(Untitled)

[pnh]

I'll give Keith DeCandido credit for one thing: he understands that writing doesn't become "professional" just because a professional does it. I assume that he also understands the implication: "pro" and "fan" are terms for things that we do, not things that we are

Comments

[greatsword]

I'm not debating your primary topic, but this caught my eye:

I'll happily grant that some good books have been written in the tie-in mines (John M. Ford's Trek novels spring to mind), but the historical absence of such books from lists of Nebula finalists hardly comes as a surprise.

Would it surprise you to hear that this reads a bit like a 'literary' fiction editor discussing genre fiction? I'll grant that the quality of media tie-ins is spotty, but I think that could be said of any category of books. My experience with working on licensed properties (in games) is that it can be much harder than working on original IP. I have a lot of respect for people who do it well.

That being said, I didn't read media tie-in books until one of Vonda McIntyre's Star Trek novels literally fell on my head while I was browsing in a bookstore. Since then I've followed good authors into the tie-in books. I'd add Vonda McIntyre and Barbara Hambly to the list of good authors to pick up, and anyone who hasn't read John M Ford's How Much for Just The Planet is missing a real treasure.

[pnh]

Oops! No, I didn't remotely mean to imply that tie-in books can't be any good. I was referring to the fact that many Nebula voters are deeply prejudiced against them.

In other words, I was saying, this is a known problem, and not particularly the fault of the people who made "World Enough and Time," so yoking the two together is hardly fair.

[scifantasy]

yoking the two together is hardly fair.

Keith did admit in the comments that the problem with the tie-ins is Nebula voters' prejudices, not anything to do with "World Enough..." When last I saw, he and one or two others were floating the idea of a bunch of tie-in writers forming a voting bloc to at least get some tie-ins on the preliminary ballot--ten votes is all you need, as I understand it?

[tychoish]

Melissa Scott has done a couple of Trek books that I keep meaning to check out, and of course Janet Kagan's classic _Uhura's Song_ bears mention.

Am I also correct in the general assumption that that creative process is structured different . The people who pen the books don't always have full control over the outline, the time scales are different, people don't take six months to a year to write a tie in novel? right? I'm not saying this means that the novels are fated to be *worse*, but the operate on a different plane. And creative process by committee, is, well, often tragic. It's also easier to write something nebula grade when you have year(s) to write it, I would think.