More on March

On his blog, D. Cloyce Smith writes:

"Jeff Mariotte strangely insists that March is a "tie-in" novel, because it features a fictional character mentioned in another book (even though John March appears only briefly in Alcott's "Little Women"). I'm not sure what his point (or objection) is, but I wonder what he thinks of such modern-day classics as John Gardner's Grendel or Nicholas Meyer's The Seven-Per-Cent Solution or Marc Estrin's Insect Dreams or Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea (which was included on the Modern Library's top 100 list for the 20th century) or, for that matter, T. H. White's The Once and Future King. His comments about Alcott's literary estate are irrelevent: there is no such thing. Her works have been in the public domain for decades, as have the equally fictional stories of Beowulf, Sherlock Holmes, Gregor Samsa, and King Arthur (or anything published before 1922)."

Since there seems to be no mechanism for comments on his blog, I'm happy to tell him what I think of those classics here.  Maybe he'll drop by again and engage in dialogue, especially since I think we have a lot in common, at least politically.

I'm all in favor of those books.  I have no problem with modern writers revisiting Sherlock Holmes or Beowulf or characters created by other deceased authors.  I didn't even have a problem with the recent Godfather sequel, which was a tie-in in every sense but was not treated as one by the literati.

What I'm opposed to is the absurd dichotomy between the way the books Smith cited are treated and the way most tie-ins are dismissed out of hand without a glance or a peek between the covers.  The statement that makes is that any book that IS approved by a license-holder is automatically worse than any book that is NOT.

That's the only substantive difference between Geraldine Brooks writing a novel set in the world of Alcott's Little Women and me writing a novel set in the world of Howard's Conan.  Of course, critics can choose to argue that there are qualitative differences between the two--I won't dispute that there may be.  But both Brooks and I are writing novels set in literary worlds we did not invent.  John March, as Smith says, played a very small role in Little Women.  Conan himself plays almost no role in the Age of Conan: Marauders trilogy.

It seems strange, backward, and wrong to me to insist that a book can have no literary value if a copyright holder approved its contents, but can be Pulitzer material if not.  My contention is that every book should be considered on its own merits, not on the basis of who may or may not have approved it.

I'm not insulting March by calling it a tie-in.  I'm simply insulting everyone who dismisses tie-ins (and their writers) without bothering to read any.

Clear enough, Mr. Smith?

Comments

[J. Carson Black]

Good one, Jeff!

[D. Cloyce Smith]

Jeff, thanks for the clarification. As someone in "New York publishing," (I'm currently the marketing director for The Library of America), I was confused by your use of the term "tie-in."

To those of us in publishing, a "tie-in" product means something different. For example, the paperback edition of "Brokeback Mountain" (with the movie actors on the cover) is the "tie-in" edition to the movie. The original Annie Proux book, "Close Range: Wyoming Stories," is not the "tie-in" edition, even though it contains the same story and even though it's the original source for the movie. It's a technical term that means something different in publishing than the way you're using it.

There is a long and healthy history of writers basing books on other people's fictional characters, and many of those books have in fact been well received and reviewed (as the list in my post shows--a list that could be greatly expanded).

Although it seems your own publishing experiences have given you a different perspective, I'm guessing the problem is more basic than you think.

From the perspective of those of us in the publishing business, basing a character on a fictional character that is not in the public domain (i.e., created after 1922) presents licensing problems and the very real probability of a lawsuit from copyright holder. (Witness what happened with "The Wind Done Gone," which was based on "Gone with the Wind." The publisher lost a fortune from the resulting lawsuits.) If the book cannot be shown to be clearly a parody, you'll likely be hit with a cease-and-desist order. As I'm sure you know, since Howard wrote the Conan books stories in the 1930s, they are fully protected by copyright law.

That's the real reason major editors "in mainstream New York publishing" won't touch the stuff--not because they wouldn't want to publish such books (trust me--they'll publish anything that would make money), but because they can't publish it without losing their shirts in court. In a word, it's illegal.

[Paul D. Storrie]

I have to admit, I've rarely seen a point so clearly made missed by such a wide margin.

Copyright infringement isn't even close to the point, Mr. Smith, and lecturing a man with an extensive list of published works about copyright and the definitition of a "tie in" comes across as pretty condescending. Perhaps you would have been wise to familiarize yourself with Mr. Mariotte, via this blog or his website, before you posted.

I'm sure Jeff will reiterate his point better than I, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway:

The point is that licensed novels, such as the Age of Conan, Buffy and Vegas ones written by Mr. Mariotte, tend to be dismissed by the literary community as automatically inferior because they are based in a setting created by someone else, rather than on the merits of the books themselves. Yet the only difference between John Gardner's Grendel and Jeff Mariotte's Age of Conan trilogy, in terms of telling a story in a setting created by someone else, is that Jeff's book is based on something recent (and both commissioned and approved by the copyright holder, which is why infringement has nothing to do with this discussion).

For my part, I think that the explanation of the attitude towards tie-in books is even simpler -- the literary snobs can safely praise a book based off another that has achieved the status of a literary classic, because such books shelter in the shadow of legitimacy cast by the original. And so does the person who reads and/or reviews it.

