Is Nobody Sacred?

Sitting in the movie theatre waiting for Johnny Depp to appear as Barnabas Collins, various trailers were screeching across the screen. Violent one and all, nothing new there. But when the familiar figure of our most beloved president appeared, I was pulled in–for about 30 seconds. Because after identifying the protagonist, the 16th president known … Read more

The Best Books Of All Time

I asked myself, what does that mean? The best books of all time? Best fiction? Best nonfiction? Both? From what time frame–the beginning of time–do cave drawings count? Books–are plays included, how about poems, religious tomes, children’s books, what languages, the questions were endless, with no definitive answer. The lists I saw ranged from strict … Read more

Second Hand Books UK

Any list of British authors will reveal some of the greatest names in literature, their influence extending well beyond the English-speaking world and crossing cultural borders. William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, Agatha Christie, George Orwell, J. R. R. Tolkien, Ian Fleming and J. K. Rowling are just … Read more

The wonderful, wacky world of fanfic

Think of any relatively book, movie, or TV show.  There is fanfic about it somewhere.  Go type it into a search engine “Your Book of Choice + fanfic”.  You’ll get results.


Fan fiction is basically additional material produced by fans of a media title.  The internet has made it easier than ever to find fanfic of whatever you want.  The newest hottest blockbuster movie, TV show, or book tends to be the easiest to find.  These are of course produced without the original creator’s consent and often take characters in directions that weren’t intended.  New characters get added.  Old annoying characters get killed off in the ways fans dreamed about and never got.  Characters finally hook up with the person they’ve been making gooshy eyes at for the entire series .  Bromance blossoms into actual homosexual romance.  There’s sex scenes that would never get past censors.

Due to the overflowing abundance of fan fiction on the internet, it often seems like a modern online only phenomenon.  But it’s hardly new.  Mainstream publishers snap up fan fiction of books that have fallen out of copyright.  There’s at least 20 books put out by mainstream presses that are spin off’s of Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice that are sequels, prequels, retellings from a different perspective, or just downright weird retellings.  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is one of the best known current ones.

Read more