(Everyone’s fiction is derivative, but authors who started out writing fanfic have to endure this finite scrutiny to prove they’re original enough, or they’ve “outgrown it,” with exactly the snide hostility I’m implying (including from people who should really know better))

And then you have John Scalzi's deliberately derivative reboot of Little Fuzzy by Beam Piper's, a book I adored in junior high and took a lot of ribbing for adoring.

I'll probably read Fuzzy Nation when it eventually comes out. I don't remember enough about the original to be able to compare the reboot to it, and probably won't take the time to re-read the original to compare. But I like the chutzpah of the whole undertaking. "It's in the public domain; I love it; I wanted to try my hand at derivative fiction; I did it."

I suspect that an author who'd got their start in fanfic could not get away with this. Scalzi, as far as I know, started out in journalism and has never written fanfic. He doesn't have to fight that sort of ghettoization.

Have you ever read Spider Robinson's Melancholy Elephants? It's a nice meditation on the dangers of dissing the derivative too strongly.