Lori Jareo

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Lori Jareo is an American author and editor, best known for the controversy surrounding her self-published Star Wars fan fiction novel, Another Hope.^[1]

Another Hope is an apocryphal reimagining of the events presented in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, with new characters allegedly created by the author, along with significant divergences such as the killing of Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi halfway through the novel in the destruction of the planet Alderaan. The book is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. Customer reviews of the novel on Amazon.com, many of which have now been removed, were overwhelmingly negative.

Jareo originally made Another Hope available on her personal website as a free downloadable PDF file. In July 2005, the novel was published through Wordtech Communications, and was offered for sale without authorization from Lucasfilm at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Powell's. WordTech Communications is a small publishing firm that Jareo co-founded with Kevin Walzer, known primarily for poetry books .

Jareo and the novel came under heavy scrutiny from other authors, as well as the fan fiction community, once word of the novel's commercial availability came to light. Jareo herself was taken to task for comments made in an interview about the novel published on her website, where she claimed that she wasn't worried about copyright infringement claims:

Q: Having set Another Hope in an already existing universe, I find myself wondering if there was any concern on your part regarding copyrights?

No, because I wrote this book for myself. This is a self-published story and is not a commercial book. Yes, it is for sale on Amazon, but only my family, friends and acquaintances know it’s there.

Q: I also wonder how far a writer is allowed to write in a world and to use characters introduced by another author?

If it’s not a commercial project, I don’t see any problem.[1]

Many notable writers such as Teresa Nielsen Hayden, John Scalzi, and Lee Goldberg pointed out the hypocrisy in the statement, since offering the novel for sale on major websites is a commercial endeavour. Several also expressed surprise that Jareo, who bills herself as a full-time book editor and professional writer who "has also written technical manuals, how-to articles for the manufacturing technology sector, software help, and blogs for Macintosh computers" could have made such a career-threatening mistake.

The fan fiction community has offered near unanimous condemnation of Jareo, fearing that her actions may prompt Lucasfilm, and perhaps other rightsholders as well, to take action against various fan fiction communities, which have generally kept a low profile and pushed the boundaries of legality but never so blatantly crossed them.^{[citation needed]}

Lucasfilm has yet to make a public statement regarding or take action against Jareo, but many expect cease and desist letters, at a minimum, to be served in regards to Another Hope.^{[citation needed]}

On April 21, 2006,the following disclaimer appeared on Jareo's website: Thank you for your interest in Another Hope. The book has been removed from the Books in Print database and will be removed from book distribution channels effective Tuesday, April 24, 2006.

As of April 22, 2006, Jareo's website was offline, although the book was still listed for sale on various websites.

On April 24, 2006, Lucasfilm spokesperson Lynne Hale reported that Lucasfilm had asked Jareo to remove her book from Amazon.[2]

On April 26, 2006, Another Hope was removed from Amazon.com