PDS
--
Paul D. Storrie

[Jeff]

D. Cloyce,

I've worked in and around the publishing business, as bookseller, VP of marketing, editor, and writer, for 25 years. I'm a little surprised we haven't met, given how small the business really is.

But I know what a tie-in is, how the term is used in the industry, and how illegal it would be to make use of copyrighted characters in new works. As Paul noted, you're missing the point here.

"Tie-ins" refer not only to the movie cover version of "Brokeback Mountain," but also to the dozens (hundreds?) of original novels based on the TV series Star Trek. And to the novelization of last year's King Kong movie (and the various nonfiction tie-ins to the movie, and Matthew Costello's related novel, and the reissue with new movie art of the original novel. The term is also used to refer to my Age of Conan trilogy, which is a literary tie-in because it tells new stories about characters created decades ago by a writer who's been dead since 1936.

Nowhere have I claimed that publishers should, or should be allowed to, publish books based on characters to which they have no legal rights. Would it be fun to write a Travis McGee novel? Sure, maybe. But since I couldn't do it legally, I wouldn't--that would be fanfic, and while I'm sure there's Travis McGee fanfic out there, I do this for a living and that would be a waste of my time.

In addition to my original novels, I've written licensed fiction--tie-in novels--based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Charmed, Star Trek, Andromeda, Las Vegas, Conan, Boogeyman, Gen13, and 30 Days of Night. Some of those are movie tie-ins, some TV shows, some comics, some literary properties. A couple were novelizations, most are original novels set in those worlds, involving some pre-existing characters and some new ones.

My point, which I fear Paul made more elegantly than I and which I hope you grasp, if you drop in again, is that what Geraldine Brooks, John Gardner, Nicholas Meyers, et al did, is not different in any substantive way from what I, and dozens of other professionals, do. We all take aspects of some pre-existing world (whether literary, televised, or what have you) and tell new stories with that as a starting point. The main difference is that those writers started with classic (and public domain) works rather than works under copyright. My fellow tie-in writers (there's an organization and a website, http://www.iamtw.org, if you'd like to explore further) and I are doing these books as work-for-hire, being paid a traditional advance against royalties (except the royalty pool is shared with the license-holder, so is generally smaller than in traditional publishing).

Again, I'm not saying that we're doing Pulitzer level work. I haven't read "March" so I can't say for sure that I think Ms. Brooks is either, but the committee thinks so and that's good enough for me. My complaint is that our books are not reviewed, not taken seriously by the literary establishment, seldom accorded any measure of respect by that establishment. The books you cited are exceptions, not the rule, and again the difference is that those are not works made for hire, but works done on spec by their respective authors out of a deep, abiding love for the original books.

A lot of Star Trek tie-in authors, however, have a deep, abiding love for Star Trek. Ditto Star Wars authors. Conan may come from low, pulp roots, but my love for that character certainly matches Nicholas Meyers' love for Sherlock Holmes.

My plea--made before and no doubt to be made many more times before I lay down my sword and shield--is that books be considered on their own merits. It's entirely possible that a book written as work for hire, and approved by a copyright holder somewhere, is as good as an entirely original novel or a pastiche based on characters created a hundred, or a thousand, years ago.

The Library of America is a great thing--I own several volumes, and would like to own more. I thought it was terrific that you guys did a Lovecraft collection this year--a good step in the direction of understanding that low, pulp writing can have power and strength and influence far beyond its roots. I hope a Robert E. Howard collection is under consideration, and maybe someday a tie-in (that is, a work made for hire based on a pre-existing property) will join those illustrious ranks, because someone will have read it and recognized that quality is not determined by the words on the publishing contract but by the words on the page.

Thanks for stopping by. I'll add you to the Book Biz links on the left, and hope you're a regular visitor to these lowbrow parts. Together maybe we can beat up on John McCain.

[Paul D. Storrie]

Quick correction/apology -- Obviously the TV show in question is Las Vegas, not Vegas, though I'm sure you'd do a fine job scribing the further adventures of Dan Tanna, Jeff.

PDS
--
Paul D. Storrie

[D. Cloyce Smith]

Jeff and Paul:

First, my apologies for the sloppy wording of my response. In no way did I intend to imply that Jeff's books violated copyright, and I did not in any way mean to be condescending.

Instead, I was responding to Jeff's specific comment that "a book can have no literary value if a copyright holder approved its contents, but can be Pulitzer material if not." Well, Jeff's books have been approved by "a copyright holder," so my comments (not unreasonably) were about books that DON'T have the approval of a copyright holder--unauthorized fan-fiction, as well as stories in fanzines, on Websites, etc. Thus, my example of "The Wind Done Gone." What was Jeff referring to otherwise? Perhaps Jeff's original comment was a mistake in wording?

