hypatia
Regular
Please feel free to delete this thread if it's inappropriate. But I know some folks here do like and read the B5 books, and don't necessarily visit the moderated JMS board regularly.
Have you folks seen what has exploded there? In the "An Open Plea To Mr. Straczynski" thread?
Just to cut to the chase, it seems Mongoose publishing wants to publish some B5 novels. Claiming cooperation from JMS, and to be working from outlines from JMS, a small nuclear bomb went off.
I'm including some ofJMS's quotes here from his post this morning. The bottom line is: JMS is not endorsing this project at all. He is, rather kindly I think, calling them fan fiction.
Have you folks seen what has exploded there? In the "An Open Plea To Mr. Straczynski" thread?
Just to cut to the chase, it seems Mongoose publishing wants to publish some B5 novels. Claiming cooperation from JMS, and to be working from outlines from JMS, a small nuclear bomb went off.
I'm including some ofJMS's quotes here from his post this morning. The bottom line is: JMS is not endorsing this project at all. He is, rather kindly I think, calling them fan fiction.
This is public because you have been making
public claims about my involvement, which led fans of B5 to ask me about it in a public manner, to which I responded.
So you were planning to use my scripts, without so much as informing
me, and pillage my notes online, which are incidentally my property, as
the basis for your novels.
Lovely.
Meaning by adapting my scripts, without telling me. Are you aware that when someone adapts someone else's scripts there generally has to be some kind of arrangement made, plus something as cordial as, oh, I don't know...telling the person who wrote those scripts that you're
DOING it?
Let me make something as clear as I possibly can.
This is not about money, not about The Deal, not about a free trip to
England.
First, this is about being honest with the fans. I have worked very
hard, since the very inception of Babylon 5, to always be as straight
as humanly possible with them, because the one thing about the truth is
that it always comes out, one way or another. Everything I say is
archived...if I prevaricate, if I lie, if I misrepresent, those words
are sitting there, waiting to be used as a bludgeon...a blunt
instrument that I willingly created for that very reason.
To date they have not been used in that way. Because I have always
been as straight with the fans as anyone mortal can be. Even when the
darkest hours came, and very few would believe me about how and why
Claudia left, time passed and sure enough the words I posted online
were shown to be true by her own comments made in the aftermath,
sometimes years later.
My involvement with the so-called B5 novels from Mongoose has been
mis-stated and misrepresented, and the conduct of pillaging my scripts
and posts without my knowledge or permission is dubious at best,
dishonorable at worst.
Second, and most important of all...this is about what drove the
creation of Babylon 5 in the first place: an attempt to ensure a
certain quality of storytelling within the framework of a consistent
universe. The first Dell books were not what they should have been
because they tended to operate outside canon; so steps were taken to
bring the Del Rey books into canon, working closely with the publisher,
and the fans across the board agree that those novels were better than
those which preceded them.
That is how we have dealt with every single licensee to date...with the
exception of this situation, and these books, which brings to mind the
following point:
You have also stated that these books are "100% canon." No, they are
not. Because for something to be canon means not that they have been
researched, but that the events described therein will be referenced
elsewhere, that they will be viewed as "having happened" in the B5
universe...as the Del Rey novels, and my own short B5 stories, are
canon. Things referenced in those stories can show up in any future B5
films or TV projects because they *happened* in our story, in this
universe.
The events in the Mongoose books do not fit this criteria. They are
licensed B5 fan fiction, nothing more, nothing less. And lots of folks
like that stuff, and that's all to the good.
But do not say that they are "100% canon."
And I have no desire to become involved with these novels, and will not
endorse them. It ain't the money, it ain't the Deal...I am for rent,
but I am not for sale, because I have an obligation to the viewers of
this show to be consistent and to always work for the utmost quality in
our storytelling within the framework of a consistent universe.
If you want to create a pocket universe, feel free. But it's got
nothing to do with the B5 universe insofar as I am concerned.
And leave my scripts and my notes out of it. I do not approve their
use.
This conversation is at an end.
jms