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I know at least one big universe where the creator officially includes works that would ordinarily be considered fan fiction as canon (as in he actually took the best of fan fics, edited them, and on an on-going basis publishes them in-universe, AND had works in universe based on things in those fics). That example is from Alternate History - the 1632/Assiti Shards universe by Eric Flint.

Flint is a big time experiment builder in general (he seems to be one of the - if not the main - driving forces behind Baen's free library concept), so I was wondering whether the fanfic publishing concept is unique to him?

Question: Was Eric Flint unique in this regard?

Fan Fics here are defined as literary works produced by people who

  • have not been commissioned by a publishing house/owner associated with the universe

  • have not written their works with the expectation of being officially included in the universe (e.g. people writing a script with the goal of having Paramount shoot a Trek episode are not fan fic).

  • whose work was not directly requested by the owner/author of the universe.

  • crossover tributes by established authors by agreement with original owner don't count.

E.g. I'm looking for what anyone reasonable would genuinely consider an amateur fanfic.

As far as "considered canon", I am looking for indications of support by the owner of the intellectual property rights. This support can include republishing (with credit to the original fan fic source) with or without edits, or explicit references from the original author's works to events described entirely within fan fic sources coupled with statements by the author indicating that he/she made those references to the fan fic sources intentionally.

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    Voting to close because I think this is going to devolve into a series of single example answers, ending with the same result as a list question.
    – user1027
    Jan 19, 2012 at 1:16
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    @Keen - I explicitly requested ONE example and NOT a list. I'm comfortable with requesting mods to delete any answers after one I accept (which will be the first one satisfying my conditions) and mark the post frozen so no others are able to be added, if people ignore the very explicit wording in the question. I have further edited the question to stress that I want Yes/No answer to "Is Flint unique".
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Jan 19, 2012 at 1:20
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    NOTE to anyone considering closing or down-voting: Could you please cordially postpone doing so "because this will assuredly generate a list of answers, despite OP explicitly stating that he's looking for just one" until there's SOME evidence that it will have actually produced a list (>=3) of answers?
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Jan 19, 2012 at 5:53
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    @DVK: I was making a snide comment about authors vs fans in terms of quality. Whats the diff between fans and commercial authors.
    – geoffc
    Jan 19, 2012 at 11:14
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    @DVK I have made some edits. Please feel free to rollback or edit further if you feel I've moved from your intent or have anything wrong.
    – Beofett
    Feb 3, 2012 at 13:22

1 Answer 1

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It is my understanding that John Ringo is going to do this with "The Kildaran" in his paladin of shadows series. It is fanfic but there is cooperation with the author to make it consistent.

Since no more books exist in the series yet there's no way of knowing how this will play out. (More books are certainly intended. The Kildaran ends with the protagonist behaving utterly out of character in a fashion that can only be a cliffhanger--and this is at Ringo's request.)

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  • Do you have some reference proving that it is planned to be included in the canon? If so, I'll accept
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Jan 19, 2012 at 1:45
  • Although, I'm slightly suspicious that Ringo (a Baen author) was influenced in this by Flint anyway. The Long Pen of Flint :(
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Jan 19, 2012 at 1:46
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    @DVK: Well, here's a clear indication that he's following Ringo's directions: thekildaran.blogspot.com/2011/11/…
    – Loren Pechtel
    Jan 19, 2012 at 4:17

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