Needing examples of fantasy . . .

[Shail]

Can y'all help me out. I'm stuck.

I want to research examples of fantasy series that were written by multiple authors, i.e. Star Wars, and the Halo Novel series.

Anybody know of some good examples besides the two mentioned? Yes, its for writing.

[K_Woods]

Sounds like what you're looking for are shared world series. Here's a few off the top of my head, not all of which are fantasy:

Thieves' World -- edited by Lynn Abbey, but be aware these are short story collections. All of the authors submitting stories are working with the same setting, though
Dungeons & Dragons -- they put out a LOT of fiction, and there's a lot of authors
Battletech -- not fantasy, unless you argue that mecha taller than a suburban house is getting into the realm of the fantastical ;)
Star Trek -- again, not fantasy per se

Some libraries put shared world fiction all together in one location on the SF/F shelves, others (like my nearest one) don't. Not all libraries are created equal, either -- if you're in a large urban or metropolitan area, I'd say your odds are better for finding a variety of series and authors. Take a look.

Otherwise, head to your nearest large bookstore and see what's on their shelves. I think it's standard for them to place the multiauthor series/shared world fiction clumped together next to the rest of the SF/F.

[Shail]

Ah! Thank you. I knew they were called something, but the term escaped me. Thanks.

[ChaosTitan]

Many of these (especially the Star Trek, Star Wars, and Halo novels, as well as others who deal with a licensed product) are also called work-for-hire. The authors are contracted to write stories that adhere to specific outlines pre-approved by the licenser.

[K_Woods]

The other thing about work-for-hire that I've heard (I don't have any actual experience) is that you don't have any of the rights to the work. I'm sure folks here who have done WfH could give more and better information on the topic.

What are you researching for?

[Shail]

A dark fantasy in which authors contributing to a shared universe find that their corruption of established elements from the universe have brought the characters of the Verse to life. (For example, character derailments or character reversals, ignoring minor rules, ect.) It's meant to be a blend of humor and horror that comments on the conflicts that arise in writing for an expanded universe type format.

(No I've never, so yes, any experiences you or anybody else has had are welcome). It's supposed to be funny and dark, but I don't want to offend authors and editors who work on/with expanded universe and shared universe type stuff. I'll probably be peppering the board with lots of questions along this line.

The idea's still in the plotting planning phase, and it's still liquid at this point. I'm going to take some other questions over to the research section. Thx to all who helped out.

[K_Woods]

Definitely check out Thieves' World then. I don't know if this is the case for all of the books in the series, but the omnibus edition I checked out (had the first 3, I think) had commentary from the editor that would probably help your idea.

[tarcanus]

Many that pop to mind are the Dragonlance novels. The main chronology were written by Weis and Hickman while a lot of the peripheral books are written by many other authors.

Then you also have the D&D hack n slash -ish forgotten realms and eberron books where various authors all write in the same world.

[Tachyon]

George R.R. Martin edits a shared universe series called Wild Cards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Cards)

Many other authors have contributed to (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_series#Other_authors) Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe as well.

[RavenCorinnCarluk]

It's sci-fi, but Dark Horse has put out a whole bunch of books for Aliens and Predators throughout the last decade. A lot of the Aliens books have differing information, where authors just added their own touch to the beasties, changing what the monsters can and can't do.

[AceTachyon]

Don't forget the Warhammer and Conan novels (the non REH-stories).

[TTCleveland]

There's always Warcraft novels.