There are only 2-3 fic authors out there who I can read (the rest of the genre almost literally gives me hives - even if it's really well written, I just can't for some reason), and even then most fandoms don't interest me all that much, so I read fic about once a year.

I'll make exceptions for pure comedy (which hits me in a different place than serious fic writing) and premises too intriguing to pass up (like that one Aubrey/Maturin where they were in space and Jack turned into a woman for some reason? yeah, that kind of premise).

I'll only read fic on someone's recommendation; sometimes I'll like it, sometimes I won't. Wicked (the book) made me a little cranky (did love the musical, though). I get unreasonably angry about the portrayal of Eeyore in the Tao of Pooh. If Brian Herbert's prequels to Dune count as fic, I certainly hate those (I hate them no matter what, but that may or may not be relevant. So it's a dicey area for me to poke into.

OTOH, I am like Sophia when it comes to mystery and scifi authors - I'll come upon one book I like and feel compelled to find d read everything else by that writer. It's almost inevitable that I'll eventually read something that is disappointing or that I'll out and out hate. So, not exactly safer.

If Brian Herbert's prequels to Dune count as fic, I certainly hate those (I hate them no matter what, but that may or may not be relevant.

If they're fic, they can't be canon, right? So yeah, I vote we count them as unfuckingbelievably bad fanfic.

like that one Aubrey/Maturin where they were in space and Jack turned into a woman for some reason?

That's two different stories, though they're part of the same series by the same author.

I do think fanfic as a term carries with a connotation of something that's not written for a profit, though. I'm trying to think of the fancy word given to stuff like Wicked and the Jane Austen spinoffs, and not coming up with it, though.

Wicked and the Jane Austen spinoffs

Also Wide Sargasso Sea. Basically.

I'm trying to think of the fancy word given to stuff like Wicked and the Jane Austen spinoffs, and not coming up with it, though.

Well, there's a whole long literary tradition of basically writing fic and there's been a ton of it in the last twenty years.

The first one I can think of is The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys which tells the story of Rochester's wife.

But there's been Ahab's Wife and Foe (Robinson Crusoe from the pov of Friday), Updike's rewrite of The Scarlet Letter etc. etc.

Yeah, Wide Sargasso Sea, H (which was a novel of Heathcliff's lost years) -- there are a lot of them. I think the literary community, since most of them usually deal with classics or the canon in one way or another, usually call them "reimaginings" or something.

So then what is fic? Is it anything that isn't written by the original author? Whatabout once an author is dead but stuff is still "published" by her like V.C. Andrews?

I think in order to be fanfic, it has to be written outside the source material's canon, and probably without official approval. So I'd say the VC Andrews novels written by other people don't count because they're still an official part of the series. But Pride and Prejudice and Zombies definitely does.

(The Dune prequels are fuzzy because they're supposedly being written based on Frank Herbert's notes (I guess the notes he wrote while HIGH ON CRACK) and obviously his estate holds the copyright to the original works and is behind the prequels and they're meant to be a part of the official canonical Dune universe, but ZOMG THEY ARE UNREADABLE DRECK AND I HATE THEM SO MUCH. Sure, Chapterhouse had it's issues, but at least it didn't make stupid mistakes about the main character's freaking origin story.)

t /Dunerant

I'm trying to think of the fancy word given to stuff like Wicked and the Jane Austen spinoffs, and not coming up with it, though.

Pastiche?