Let me explain further, in the interest of calming the waters. I am not familiar with Jeff's books, so before I wrote my previous comment, I had looked them up on Amazon and noticed that the Conan books were published by Ace, a perfectly legitimate division of Penguin (who, by the way, distributes our books too). I also noticed Jeff's Angel and Buffy books. So I gathered that Jeff was writing and publishing legal ("authorized" or "licensed") editions. (I see now that that my comment "As I'm sure you know, ... [the Conan books] are fully protected by copyright law" was taken exactly the opposite the way I meant it; I meant to appeal to Jeff's experience as an author, not to imply that his books were not legally published. My bad.)

As to the other point: We all seem to agree on the definition of a "tie-in." Jeff's point, I understand now, was simply that a licensed novel (like a Star Trek novel) doesn't differ substantively than a book that isn't official (like "March"). My point was that, in the industry, the term refers to a licensing agreement: the Star Trek books, the Buffy books, the Conan books, the Brokeback Mountain paperback. In the absence of a licensing agreement, Jeff's use of the term made no sense to me, and thus I couldn't tease out Jeff's argument: that March was "every bit as much a tie-in" and nobody in "mainstream New York publishing" would admit it. In other words, I had no doubt that nobody in the industry would call it a "tie-in" novel: there is no license to "tie in" the book to anything else. To use another example: nobody in the industry (as I am sure we would all now agree) would refer to to any book about Merlin as a "tie-in" edition (a tie-in to what?). Similarly, when the movie "Pride and Prejudice" came out last year, there was only one "tie-in" edition of the book; not every edition of "Pride and Prejudice" became a tie-in.

Finally, since Jeff did not know that Alcott's work was in the public domain (and since he admitted as such), I gathered that he didn't understand that under current copyright law anything published before 1922 is in the public domain. I did not mean to "lecture," I simply meant to inform.

I absolutely agree with Jeff that there is a unique predudice against what I would usually refer to as serial novels (Star Trek, Conan, Buffy, Star Wars, Angel, Tarzan, Foundation, Sue Grafton's alphabet mysteries, etc.).

I just came from this evening's program at Cooper Union featuring Alexander McCall Smith; it was called "Being a Serial Novelist." While the first book in his series (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) received widespread attention, each subsequent of the seven published (so far) received less and less attention from the "establishment," as well as fewer sales. In other words, I think that series books in general, regardless of whether they are by different authors or by the same author, (to quote Jeff) "are not reviewed, not taken seriously by the literary establishment, seldom accorded any measure of respect by that establishment." Look how much attention Card's eighth entry in the Ender series received when it was published. Or Grafton's "S is for Silence."

Also, for review attention, it's partially a matter of format for many of these books. Paperback originals rarely ever get reviewed (and mass-market paperbacks even more rarely). I don't agree that that should be the case, and I was glad to see an article in the New York Times the other day that paperback originals are starting to get the attention they deserve from reviewers.

So why are books like "March" and "Grendel" treated differently? In part, I think, because they deal with fictional material that has entered the canon. And neither can be rightfully called a serial novel; they've taken somebody else's character, yes; but I think they get attention because they change that character's universe to such an extent that it becomes a different universe altogether. Nobody would mistake the battlefields of the Civil War for the March family household; nobody would think that "March" is even of the same genre as a children's book like "Little Women." Another great example of how an author can make something completely new out of a familiar character would be the way Gregory Maguire took the land of Oz and flipped it on its head.

Now, these comments are not to demean, in any way, serial novels. I read every Ender novel as soon as it's published; I've also read (and enjoyed) the Foundation books not written by Asimov. But all of them share one aspect: they all remain pretty faithful to the character, world, and vision of the original author. Books like March, Grendel, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wicked, etc., do exactly the opposite, or they alter that universe so much that they cannot be regarded as an entry in a series. The political and social satire of "Grendel" doesn't have much in common, thematically or stylistically, with the heroic epic of Beowulf.

In sum, we've been dancing around both the semantics of our arguments and that fact that I read the Jeff's original comment without the context of his own professional background. Again, my apologies.

[D. Cloyce Smith]

Re: The Library of America.

In addition to the Lovecraft collection, we've also published two volumes of crime noir, two volumes of Chandler's pulp fiction, and an edition of Hammett's stories written for Black Mask and other pulp magazines. I can't say we'll publish Howard anytime soon, but I can say that there will be more from these genres on the way. (Alas--I can't even tell you what's under consideration, since, like anyone else, we have to go through the nasty process of negotiating rights.)

[D. Cloyce Smith]

Sorry for three posts in a row.

Allow me to scratch the question "Perhaps Jeff's original comment was a mistake in wording?" I see that I read the quote backwards; I also read it in the context of Jeff's earlier comment that "fanfic is, by definition, not professionally published." THAT was what the statement that guided my subsequent interpretations and comments.

I plead overwork and lack of sleep. Two bads, one day.

I'd be interested, however, to hear Jeff's (and Paul's) comments on and responses to my other points This HAS been an interesting discussion. Cheers.

[M_eHart]

DCS commented:

Now, these comments are not to demean, in any way, serial novels. I read every Ender novel as soon as it's published; I've also read (and enjoyed) the Foundation books not written by Asimov. But all of them share one aspect: they all remain pretty faithful to the character, world, and vision of the original author. Books like March, Grendel, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wicked, etc., do exactly the opposite, or they alter that universe so much that they cannot be regarded as an entry in a series. The political and social satire of "Grendel" doesn't have much in common, thematically or stylistically, with the heroic epic of Beowulf.

