Poll: Glorified fanfiction?

[retsuko]

Last night, when I was at book group, I found myself looking at the shelf of "show spin-off" style books and wondering how to deal with the content in them. For example, if I bought an "Angel" novel, would I treat the information included within as canon in the Buffy universe? If yebisu9 reads the Timothy Zahn "Terminator" prequel, can he expect to see characters/information/plot elements turn up in the forthcoming movie? (And, if they do, was it really an original idea of Zahn's, or something he was paid to include?) And do these works become part of the overall canon mythology of a creative work, if they're not written by the original author(s)? Or are they just glorified, officially sanctioned fanfiction? I'm sure Lee Goldberg would have his own ideas, but I wanted to hear yours.

[Poll #1388685]

For the record, I'm not talking here about "The Story of the Movie!" books here; I'm talking about character-driven novels such as Splinter of the Mind's Eye (an excellent book that I am happy to consider Star Wars canon). Does quality have a part to play in this as well?

Comments

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

I tend to think that 'canon' is fluid once a particular source becomes very popular. For some fandoms, at least those that endure, decades from now, some fanfic may end up being seen as part of the canon in as much as it will be a part of what everybody knows about the overall story or of what people need to know in order to understand how people interact with the story.

I agree with you on this wholeheartedly, but I cannot think of an example where this is true...