fan characters in SFF

[Carolyn Hill]

Do you like SFF in which characters who are fans of SFF appear--either characters based on real people who happen to be fans, or completely imaginary characters who are depicted as fans? I particularly enjoy SFF with scenes set at conventions or other places fans typically gather, and I get a kick out of plots that feature fans banding together to accomplish some essential purpose.

A few examples:

Niven, Pournelle, and Flynn's Fallen Angels, in which science fiction fans unite to rescue astronauts in a future United States that has banned almost all technology.

Rosemary Edghill's The Bowl of Night, in which Klingon Wiccas (!) and other fannish neopagans help solve a murder that occurs at a Hallowfest.

Niven and Barnes's Dream Park, in which RPG fans compete in a futuristic game park that allows them to play their roles "for real."

Can you think of other examples of fancentric SFFiction?

(Now, back to my navel gazing . . . )

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

Interesting question - of those books mentioned I've only read Dream Park by Niven & Barnes but it hadn't occured to me to class them as "fans" as such.

I suppose another may be the Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg where a group of college role-players 'pass out' during a role-playing session run by an enigmatic professor and wake up in the world they were role-playing as the characters they had created!

It was a good series too, btw

 

[hermi-nomi]

I can't think of too many books that I've read where the plot revolves around fandom some how, but I am in the middle of reading a book called Codex (by Lev Grossman) and there's a scene where the main character, who tries very hard to eb successful and cool follows his slighty geeky mate to a party. The party turns out to be an allnighter. At least 30 gamers gatecrash someones office and set up an online roleplaying game ~ complete with realworld features such as vibrating seats and smoke machines The game somehow ties in with the story, but I haven't finished reading it yet.

Now I'm not an online gamer but I did join in with Farcry one night at an allnighter at the local internet cafe, and the author describes a similiar atmosphere to what I experienced (although alot more sophisticated) and I got a kick out of reading that in a book.

Convention attendees tend to get alot of ...not bad press, but, you know what I mean ~ we're not all overweight singletons nursing a beer and a Klingon phrase book (though it is handy.) Fandom is bigger, and widerspread and more common than people might give us credit for. If modern fiction can be based around highflying London execs and fashinistas, why not fandom? I'd liek to see more of these sorts of boos

 

[chrispenycate]

Though, apart from the "Fallen Angels" I can't think of a story based round fen, (although Mercedes Lackey has a short set in a writers convention), but numerous authors use their fans' names for their characters. There is even a group who get "red shirted"; killed off in the book (apparently if anyone appeared in a red shirt in Star trek, you could guarantee he would't last the episode; as the majority I saw were in black and white, I can't comment)

 

[Carolyn Hill]

Mercedes Lackey has a short set in a writers convention

That sounds interesting! Do you remember the name of the short story?

numerous authors use their fans' names for their characters. There is even a group who get "red shirted"

Yes, I've heard about that and am hoping you or other threaders can cite titles and names for those sort of cases. (Chrispenycate, I'm counting on your brain here. )

 

[chrispenycate]

I think the Misty story was "Satanic, versus…" (from the "Werehunter" collection, with "S'Kitty", though I could be wrong. Anyway it was a "Diana Tregard" story.

Tuckerization
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Tuckerization is the act of using a person's name in an original story as an in-joke (i.e. Mount Kirby in Kurt Busiek's Astro City comics). The term is derived from Wilson Tucker, a science fiction writer of the 1950s-1970s, who made a practice of using his friends' names for minor characters in his stories. A tuckerization can also be the use of a person's character or personal attributes with a new name as an in-joke (i.e. Ian Arnstein in S.M. Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time trilogy, clearly modeled on his good friend Harry Turtledove, albeit an alternate history Turtledove).

Many science fiction authors auction off tuckerizations at science fiction conventions with the proceeds going to charity.

Related to it is redshirting, where the character named after the real person is killed in some way. Many authors consider tuckerization and redshirting interchangeable; 'redshirted' characters do not necessarily die.

I dicovered the "redshirting" perversion on the Baen site, but checking it out found none of the references; they'd sunk into obscurity. Still, I remember that one guy, either a Baen employee or closely associated, had been killed off in more than twenty books, by several different authors. Indeed, when his name appears, the cognocenti start trying to work out when and how he will be butchered. Unfortunately, I can't remember said name, but if I come across it (Joe Buckley? Yes, here we go The character of "Joe Buckley" is partly an in-joke around Baen; on the discussion boards (Baen's Bar: http://bar.baen.com ) the real-life Joe Buckley once annoyed one of the authors, who took revenge by killing Joe in a grisly fashion in his next book. This began a sort of contest with the authors to see who could kill Joe in the most spectacular manner. Eric and I decided we'd do the opposite; put Joe through a wringer, but leave him alive. Joe's tendency to find unusual and spectacular forms of peril, however, was inspired by James Nicoll, a well-known Usenet personality who is famous for his tales of near-death experiences.

But Louis McMaster Bujold asked her fans to lend her their names, for use in her "Hallowed Hunt", without specifying the roles they would receive (no, of course I didn't. Who could believe in a universe containing a Penycate?) and I've heard that using minor modifications of the name of an aquaintance can make a character more solid in the mind of an author, though this is less of the "I have to have this book, cause I'm in it, even if it's not me" mentality.

Sufficient for now? Brain somewhat worn

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I love that Hallowfest wicca convention in The Bowl of Night -- especially the way the characters struggle to be open-minded about the Klingons, because it's the pagan way to be tolerant and inclusive, and yet ... well, they are dressing up as Klingons at a religious festival.

But speaking of Rosemary Edghill, she wrote a short story about a strange encounter at an SF convention for Tarot Fantastic, "The Intersection of Anastasia Yeoman and Light."

There are a few books set at SCA or SCA-type events (not exactly SFF-fandom, but a group with a significant overlap). The only one of these that I've read was Murder at the War, which is pretty entertaining if you know the world the author is describing, but I found the ending seriously annoying (not the resolution of the mystery itself, but the way all the characters react afterward).

 

[Carolyn Hill]

Sufficient for now? Brain somewhat worn

Excellent! You really earn the "pedantissimo" portion of your signature.