I'm not sure that's really as much of a distinction as it might seem. Yes, the authors are using the original universes in a different fashion, but, for example, "Wicked" is still indebted very directly to Frank L. Baum's creation in a different way than, say, the works of Terry Brooks and Dennis McKiernan are indebted to Tolkien. Or so it seems to me.

[Jeff]

Overwork and lack of sleep are commonplace in our business, sadly (and apparently in all others as well, judging from the sales of Ambien and over the counter sleep aids). I was worried about the coherence of my own arguments in my last post, since they were typed while I was being called to dinner (and more than ready for it).

You make good points about changing the fictional world, transforming it into something wholly other. I contend that it's not true in every case, that in some cases the change is more a stylistic thing, the results of a surer fictional hand working at similar material. Nobody would deny that Isabel Allende is a more skillful writer than Johnston McCulley. Her "Zorro" is, in fact, a licensed tie-in, authorized by the copyright holders, but it was published in hardcover and widely reviewed. What, other than Allende's reputation and the book as it was written, makes it different than a Star Trek or Alias novel? There might well be writing of similar quality, psychological and sociological insights of equal depth, in one of those--but no one will ever know it because even if the fans point it out, the publisher won't exploit it beyond the usual channels, the critics won't read it, the literature professors won't teach it.

I'm well aware of the business realities that govern these processes. Most licensed fiction is in mass market paperback (but not all--a lot of Star Wars, for instance, comes out in hardcover, and I've had a couple of hardcover originals in the Angel and Andromeda lines), and even Publisher's Weekly, which runs a weekly section reviewing mass market books, tends to leave them alone except for the occasional seasonal listing of what's on the way.

As for the decreasing numbers on series novels in general, I suspect much of that phenomenon is related to the same sorts of issues I've been bemoaning. Smith's experience was unusual in the beginning: "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" was one of those lightning-in-a-bottle events that rarely happens; the book was written about everywhere, the commercial and critical markers that signify acceptance by both the literary establishment and the book-buying public fell on it all at once. The same happened to "Ender's Game" with its Hugo and Nebula recognition and massive sales the year of its release. More typically, as in the case of Grafton or Bob Parker's Spenser novels, the first few books in a series might generate a little notice, modest sales, some reviews (as an aside, second books usually sell fewer than first, with the result that they become more collectible if the series becomes collectible at all). The series builds as fans pile on. I don't think Sue made the NYT list until "F" or "G."

Publishers, obviously, take notice of the build, and when they feel breakout is nigh they pump money into promotion, advertising, ARCs, tours, etc. A few books down the line, generally, some of the people attracted to the series just by all the hoopla drop away, leaving the core who's been there since the beginning and the newcomers who have decided to stick around. The publishers are busy with the next big thing, and see that their efforts aren't moving the needle that much any more. With the decreased hoopla, new readers aren't attracted in the droves they were at the breakout point, and some natural attrition occurs as readers die, get bored (especially when a series moves well into the double digits), or stop reading for other reasons. It would have been almost impossible for Smith to maintain the kind of awareness that the first book garnered; sales have dwindled as a result. And of course it's possible that the first one was better than the others, or that the first one wasn't as good as it was made to appear, with a resultant drop-off of readers.

Tie-ins, for the most part, never get that kind of chance. Publishers don't think of those series as having breakout potential, and that's not their function in the publishers' lists. They're meant to fill mass market slots, return on a minimal investment. I think that's a self-fulfilling prophecy--books like Allende's "Zorro" (and indeed the non-licensed "tie-ins" we've been discussing here, as well as licensed books like some of the Star Wars titles and the occasional movie tie-in (Kotzwinkle's E.T. novelization comes to mind) can gain significant sales.

So back to my original point--I don't think it's demeaning to call "March" a tie-in. I do think it's demeaning to assume that there's no writing of any worth or quality done in licensed fiction, and that's the assumption I railed against.

Re: the LOA stuff--I think the line's done a good job with the crime fiction books. But the Lovecraft volume was, to my mind, much more courageous. Crime fiction has been accepted by the mainstream, and any "library" of American literature that didn't include Hammett, who virtually invented the hard-boiled genre, and Chandler, who brought literary style and aspirations to it, would be sorely lacking. Science fiction is entering the canon and sometimes being co-opted by it (where would Jonathan Lethem be without the tropes of sf?). Fantasy sells better than sf in the mass market but has been slower to gain critical/academic acceptance.

Below those come romance, horror, and westerns (not in sales, since romance probably outsells sf and fantasy across the country, but in acceptance by the tastemakers of the literati. To have pulled Lovecraft from this latter group was a strong statement, I think, that there is quality to be found regardless of genre or origins (which is, after all, the same thing I've been arguing for in terms of tie-ins). It leads to hope of a Howard collection, or perhaps Fritz Leiber or Harlan Ellison, in terms of great American fantasists. It's probably too much to hope for Elmer Kelton to join the ranks some day. I'll be waiting to see where else LOA goes to find good material, and I'm glad you're open to more genre fiction.

