-ups here and here.

And since this is a post about fandom, I recommend bookshop's post on fandom and women to everyone, particularly those who've been following the recent imbroglio over what happened at WinCon 2008: inkstone's post on the whole thing is a good digest; this followup is also relevant.

And now that I've successfully worked myself into a lather of WTF, world, why!? I am going to post something happy next.

The Demon's Lexicon

I told you I was going to post again. 

Rees Brennan, Sarah. The Demon's Lexicon. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009.

I didn't love this book as much as bookshop did, but I did like it very well. Also, bravecows has some comments on the book and other books by authors who have written fanfic.

In passing and for the record, I write up my thoughts on the books I read both to share and because in my life I don't have enough time to reread many books any more; the first pass is all I get, and my memory can't hold all my thoughts about the books I read. So I suspect that my reaction to this book is not quite as appreciative as Aja's upon reread. C'est la vie; I have more books on my list.

That said, I did like this book, particularly after the ending, which revealed a lot of the characters to be (Secretly) Awesome. I do like Secretly Awesome characters revealing their awesome at the opportune moment.

( Demon hunting: Not all fun and games )