Canon is really important to us here in the 1632 universe because even if you “just” look at the writers who are currently actively writing or planning stories and novels, that is still generally coordinating at least a couple of dozen authors with different backgrounds, knowledge bases, and goals for their story. Everyone wants the best for the universe, to be clear. But their character and story goals may vary wildly, as may their real-world knowledge and their knowledge of the 1632verse. So, canon matters, and defining what is canon matters.
Our basic stance is that everything is canon, but to varying degreees. Primary, essentially unchangeable canon belongs to things published by Baen, with hardbacks having precedence over paperbacks which have precedence over ebook-only. Then Ring of Fire Press books, which at this point are mostly either being republished by Baen as ebook only publications or are no longer available. A small number have been self-published on Amazon. Magazine stories (Grantville Gazette and 1632 & Beyond) have been considered provisionally canon, meaning mainline Baen novels can contradict them. In reality, great effort has been made to ensure the two streams don’t cross in any meaningful way.
With all of that said about how everything is canon, this is fiction, people are human, and sometimes mistakes happen or things are overlooked. Sometimes it’s a detail, like one Virginia notes below about a person being somewhere they shouldn’t be. Sometimes it provides an opportunity for a story. One of the driving forces for my novel Mrs. Flannery’s Flowers is my extreme irritation that in over 20 years of writing, not a single writer had mentioned stashes of crafting supplies! In West Virginia! Impossible! When I mentioned it to them, they all looked a bit sheepish and admitted they did remember seeing such things around. So, I wrote a whole novel to establish they existed and exactly why it was no one talked about or saw them.
Apologies, I didn’t copy the date and time this was originally posted.
– Bethanne (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine)
[Again – sorry I didn’t get the date and time]
Years ago, I realized I couldn’t possibly keep up with everything being written in the 1632 series. Keep in mind that while the 1632 series is by far the single largest project I work on, it’s less than half of my output as a writer. So I stopped trying to keep up with the magazine, unless there was a story that the editors specifically asked me to look at. The editors — first Cheryl, then Paula, and now Walt — run the magazine, not me. I just pay the bills. (Which, by the way, IS the proper role for a magazine publisher. The only editorial decision a magazine publisher should make is who the editor is. After that, butt out.)
By and large — actually, with very few exceptions — what the editors approve in the way of stories fits well enough with the way I think the series needs to unfold that there are no problems, or if they are, they’re usually quite minor. But now and then something that’s been published in the Gazette needs to be reworked pretty extensively. I’m no exception to that, by the way. “The Anaconda Project,” which was entirely written by me, was originally serialized in the Gazette many years ago. I broke it off once I realized I was getting ahead of myself, and that material sat in limbo for almost fifteen years before it resurfaced as the first part of 1637: THE POLISH MAELSTROM. I’m not sure how much actual rewriting I had to do, but I certainly had to recast it.
Basically, here’s how I look at it. Anything that’s published in the electronic magazine is provisionally canon. Unless an issue arises, it can be regarded as such. But a story doesn’t get fully canonized until and unless it appears in a paper edition of the Gazette issued by Baen or in one of the volumes published by Ring of Fire Press. That’s because I _do_ get involved directly at that point. No story goes into a Baen edition of the Gazette or an RoF Press volume unless I’ve read it and approved it. And sometimes — not often, but it does happen — I need the author to rewrite something to make it fit properly within the series.
It this coarse and crude reality offends someone, I can only shrug my shoulders and say: “Okay, genius, YOU create and co-ordinate a series for two decades that winds up producing dozens of novels and anthologies of short fiction written by somewhere around 200 authors that never develops any glitches or dropped stitches. Then you can come back and natter at me about it. Until then… A) What part of the word ‘fiction’ are you having the most trouble with? And, B) GET A LIFE.”
(Yes, I know that’s rude. Sue me.)
Virginia DeMarce:
Also, there are occasional minor glitches that slip past, so we have to chew on them and find explanations. As an example, in one book, Duke Albrecht of Bavaria’s sons got safely removed from Amberg to Bamberg when Bavaria was invading the Oberpfalz; in another, one of the airships had to fly to Amberg to get them and take them to Munich, leaving their tutor Vervaux to get back to Bavaria by horseback if he wanted to (Ottoman Onslaught).
I’m still working on an explanation for that one as it may apply to a story about the USE Normal School in Amberg 🙂
Sometimes Eric, upon appeal, says to just ignore one or the other minor conflict (which he kindly did in regard to the one accidental appearance of Erik Stenbock in Ottoman Onslaught, Chapter 8, considering that Stenbock never showed up again or had anything to do with the action in that book, whereas he was quite busy in another one).
In a pinch, appeal for a decision from on high.
More on Canon
11 February 2020 17:22
I think of the stories and articles published in the magazine as “provisional canon.” Their fully canon status doesn’t get established until and unless they get reissued in one of the paper anthologies, but in the meantime they get treated as canon until and unless someone can demonstrate that they clearly conflict with something already established.
Moving the paper edition Gazettes from Baen to RoFP is a bad idea. The Gazette (magazine and anthologies both) play a central role in maintaining the fan base of the 1632 series. At one time or another, hundreds of people have participated in writing stories and articles for the magazine, including people who just submitted and even people who are just thinking about it. Each one of those people in turn has an impact on people around them — and over twenty years those people ALSO have an impact on people they know.
There’s no way to quantify this, but one fact is established: No series in the history of F&SF — or any genre, so far as I know — has been able to sustain a professional magazine for thirteen years based purely on a literary property. A few — very few — have managed to do it based on media properties. I think to a considerable degree that’s based on the success of the magazine itself.
“Demoting” the Gazettes from Baen to RoFP editions would undercut all that. In any event, there’s a transitional step — that might not be transitional at all in terms of the publishing house — that Baen can always take, which is to start issuing the Gazette anthologies in trade paperback instead of hardcover.
A Bit More
20 November 2018 04:56
The issue isn’t whether it’s “Tech” or “Slush.” Fact articles published in the Gazette are not part of canon until and unless they appear in a story — and even then it’s provisional. I leave the magazine to its editors. As the publisher, I just pay the bills. I only get involved when one of two things happens: Baen Books decides to do another anthology of stories from the Gazette or we decide to have something that originally appeared in the Gazette get reissued (usually after being extensively expanded and rewritten) through Ring of Fire Press. That’s the point at which I get directly involved in the editing process. I do the final selection of the anthology stories and I’ll sign off on anything published through RoF Press. It doesn’t happen often, but I have required something to be rewritten because the original Gazette version didn’t fit into the “canon” as conceived in the Mind of God, which is, ah, me.
I might point out that the Mind of God has been known to correct itself, from time to time. I have, on rare occasions, rewritten some of my own “canon” when it became clear that God goofed. There are, for instance, three different versions of 1632:
1) The original hardcover edition
2) The mass market paperback, wherein I rewrote two Julie Sims shooting scenes that I’d screwed up in the original edition.
3) The second hardcover (leather-bound) edition, where I corrected several fairly minor errors of various kinds.
I say this because I sometimes find that “canon” as perceived by some enthusiasts has a rigidity and ontological certainty that it does not in fact possess. We’re writing fiction here, which means all of this is STUFF WE MADE UP.
Sometimes the discussions of “canon” here remind me of Megan Kelly insisting that Santa Claus is a white man.
Final note:
31 August 2018 01:49
Sometimes I get a little worried reading these posts. Y’all do realize this stuff is completely made up, right?
