This evening I happened to be reading "Q-Squared," a Star Trek novel by 
Peter David. Going through his introduction, I found the following:

"The second [type of story] is the more ambitious novel, in which I 
endeavor to look at the long history of Star Trek and try to tell a story 
that weaves together various threads and adds to the concept of Trek as a 
vast and intricate tapestry. Some fans love this sort of story, while 
others declare it to be 'fannish'... which is odd, since I write all my 
books for myself and I *am* a fan."

That sounds a *lot* like what some folks here have said during the various 
"why I write" discussions. I'm almost certainly not the first to think of 
this, but it occurred to me: Star Trek novels are basically 
officially-approved Star Trek fanfics. The better ones are, at least. And 
there are many anime net-fanfics that are of better quality than the 
average Star Trek novel, as well as more respectful of the "canon" of 
their respective series.

So my question is, are there any anime or manga series whose owners deal 
with fan-fiction the way Star Trek does? Or is there any hope of this ever 
being the case?

Just curious.


Hassheen!