Author Reconstruction

[Montanos]

If by some act you could bring 1 single author back from the dead so they could write another book, which author would it be?

If you choose multiple authors, I'll just put the 1st one on your list . Of course I might miss a few reposts, so don't hurt me for being human!

Think my first choice would be the man who inspired my love of the written word when I was a child.

C. S. Lewis - Narnia

Going to keep editing this 1st post to list the authors as other people put them up so that we can witness a full list

1. C.S. Lewis -Narnia
2. H.P. Lovecraft -Horror, Cthulhu mythos
3. Raymond Chandler - Great Detective story books. Excellent writer.
4. Douglas Adams - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy The number is 42.
5. John D. McDonald -Travis McGee detective stories.
6. Robert A. Heinlein - The 'Dean of Science Fiction Writers' Wrote, The Man Who Sold The Moon, among others.
7. Graham Greene - A good novelist that also happened to be a Catholic. Wrote The Heart of the Matter.
8. Gordon R. Dickson - Dorsai
9. Italo Calvino - Our Ancestors heraldic trilogy.
10. William Shakespeare
11. Homer -Greek Epic Poet. The illiad
12. Dorothy L. Sayers - Lord Peter Wimsey detective story books and short stories.
13. Iain (M) Banks -The Culture series
14. Isaac Asimov - Foundation series, Android Series, etc (One of my favorites, but since I already chose C.S. Lewis. ... Thanks Aynmair)
15. Joseph Heller - Catch-22
16. H.G. Wells - War of the Worlds, The Time Machine
17. John Fowles - The Magus
18. Dorothy L. Sayers - Lord Peter Wimsey detective books and short stories.
19. George McDonald Fraser- Sir Harry Paget Flashman stories
20. Mark Twain - Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
21. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - Frankenstein Great writer.

 

[lovecraft68]

If by some act you could bring 1 single author back from the dead so they could write another book, which author would it be?

Think my first choice would be the man who inspired my love of the written word when I was a child.

C. S. Lewis - Narnia

Lovecraft.

Be interesting to see what he would think of what people have done with his work over the lat 75+ years since his death.

Like many older authors I think political correctness would cripple him.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Raymond Chandler

 

[LaRascasse]

Douglas Adams definitely.

 

[Serafina1210]

Let them sleep

I've sometimes wished that I could dig up Chaucer and make him finish the Canterbury Tales, or have another novel by Dickens. But eventually sobriety returns. When I look back at the career of an author, I see a narrative that's finished, and I really don't want a sequel. Some authors were in decline by the time they died. Chandler's Long Goodbye is a miserable excuse for a novel, certainly the worst thing he wrote, and then he drank away the last six years of his life. If you dug him up, do you really think you'd get another novel out of him? Lewis was great, but Narnia was done and the space trilogy was done. Shakespeare was still going strong with The Tempest, but even so I'm not sure we'd be better off with more of him.

I don't want any of them back.

That said, I'll add that if G. R. R. Martin pops off before he's done with SoIaF, I'll be seriously pissed off at him.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Hah! What do you mean 'IF?!'

 

[Serafina1210]

Hah! What do you mean 'IF?!'

Oh! You almost gave me a heart attack. Had to check the obituaries to make sure he was still with us.

But is he writing?

 

[49greg]

I would go with Chandler.

Two more suggestions would be:

John D. MacDonald

And, although he's not dead, I've heard that he has alzheimer's, it would be nice if he was cured: Terry Pratchet

 

[Montanos]

I've sometimes wished that I could dig up Chaucer and make him finish the Canterbury Tales, or have another novel by Dickens. But eventually sobriety returns. When I look back at the career of an author, I see a narrative that's finished, and I really don't want a sequel. Some authors were in decline by the time they died. Chandler's Long Goodbye is a miserable excuse for a novel, certainly the worst thing he wrote, and then he drank away the last six years of his life. If you dug him up, do you really think you'd get another novel out of him? Lewis was great, but Narnia was done and the space trilogy was done. Shakespeare was still going strong with The Tempest, but even so I'm not sure we'd be better off with more of him.

I don't want any of them back.

That said, I'll add that if G. R. R. Martin pops off before he's done with SoIaF, I'll be seriously pissed off at him.

So, is there ANYONE you would bring back for a 1 more book? There probably is, so lay it on us.

