INTERVIEW: John Varley

Actually, I've been trying to get in touch w/ the Exeter people for quite a while now. I've sent 'em 2 emails in the last month asking 'em for interviews, but haven't heard back.

I even went so far to post here http://www.starshippolaris.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18282&page=11 to troll for people who might be able to put us in contact with them.

"So it's a mixed bag. For every "Star Trek: The New Voyages/Phase II" you get, there are a hundred "Turkish Star Trek" episodes, you know?"

The same is true for 'original' fiction. Ninety-some-odd percent of *everything* is crap.

(Check out Starship Exeter. Most faithful recreation of TOS-era Trek, IMHO.)

I've read most of his books, he deserved those awards he won. Also, consider that most of his short fiction was written away back in the 70s, when he was just blowing the doors off of his competition in that department.

But, yes, it is entirely possible to write good stuff that launches from other people's work. I disagee with him there to an extent, but not entirely. Take a look at the Bond books that Ian Flemming wrote, then compare them to the endless John Gardner novels - crap. Yeah, it's updated for the 'modern era' but still: crap.

On the other hand, look at the Oz books - Baum died after writing like 18 or 19 of 'em, and Ruth Plumelly Thompson took over, and wrote like 20 or 22, and her books were (Generally) better than Baum's originals. Then after she died, other people started writing 'em, and those are pretty much terrible. And of course by then the copyright was lost, so anyone who wanted to could wright an Oz story, so suddenly you had a spate of hardcore Oz pornography coming out, and even that weird Heinlein hommage to Oz in "The Number of the Beast." If Bob couldn't really do it justice - and he legitimately loved those books as a kid - I'm thinking the spark of inspiration has been lost.

So it's a mixed bag. For every "Star Trek: The New Voyages/Phase II" you get, there are a hundred "Turkish Star Trek" episodes, you know?

"He [Varley] was saying he didn't understand the drive to use *other* people's characters. "

Yes, his lack of imagination was what I was put off by. Maybe he should read "Le Morte d'Arthur" or "The Wind Done Gone." Too taxing? He could watch a Disney film festival.

Building upon the works of others is the basis for creativity. Sure, it can be done poorly, but it can also be done sublimely. Get the government-granted monopolies out of the way and let's cull the best of them.

Oh, no, I don't count those. Firstly, nothing ever got written down, secondly the point was not to make Brisco and Jim West kiss or anything like that, and thirdly, it was a mind experiment to see how a couple dead franchises could be relaunched while retaining the continuity of both.

It was pretty gay, though, in retrospect. Not in a Torchwood kind of way, I mean just in the embarasingly silly sense of the word.

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No, I've not done anything like that- unless you call our Brisco County/Wild Wild West mashup/blueskying fanfic....

I specifically stated spec scripts are exempt. That's a legitimate attempt to fill a need and do business n' stuff. It's not just writing stories about making Kaylee and Inara kiss.

The TOS/1999 crossover you wrote definitely counts as fanfic, but you were what, like ten when you did that? I used to work my own name in to Hardy Boys books when I was that age - we all do horribly embarasing stuff like that when we're young. I think you're off the hook, there.

It's not like you've done anything like that since, right?

The DS9 script I wrote wasn't fanfic; it was an actual unsolicited submission. A complete script... not a pitch.

(I wonder if I still have it. We might run it as original fiction; except it isn't... )

I'm referring to the infamous grade-school epic where the original crew of the Enterprise encountered the Space:1999 folk.

Well, I think there are different levels of fanfic. ("Fanficery?" "Fanfickery?")

F'rinstance, there's a difference between "Wanting to play in someone else's garden" and simply wanting to continue the adventures of classic characters. In the first case, you want to - let's say - tell stories exploring Larry Niven's Known Space universe; in the latter case you want to actually *write* your own Beowulf Schaefer stories set in Known space. There's a difference there.

Or to put it in a fan-film perspective: Telling original stories involving original characters set in the Trekiverse is kind of like Starship Exeter http://www.starshipexeter.com/ while telling new stories involving the established characters of the trekiverse is yet another, sort of like the Phase II peopel are doing http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/

And then telling stories where a thinly-veiled version of the author turns up and saves the day, and all the established characters fall in to his/her orbit is yet another, and the lowest circle of fanfic hell is unquestionably shipping and slash.

Sad.

Conversely, I don't think coming up with your own idea for an episode, and then writing it up as a pitch for the producers counts as fanfic.

"While I've never written any fanfic, I've been tempted to do so."

I have. But I've never written slashfic or a Mary Sue story.

rb2

Varley wasn't saying he had a problem revisiting his own characters and settings - he's done it a lot: his 8 Worlds series is sprawling and interconnected, and his "Thunder and Lighting" and "Gaia" trilogy are obviously picking up where the previosu book in that series left off.

He was saying he didn't understand the drive to use *other* people's characters. He's never felt compelled to write a Captain Kirk story, for instance (And he once told me they offered him a Trek move in the 80s, but he turned it down), or a Known Space story or what have you.

I'm not sure I agree. While I've never written any fanfic, I've been tempted to do so.

"I can’t imagine why anyone would want to use somebody else’s characters to make a story or a film."

Putting aside, say, the Thieves Guild, Berserker, Known Space, and ten or twenty other series... many, if not most, genre authors like to revisit at least their own worlds. The reason is simple: you don't have to spend a lot of time introducing the place and characters.

An author who can't bring himself to acknowledge that fact is either disingenuous or so steeped in the current copyright quagmire that his fingers should be pruning.

If you're a writer, I imagine you'd have some respect for other people's characters, and expect other writers to have some for your own. The idea of playing with someone else's stock character could seem dauntingly intimate, in addition to hackneyed.

Varley says he'd rather use someone else's toothbrush, but I myself was comparing it to borrowing someone else's underwear - you just don't want to do it.

I think the 'legal obligatons' arose from that consideration.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that.
(No offense, there are some days that I just don't "get it"..)

Half very interesting interview, half subject-concerned-about-legal-obligations.