[D. Cloyce Smith]

Thanks, Jeff. I think we're both realizing that we agree far more than disagree. Here are a couple of further thoughts that I'll try not to mangle while I'm eating my lunch.

Certainly, as M-eHart points out, "Wicked is still indebted very directly to Frank L. Baum's creation." I don't think, however, that if Baum's estate (or some corporate entity) controlled the rights to Oz that the book ever would have been published. That returns me to one of my original points: one reason why Brooks, Gardner, and other "literary" writers often base their works on characters and settings in the public domain is because using something that's part of a franchise (excuse the term) often means that the author faces restraints imposed by the holders of the copyright and/or trademark. If I were to write a novel whose conceit was that the adventures of Xena were, in reality, the fevered scribblings of a lesbian dwarf who worked for a Depression-era carnival (and if my novel included some "newly discovered" adventures of Xena that mirrored the sordid circus life), then I would be up against the refusal (and the wrath) of the rights holder. Change Xena to Maid Marian, and the problem is avoided. This is an important (and substantive) difference between many works written "under license" and works written on material from the public domain.

One of the "points of view" that we haven't considered is the potential consumer. Let me start off, Jeff, by saying that I'm going to check out one of your Conan books; it sounds like something I might like since I've read a couple of Howard's novellas (which I enjoyed) and I've seen one of the movies (which I didn't like much). I'm familiar with the universe in which you've set your own books, in other words. But the Angel books don't appeal to me (not being a TV watcher, I've never seen the series), and--alas--I've never heard of the Las Vegas program. I agree this perception may be unfair--for all I know, the books may stand apart from the TV series altogether--but the cover art and the concern with consistency with the TV series itself hints otherwise to me.

The "market" for a book based on Beowulf, however, is vast; nearly everyone is familiar with the story, even if they haven't read the poem. (I read "Grendel" long before I actually tackled the epic.) The same is true for Oz or Zorro or Jo March or King Arthur or Kafka's cockroach. This perceived "limited" appeal of some series books may, as much as anything else, taint their marketing and their reception. Plus, some of the franchises flood the markets with far too many of these books (I'm thinking Star Trek), and it's so hard to separate the very thin wheat from the fields of chaff--which is why I gave up on Star Trek books years ago.

While I was pondering this subject this morning, I also thought about the "work for hire" aspect. Some of our most famous authors (Faulkner, West, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Ferber) did such writing without blinking. In our recent collection of James Agee's work, for example, we included his screenplay for "The Night of the Hunter," which was "work for hire" based on the Davis Grubb's 1953 novel--and there was no hesitation on our part including it. Even if it isn't a "tie-in" edition, our book has the complete "licensed" text [insert emoticon with grin here]. We've also published West's version of Francis Iles's "Before the Fact." I'm sure you'll see many more samples of such writing in future LOA volumes--whether we want to call it "licensed," "derivative," "adapted," or "tie-in."

[Sean P. Fodera]

D. Cloyce Smith wrote: "But the Angel books don't appeal to me (not being a TV watcher, I've never seen the series), and--alas--I've never heard of the Las Vegas program. I agree this perception may be unfair--for all I know, the books may stand apart from the TV series altogether--but the cover art and the concern with consistency with the TV series itself hints otherwise to me."

This, I think, is one of the keys to the problem, and goes right to the heart of Jeff's argument. The literary establishment can't see that the quality of writing in a media tie-in novel can be equal to or even potentially better than the quality of writing in Pulitzer winner based on a literary property.

I honestly believe that no book based on a media property, no matter how well executed, will ever be accepted as worthy by the literary establishment. That's the myopia that Jeff seems to be addressing in his original comments. Why are publishers, reviewers and award juries unable to read a book for its own sake? Why are they unable to set aside their biases against TV, motion pictures and comic books, and simply judge a book on its merits? While the semantics of what is or isn't a tie-in are interesting, they don't address these prime questions.

I come to this topic with just shy of 20 years as a contracts director with major New York publishing houses, both in and out of genre publishing. I am also a writer, with one of my published stories being a media tie-in. In terms of literary quality, my tie-in story may not be on a par with anything by Faulkner or Hemingway, but it would be nice if someone could pick it up and read it for itself, rather than immediately disparage it simply because it features characters from a TV cartoon series. I'm no major fan of Faulkner or Hemingway, but I'd give a fair reading to a new take on their universes.

[John C. Bunnell]

Arriving via reference from Keith DeCandido's LiveJournal (I'd link, but if there's a way to do formatting in this interface I haven't found it):

As a longtime reader and reviewer of genre SF/fantasy -- including a great deal of tie-in fiction -- I tend to agree with J. Carson Black that "tie-in" is most typically used to refer to works created as part of a corporate-owned franchise or parent work. In the case of March, that's not accurate; in the case of the Allende book, it's technically true but somewhat misleading, as (a) Allende's novel is not "tied" to a widely known version of the Zorro material (unlike, say, novelizations of the two recent movies), and (b) while the Zorro trademarks are owned by a corporate entity, it's a small, privately controlled corporate entity whose specific purpose is to manage only those trademarks, and the trademarks predate the corporation.

