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Silvered-glass
Lorien
May 22, 8:56am
Post #2 of 8
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Rings of Power already had such bad and nonsensical writing that I would find it more surprising if it secretly hadn't been written by an AI...
Anyway, I once happened upon this example where someone set an AI to write Tolkien fanfiction:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/39071013
The jumbled timeline, the confused geography, and the general lack of sense and consistency all give me that Rings of Power feel.
(As for myself, I've mentioned before on this forum that I'm trying to write a sequel novel. The sequel might be very unlikely to be ever be properly completed, but in any case there will have absolutely no AI text generation involved. I will also respect the timeline in the Appendices. I think being too safe and predictable isn't being genuinely respectful of Tolkien and his writing style, so there will be some pretty radical plot twists. Currently I'm working to improve and expand the synopsis, as I've found out that the top-down approach works the best for me.)
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AshNazg
Grey Havens
May 22, 12:56pm
Post #3 of 8
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I'd be interested to read it.
If you enjoy writing, you should try your hand at finishing Aldarion and Erendis. I've always wondered how that story ends.
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Asger
Rivendell
May 22, 7:48pm
Post #4 of 8
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AI is going to do my writing and art so I can use my time on doing the dishes and laundry. I’d like AI to do my dishes and laundry so I can use my time on art and writing
"Don't take life seriously, it ain't nohow permanent!" Pogo
www.willy-centret.dk
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Asger
Rivendell
May 22, 7:53pm
Post #5 of 8
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If you enjoy writing, you should try your hand at finishing Aldarion and Erendis. I've always wondered how that story ends. I once wrote a few chapters on both Amandils older brother Elentir and Elendils youngest son Herendil, both fascinating characters only mentioned once each in very few lines. Fun doing!
"Don't take life seriously, it ain't nohow permanent!" Pogo
www.willy-centret.dk
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Silvered-glass
Lorien
May 24, 5:58am
Post #6 of 8
(1104 views)
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Aldarion and Erendis continuation
[In reply to]
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I did a reread of Aldarion and Erendis based on your words, and I think Christopher included enough notes that it's pretty clear how the story would have developed. Completing the story would require filling in all the minor details (such as Soronto's characterization and how exactly Erendis died) and putting it all in good prose. I don't see myself as being up to the task. Completing Aldarion and Erendis would indeed be "simpler" than writing a sequel to The Lord of the Rings, but the effort would play to my weaknesses.
(I also figured out something that could result in an essay post in the Reading Room forum about the surprising true villain of Aldarion and Erendis, but it's going to take a while.)
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jun 6, 12:10pm
Post #7 of 8
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Lawyers Ho! And what will fans do?
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Publishing unauthorised sequels to Tolkien's copyright work tends to be expensive (if the copyright owners thinks the infringer is acting commercially -- they seem to tollerate amateur fanfic, but of course could choose to stop doing that at any point).
But I'm recalling a much earlier episode, from the 1960s. Other forum members probbaly know this story much better than I do, but here is a brief account from a (now defunct) page at the Tolkien Society (now on web archive):
[1n 1965] Ace Books in the United States published an unauthorised edition. The Fellowship came out in May 1965, the other two volumes in July. 150,000 copies were printed of each volume! The main text was reset, and introduced new errors, but the appendices were reproduced photographically, and thus contained only the errors already there. Ace Books were exploiting a copyright loophole which meant they did not have to pay Tolkien or his publishers any royalties. Houghton Mifflin appears to have imported too many copies, and the notice they contain, 'Printed in Great Britain' meant that the texts were deemed to be in the public domain in the United States. There was a campaign against Ace, who, as a result, agreed to pay royalties, and not to print any more copies. What I'm thinking about was that the 'campaign' mentioned in the last sentence was a grassroots one. It was Tolkien's American fans who rejected the pirate edition, such that Ace had to settle. As I say, other forum members will know more. But my understanding is that as a 1960s American Tolkien fan you were socially dead to have the Ace edition, from which Tolkien got nothing.
To me, there are similarities between the get away with whatever you can to make money attitude it looks like Ace took there, and the situation with AI now. AI, too, is basically a parasite of work done elsewhere - it has to be 'trained' on large data sets of material made by humans, usually where nobody has licenced the copyright to their work and it has just been taken because it can be.
So I wonder whether fan history will repeat itself. Will fans mostly side with official Tolkien against the unauthorised stuff?
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Jun 6, 7:03pm
Post #8 of 8
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I wouldn't equate the Ace action with fanfiction. Ace was a big publisher who made a greedy corporate decision to infringe on copyright, whereas fanfic is, by definition I believe, grassroots in nature and written by non-corporate Average Janes and Average Joes, who may or may not expect any money. While plenty of fans of any author/movie/etc deplore fanfic, plenty of other fans actually write and promote it, so there's a division in the ranks of fandom, whereas if Elon Musk started pirating Tolkien characters to serialize as smutty romances on Twitter for a subscription, I think there'd be fan unity against Big Corporate Greed.
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