I've been spending time reading the Grantville Gazette, Vol. 1. It's essentially a collection of fanfic set in Eric Flint's Grantville/Ring of Fire/1632 conceit, edited and approved by said author. The irony is that the collection is more interesting than the first volume of the series, which had serious character and writing issues.

I have a weakness for these sorts of collective Robinson Crusoe stories, going right back to Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky. They're like boy's own adventures for entire communities. Steve Sterling, who's wrote a lot of 'em, seems to be saying in Conquistador that the appeal of these drop-the-home-town-in-Ancient-Rome stories is that they're imperialist fantasies, colonial playacting. Maybe so.