I had not heard of March before the Pulitzer honor, and I haven't yet had a chance to look at Allende's Zorro, but I wonder if a clearer term of art for both books might be "pastiche" -- as frequently used for post-Doyle Sherlock Holmes books such as the Nicholas Meyer novel mentioned above. The Allende book in particular, from what I can gather, is very much a re-invention or re-interpretation of the original McCulley character, just as Meyer's Seven Per Cent Solution is of Sherlock Holmes.

In an earlier thread on Peter Pan and its progeny, I think I noted that the lines between "fanfic", "tie-in" fiction, "pastiche" and related forms are blurring in today's marketplace. I'd note in this context a novel by Chelsea Cain titled "Confessions of a Teen Sleuth", published a little over a year ago by Bloomsbury. The cover and title page specifically describe it as a parody, but in literary terms it just as closely resembles pastiche -- in this case, of Nancy Drew and her many fellow Stratemeyer Syndicate characters. Cain published the book under her own copyright (though I've been told that she and her publishers did communicate with the current owners of the Stratemeyer properties).

Is Cain's book a "tie-in"? Well, no -- in fact, it's specifically not a tie-in, else it would be copyrighted to the franchise owners. Is it fanfic? No, because it's professionally published with the tacit approval of the franchise owners. Is it really a parody, as the cover says? Well, no -- by any rational non-lawyer definition of parody, it treats its characters with too much nuance and respect. Is it pastiche? Maybe -- but there are problems even with that label, because Cain adopts a wry, slightly surreal narrative voice that's at distinct variance with the tone of the original material, and pastiche is usually thought of as trying to emulate its parent material as closely as possible.

What it comes down to is that there isn't a single term that usefully describes the Cain book, though it's clear that "Confessions of a Teen Sleuth" occupies a space very near March and the new Zorro along the literary spectrum. I think that what this case, and that of March illustrates is that we need a better vocabulary than we have for discussing and describing the degrees and forms of fiction created from common source material. (I was going to say "collaborative fiction", but it occurs to me that that phrase may not be broad enough either....)

[Jeff]

Welcome to the funhouse, Sean.

Cloyce, as a complete aside I'll tell a story from my early bookselling days. Brilliant woodcut artist Barry Moser did a signing in my store in La Jolla, CA., for his version of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass..." (published by UC Press). At the time, he was working on pieces for an Oz book that came a couple of years down the line. We had been talking about the Oz book, and then a customer approached with an Alice to be signed. "Please inscribe it to me," the man said. "My name is Frank Baum."

You may remember, as Barry did, that L. Frank Baum had lived for several years in the San Diego area, and designed parts of the famous Hotel Del Coronado nearby.

Barry said, "Oh, any relation?"

And the man said, "To who?"

Barry quizzed him, and the guy had no idea that the author of "The Wizard of Oz" shared his name and had lived in his city.

Lest any of us let our modest celebrity go to our heads...

You're right that work for hire has become less acceptable to the literary establishment, rather than more, as the decades have rolled on. Good for LOA for publishing some. If the modern equivalent of a Faulkner or a Fitzgerald wanted to do work for hire--say E.L. Doctorow felt a compulsion to write a CSI novel--he would be regarded as slumming, doing it for a lark, or completely insane. In any case, that CSI novel would get more ink than the ones Max Allan Collins does, but it would not be seriously reviewed like Doctorow's other books are.

I beg to differ with you on one point (though I agree that on most we're really not that far apart). Sure, Oz and Zorro are universally known. In modern America, though, is Beowulf? Do you think that more of the bookbuying public knows "The Metamorphosis" than CSI? You're not a TV guy, but you're sentient and pop culture savvy, so I'm sure you know, even if you haven't seen it, that CSI has been the top-rated TV show for years now. If you put a dump of CSI next to a dump of Kafka in the front of a Barnes & Noble and measured eyeball responses, I'm pretty sure that you'd find a lot more Americans recognize Gil Grissom than Gregor Samsa (even though both occasionally encounter cockroaches).

I think Sean's very close to right when he says "I honestly believe that no book based on a media property, no matter how well executed, will ever be accepted as worthy by the literary establishment."

I understand the reasons this is so. I don't like them, and I don't think it will change any time soon--certainly my ranting is not likely to result in the NYTBR suddenly deciding to add a column covering licensed fiction or the Stanford Creative Writing Program offering courses in how to do it well.

That doesn't mean I'm going to stop, though...

[Jeff]

I hope it's clear by now that I deliberately used the term "tie-in" in a provocative manner to spur just this sort of discussion. "March" doesn't fit the standard definition of a tie-in or licensed work, because a) it's not licensed, and b) it's not work-for-hire.

