The trouble with using Spider's setting is that you'll never be able to post it. Spider smacks down fanfiction set in Callahan's Place almost as fast as Mercedes Lackey does with Valdemar.
The ironic thing about it is that he hates doing it, SAYS so repeatedly, and is often rumored as having said that if the copyright laws in Canada change to match the digital media laws, he'll open up Callahan's Place the way Ann McCaffrey has Pern. (IE, strict rules on what characters you can use, how you can use them, his characters have to stay IN character [no sudden, unexplained changes in sexual orientation, for example], and so on.)
The bit about the copyright laws? Well, I know our Canadian readers are already familiar with it, but for those of us who aren't, I'm told the laws in the Great White North impose a tax per blank tape, blank CD or DVD and so on, over and above the normal sales tax. This tax goes into a fund that supposedly compensates artists for any financial losses incurred by people making home copies of music or movies.
(I've probably screwed up the details, but the general idea is pretty obvious, as are the flaws inherent to the system..)
Getting back to the subject, I've seen at least one story by a favorite author of mine, a Gargoyles author who was contacted directly by Spider, and politely asked to take down one of her stories where one of the Gargoyles drops by Callahan's.
Sad, really, as she was one of the two authors who most encouraged me to start writing Pagliacci as a way of dealing with my mother's death.
Ironically, tho she did as asked and removed the story, I'm told she's still quite happy, as she got to speak with Spider himself.
I'll have to find the page.. she still has the LISTING of the story up, but no link and a notation where the link was, explaining why the story's gone, as it was part of a series and she wanted her fans to understand why there was a hole in the overarching plotline.
Ed.
The ironic thing about it is that he hates doing it, SAYS so repeatedly, and is often rumored as having said that if the copyright laws in Canada change to match the digital media laws, he'll open up Callahan's Place the way Ann McCaffrey has Pern. (IE, strict rules on what characters you can use, how you can use them, his characters have to stay IN character [no sudden, unexplained changes in sexual orientation, for example], and so on.)
The bit about the copyright laws? Well, I know our Canadian readers are already familiar with it, but for those of us who aren't, I'm told the laws in the Great White North impose a tax per blank tape, blank CD or DVD and so on, over and above the normal sales tax. This tax goes into a fund that supposedly compensates artists for any financial losses incurred by people making home copies of music or movies.
(I've probably screwed up the details, but the general idea is pretty obvious, as are the flaws inherent to the system..)
Getting back to the subject, I've seen at least one story by a favorite author of mine, a Gargoyles author who was contacted directly by Spider, and politely asked to take down one of her stories where one of the Gargoyles drops by Callahan's.
Sad, really, as she was one of the two authors who most encouraged me to start writing Pagliacci as a way of dealing with my mother's death.
Ironically, tho she did as asked and removed the story, I'm told she's still quite happy, as she got to speak with Spider himself.
I'll have to find the page.. she still has the LISTING of the story up, but no link and a notation where the link was, explaining why the story's gone, as it was part of a series and she wanted her fans to understand why there was a hole in the overarching plotline.
Ed.