Continuous Coast: alternate reality project

[sharaith.livejournal.com]

Authors Steven Brust (of the excellent Vlad Taltos series), Kit O'Connell and Reesa Brown, along with a team of co-contributors, are in the process of launching an alternate reality fiction project.

As with Shadow Unit, a similar project, the authors will be releasing pieces of fiction set in the world while letting readers interact with the characters online. But they're going one step further than Shadow Unit and actively encouraging reader contributions (fiction, merchandise, related websites and more) to the world - which are accepted as canon if they fit the rest of it.

Since the project is released under a Creative Commons Share-Alike license, other people can actually market and sell related content and merchandise that they create themselves. One of the creators' goals is to figure out ways to make this project earn money for them and for the other contributors.

Right now the project is just starting. The first piece of fiction is slated to go online in a couple weeks or so, and the authors are planning to release a wiki of information about the world's canon in a couple months. This is a great time to get involved in the project from the very beginning. You can already start talking to the characters over on the Port Outreach blog.

• The central site with out-of-character information, including a newsletter, is up at continuouslabs.com.
• The in-world blog is up here.

There's also a related Twitter feed and a website for an in-world music venue.

19/10/08: Edited to clarify.