Bookshots: 'fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World' by Anne Jamison

Bookshots: Pumping new life into the corpse of the book review

Title:

fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World

Who wrote it?

Anne Jamison, author and Phd in Comparative Literature. Her work has been quoted in such publications as the NY Review of Books.

Plot in a Box:

The rise and rise of fanfiction through the ages, from Sherlock Holmes to the 'net-enabled explosion of fan writing today.

Invent a new title for this book:

Fanfiction: The Ascendance of a Literary Underground

Read this is you liked:

Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet  by Karen Hellekson

The Democratic Genre: Fan Fiction in a Literary Context by Sheenagh Pugh

Meet the book’s lead(s):

Every cult character you can think of: Dr. Spock, Buffy, Mulder and Scully and...er, My Little Pony?

Said lead(s) would be portrayed in a movie by:

I'm sure the fan writers would prefer the actors who made the characters famous, but they'd probably have to settle for cheaper, more desperate options. As for cartoon characters... yeah.

Setting: Would you want to live there?

Thinking of one of fanfiction's biggest success stories, E.L. James' Fifty Shades... and the sleek, sexy world of kinky billionaire Christian Grey, not sure if I'd want to live there, but I'd be up for a flying visit.

What was your favorite sentence?

Writers write in solitude. Fanfiction writers write with an entire cheer squad behind them.

The Verdict:

With fic, Jamison has written the absolute Bible for devotees of fan writing. (Is there such a thing as biblical fan writing? Adam and Eve and Zombies?) The 474 page book is chock-a-block full of interviews, excerpts, screenshots and photos. She charts the beginnings of fanfiction, including an in-depth look at Sherlock Holmes, all the way to the state of 'net based fanfiction today. All the worlds of fan writing are explored: slasher, kink, mash-up, real people, erotic, homo-erotic, feminist, as well as its burgeoning presence in Eastern cultures. She discusses what motivates these writers, what draws them together and what tears them apart (this is a world with a lot of community feeling, a lot of dynamism and a LOT of in-fighting). Recent publishing successes have drawn more attention to fan writing, while raising issues such as copyright infringement and intellectual property law. Authors such as Jonathan Lethem discuss new challenges the fic world faces.

Jamison is deeply enmeshed in the fanfiction world. She's taught classes on Buffy, Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, and has, by her own admission, written more than 40,000 words of Sherlock Holmes fic. She's definitely well-placed to give an insider's view on the topic. What we don't get in fic, however, is the outsider's view. How does the rest of the world view fanfiction and its devotees? How much of a percentage of the writing in any of its sub-genres would the average reader find to be enjoyable and well-executed?

Whether or not you're interested in writing or reading fanfiction, fic is an important book. As one author states, "Fanfiction and its media have already changed the way people are writing, reading, finding and thinking about stories. It won't change back."