OTW Blog & LEGO M.A.S.K.

[jimhines]

Goblin Tales [Amazon | B&N | Lulu] picked up reviews at SciFiChick (“This must-read collection…”) and Romantic Times (“…a fabulous introduction to Hines’ writing, his world of goblins, and his world of Libriomancy all in one — who can pass up a 3-fer?”)

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A month or so back, I was invited to write a guest blog post for the Organization for Transformative Works. Here’s a sneak peek:

I’ve seen the whole spectrum of opinions, from “Fanfiction is the Devil’s Prose!” to “Fanfiction is so much better than that commercial dreck.” I don’t buy either view. Fanfiction is fanfiction. Some is brilliant. Some is abysmal. Fanfic authors sometimes get criticized for not writing commercially, but that makes as little sense as criticizing a fantasy author for not writing fortune cookies. For most of us, we write what we love, and we do it because we love it.

Full post is here.

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Finally, does anyone else remember M.A.S.K., an 80s cartoon and toy line about vehicles and buildings with hidden weapons, concealed mini-vehicles, and also lots of masks? Orion Pax (the same individual who built a transforming Optimus Prime from LEGO) has been working on LEGO M.A.S.K., including a working version of Boulder Hill, the good guys’ HQ.

We had these toys! I remember playing with this set. This blows my mind. Click here or the thumbnails for the full photo set.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Comments

[bodlon]

I disagree with some of OTW's platform, but I'm always really glad to see them getting positive attention from published authors.

So, er, good show you.

[jimhines]

Which part(s) of their platform, if you don't mind me prying?

[bodlon]

I'm really, very firmly a fan of their platform on transformative works as acceptable speech which should be legal and acceptable, but I feel uncomfortable with the way they identify the fannish community as "predominantly female" in their values statement.

I mean, certainly some quarters are, but I think that enshrining it in the way they do sort of exacerbates some things in terms of fanwork being pigeonholed, and making the community awkward for male-identified and genderqueer members. I think that the fannish community would be more diverse (as per one of the other values in their statement) if we were actually as progressive in action as we try to say we are.