But you're right, John, that there ought to be some word that can apply to this sort of thing, for the purposes of discussion. "Collaborative" is not quite right--not only can that apply to pure collaborations between two living writers, but in this context I feel it would more accurately describe works begun (however incompletely) by a dead writer and finished or expanded upon by a live one, as Robert Parker did with Chandler's "Poodle Springs" or Gayle Lynds is doing with Robert Ludlum's unwritten works. It could even apply to living writers writing the books of other living writers, like the various people writing "Tom Clancy" novels who are not, in fact, Tom Clancy (but have their own names on the books, so they're not ghostwriters).

"Pastiche" seems to be the most accepted term, and comes close, although its dictionary meanings, at least in the dictionaries I have at hand, say that it means something made up of selections from previous works (in other words, containing no new material) and is meant to imitate or satirize the style of those works (also not true in this case).

So yes, we need a word. If we come up with it here we can all be famous (and then not even remembered in our own cities, by our own namesakes.

[Paul Witcover]

Hi Sean!

Hi Jeff!

There is one difference between a work like "March" (which I haven't read) and any licensed tie-in that no one (unless I missed it; in which case apologies) has addressed but that I think must loom large in any discussion of this topic. Like many of the respondents here, I've written original novels and done some tie-ins; I hope to do many more of both. Also like most here, I didn't apply a lesser standard of craftsmanship to my tie-in work; I like to think I do my best on everything I write. But the fact remains that there are substantial constraints in doing a tie-in that are simply not there in an original work. So the reason that "March" is an attractive property, or any of the others, is that no license holder is going to stand between the writer and the expression of his/her inspiration for that property. And if we are honest, we all know that a license holder *will* come down with all the legal authority at their disposal, if necessary, to ensure that their guidelines are not violated. I'm not saying that's wrong; they own the property; it's their right. But that, to my mind, rather than inherent literary quality, is the main distinction between the two kinds of books we're discussing, and it's an important one.

[D. Cloyce Smith]

Jeff says: "Sure, Oz and Zorro are universally known. In modern America, though, is Beowulf? Do you think that more of the bookbuying public knows 'The Metamorphosis' than CSI?"

You're right, of course. This year Americans surveyed would be more likely to recognize CSI than Beowulf or Kafka.

But what about ten years from now? Twenty? Fifty? I had the lovely experience just last month of having my 15-year-old nephew look at me blankly when I mentioned Farrah Fawcett. ("Who?") How many people remember "December Bride" or, for that matter, "Here Come the Brides"?

Put aside the "reviewers" and the "literary establishment" for a moment. Let's switch genres and imagine things from the point of view of the non-genre reader. Take a look at this book here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0916217558

This book is based on a show that's been around longer than CSI, Angel, Buffy, or even Star Trek. The viewership over the last 40 years is probably larger than any of the properties we've discussed (except Star Wars). According to Books in Print, there are at least 14 licensed books based on this series. Its author has written a number of books. And it's in a genre, as Jeff pointed out, that outsells just about anything else.

How many in this series has anyone here read? How many have of them do you think fans of the Conan books have read? In all honesty, would you read it? If not, then how will you ever know that it's not a "great" book?

Sean notes that "it would be nice if someone could pick it up and read it for itself." But most readers who would choose not to read a paperback tie-in to "Days of Our Lives" won't read it not because of the licensing but because it's in a genre they don't read, or based on a show they are not interested in. My (perhaps presumptuous) guess is that most folks here are the same way.

I don't read books based on soap operas largely for the same reason I don't read Harlequin novels--because I don't enjoy romance fiction. My various attempts (from Susan Howatch to books written by my aunt, Caroline Clemmon) don't excite me at all, although I read my aunt's books for a different reason--because I see her on every page.

On the other hand, I have read many sci-fi "tie-in" books over the decades, but mostly because I like the shows that they're based on and/or I like the genre as a whole. Many of them, I feel, are excellent, but my perception of these books is nearly always enhanced or warped by my love of the "original" material.

In sum, I think that, for the author, the resistance of many readers is a much bigger obstacle than the resistance of reviewers or award juries. Would more attention to these genre serials by "reviewers" or the "literary establishment" really overcome this obstacle? I'm not convinced.

[Richard Anderson]

Perhaps another reason why some (many?) readers don't take tie-ins seriously as literature is because such works can be perceived merely as a means for the asset (er, "property") holder to obtain a higher return on that asset by selling books to fans. Rightly or wrongly, the works are seen as crassly mercenary and thus likely to lack artistic merit. I'm not sure how the supporters of tie-ins can get around this problem (assuming it's a serious one), but perhaps one way would be to have IAMTW sponsor an annual prize for the best written tie-in.

[D. Cloyce Smith]

Richard says "perhaps one way would be to have IAMTW sponsor an annual prize for the best written tie-in."

Ask and ye shall receive:

http://www.iamtw.org/awards.html

(Jeff: We expect you to enter your books.)

[Mo]

And replacement actors on Broadway generally don't get reviewed and are not eligible to compete in the best actor/actress category. (Apparently there is a not-every-year Best Recreated Role award.)

The critical community rewards orginal works above all others, often valuing originality over quality.