 

[Hypoxia]

R.A. Heinlein
Mary Renault
Willy the Shake... no, let him RIP

I could name a few living authors I wish would discorporate, but that's beyond the scope of this thread.

 

[Serafina1210]

So, is there ANYONE you would bring back for a 1 more book? There probably is, so lay it on us.

If Jane Austen could write just one more as good as Pride and Prejudice or Emma . . . But no, they wouldn't fly. They'd seem fake now.

Charlotte Brontë . . . No, I don't think she'd write anything if we dug her up.

Forget it.

 

[Montanos]

If Jane Austen could write just one more as good as Pride and Prejudice or Emma . . . But no, they wouldn't fly. They'd seem fake now.

Charlotte Brontë . . . No, I don't think she'd write anything if we dug her up.

Forget it.

Let's go with Jane Austen ... with reservations about the quality of the work?

 

[Serafina1210]

Let's go with Jane Austen ... with reservations about the quality of the work?

Let someone else choose her.

But I think I have to read Emma again. I wonder if it could be retold as smut?

 

[sr71plt]

Graham Greene. I've run out of his books to read.

 

[Montanos]

Let someone else choose her.

But I think I have to read Emma again. I wonder if it could be retold as smut?

Then I will simply enjoy your commentary and leave the space open for the future.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Gordon R. Dickson - Dorsai

Loved all of his books, even the Dragon and the George series.

I thought his Tactics of Mistakes was his best of the Dorsai series although the rest were very good reads.

Another is Mack Reynolds aka. Dallas McCord "Mack" Reynolds was an American science fiction writer. His pen names included Dallas Ross, Mark Mallory, Clark Collins, Dallas Rose, Guy McCord, Maxine Reynolds, Bob Belmont, and Todd Harding

I didn't read all of his work, but there were a few that stood out - His United Planets series was one of my favorites.

Another is Christopher Anvil, his Interstellar Patrol series were a favorite.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Italo Calvino, for sure. I think he had quite a few more tales to tell.

I'd consider naming James Joyce as well, but I don't think anything could follow Finnegans Wake.

 

[LaRascasse]

If I can pick another, David Foster Wallace. He died way before his time. His short stories are ingenious.

 

[Serafina1210]

If I can pick another, David Foster Wallace. He died way before his time. His short stories are ingenious.

Better ask before you dig him up. He may not want to come back.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Italo Calvino, for sure. I think he had quite a few more tales to tell.

I'd consider naming James Joyce as well, but I don't think anything could follow Finnegans Wake.

Spoken like a true chalky perfesser.

 

[allamagione]

Might be fun to see what Shakespeare would make of the Kennedys.

 

[Handley_Page]

May I choose two ?

Homer. (What became of Telemachus?)

Isaac Asimov. (More! I want more! )

 

[DesEsseintes]

Agree with Homer for so many reasons - likewise Virgil, Aeschylus, etc. The world is so fundamentally different that they might not be able to cope - but what a fascinating perspective they might bring.

Calvino should be immortal, as should Borges. I can't imagine those imaginations ever running out of steam - and since they float so high above the mundane, they would be less thrown by changes in modern politics and mores than just about any other writer I can think of.

Joyce, as has been mentioned, pushed the novel in one direction as far as it could go with the Wake. Beckett took it in slightly different directions with his relentless paring, and BS Johnson, Pynchon and Danielewski pushed modes and styles differently too, but I think Joyce's work is done. He would have to start all over again.

My own addition to the mix would be Ian (M) Banks - died far too young, and there were so many more books in him. I don't want the Culture to die.

 

[NaokoSmith]

Let someone else choose her.

But I think I have to read Emma again. I wonder if it could be retold as smut?

Alexander McCall-Smith is due to re-write Emma as part of the Austen Project. Joanna Trollope has already redone Sense and Sensibility, and Val McDermid has done Northanger Abbey.

I love the Clueless version of Emma - that's a little bit smutty. Had to give up letting Piglet watch it owing to her starting to understand the innuendos

Go on, do a Chain story rewrite of Emma as smut! We can all have a chapter to re-work, LOL.

 

[Aynmair]

I'll second Graham Greene and Isaac Asimov. To these I'd add Isak Dinesen, probably an unusual choice. I love her use of language and her writing in Out of Africa.

The problem with all of these writers is that they wrote in their time, informed - perhaps brilliantly - by their historical prejudices.