I think there is a difference between writing in a world created by someone who is a contemporary, and reimagining a creative work from the past. The two authors would not share the same experiences, influences, and zeitgeist. We are probably at the point where a twenty-something author is a full generation removed from Gene Rodenberry or George Lucas.

Someone writing a novel set during the Civil War today has an entirely different perspective from Louisa May Alcott, who lived through it and experienced it directly. There is a distinction also to be made between a book which tries to recreate the experience of the original work and a novel that is trying to reinterpret and shift genre.

[Jeff]

I'm of mixed minds on the IAMTW awards. On the one hand I'm all in favor of recognizing excellence, especially where it's not generally expected to be found. On the other hand, there are practicalities that come with awards programs in small organizations (not to mention backbiting, backstabbing and shameless begging) that don't end up reflecting well on anyone.

Besides which, how do you compare a CSI book with a Star Wars book with a Days of Our Lives book? Separate categories for each? How many romance tie-ins are there, really, in any given year?

Still, discussions have been had and the awards are going forward. I haven't decided if I'll enter anything yet.

Backtracking a little to Cloyce's previous point (and speaking of DOOL), my response is, as usual, yes and no. Yes, it's true that genre considerations will always enter into acceptance of licensed fiction, at the customer level and the "establishment" level (and yes, Paul's point is also valid, although not totally so--another yes and no situation, I'm afraid). Cloyce first: I'm not a big romance fan either. I've read a couple that were entertaining. Once in a while, though, a book or a series breaks out in a huge way. Nora Roberts? "Bridges of Madison County?" It's entirely possible that a DOOL tie-in novel will meet or exceed whatever standards of craft made those books and authors enormously popular. But with the multi-layered resistance to tie-ins, most readers of those books will never have the opportunity to find that out.

To Paul's point, then to dinner--the restrictions placed on books by license-holders can certainly be daunting. So, too, can the restrictions placed on books by the conventions of genre. The skillful writer tries to work with those restrictions and still do the best job he or she can, and sometimes, even with those restrictions, something like art can be committed. Judging books within their own genres, on a book-by-book basis, I believe it's possible that the best horror novel published in any given year could be a Buffy novel. I think the best mystery might be a CSI novel. The best SF could be a Star Wars book. It gets more iffy when you try to pull them out of genre--you don't see a lot of SF winning Pulitzers, whether they're tie-ins or not. On a completely open playing field, you might, but again the tie-in author in that case is bound by the restrictions of both genre and a license-holder (even imagining a world where those were the only restrictions, and the prejudices of the Pulitzer jury didn't enter into it).

[Paul D. Storrie]

To all: Sorry to have stirred the pot and disappeared. Sometimes, life happens.

D. Cloyce: Thanks for coming back to clarify and expand on your previous remarks. Not sure I have anything new to add to the discussion at this point (that's the problem with dropping out for two days), but your participation has helped make it a more interesting one.

Jeff: I was probably being overly harsh in my dismissal of the literary community, but the frustrations you experience with tie-ins are (as you well know and mention) more broadly felt with the genre material you mention. As soon as a really good genre book happens, there's a tendency for it to be pulled OUT of whatever genre category it should really appear in, so as to make it more 'acceptable' for the literary community to appreciate. That can happen either before or after publication.

McMurtry's Lonesome Dove is a good example. It's a western (and certainly hyped as such when it became a mini-series on TV), but because it's as well-written as it is, the publishing industry categorized it as "Literature" instead. Why? Because, basically, genre fiction is considered to be inherently inferior. Never mind the fact that there's a lot of non-genre dreck as well.

Sturgeon's Law applies whether we're talking tie-ins, genre material or non-genre material.

PDS
--
Paul D. Storrie

[Jeff]

For anyone who doesn't know Sturgeon's Law (although I expect most of us here do, there could be lurkers out there who don't), it's: 90% of anything is crap.

Doesn't matter if you're talking westerns or literary novels or romances or movies or animated TV series or what. It probably even applies to fast food burgers and golf shoes, but I believe Ted intended it to be applied to creative endeavors. 90% of it is not worth your time, which means that 10% of it is. It's the job of a creative person to try to create that 10$, and the job of the consumer to try to find it.

I've also heard it quoted as 95%. I once asked Ted which it was supposed to be, and he said, "the percentage doesn't matter, it's the concept that's important."

[Dave Bell]

Might the term "spin-off" be of use?

I think it would cover very well all the works which have a clear link with some earier story, but which aren't controlled by it. For instance, Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a Hamlet spin-off. On the other hand, are all King Arthurs a Malory spin-off? Arguably not.

On the fuzzy boundary are such things as Star Wars stories about minor characters. There was a Babylon 5 episode which told the story through the eyes of a couple of maintenance techs.

Harry Flashman is a spin-off. So is March. It doesn't say anything useful about the quality of the writing.

[Jeff]

Spin-off is probably as close to what's needed anything I can think of. It is already used frequently in TV, of course (Angel is a Buffy spin-off, Joey is a Friends spin-off), and in that sense there is some official connection implied, which novels like March don't have. But the basic sense of it--that it's a creative work growing out of some previous creative work, and could not exist without that other work, is more or less the same.