"Continuators"

[PennLady]

This is an article I found on Salon.com about authors who continue series and characters after the original author has died, such as Eric Van Lustbader, who has continued the Jason Bourne character created by Robert Ludlum.

http://www.salon.com/books/writing/...s/feature/2011/08/07/bringing_back_characters

I have to say that while I don't mind this, especially if the author's estate is on board, I generally don't read them. The one I did -- one of EVL's Bourne books -- I didn't like it at all. Now that was just him, I might like someone else's, but I thought I'd put this out there and see what anyone else thought.

 

[oggbashan]

Some past continuators have been good. Some have been indifferent. Some have been awful.

Sapper's Bulldog Drummond books were continued by Gerald Fairlie. Sapper was uneven in quality. I think that Fairlie started well and ran out of ideas so the books became unreadable.

Several people have tried to finish Charles Dickens' Edwin Drood. None seem right.

Dorothy L Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey stories were good. Jill Paton's Walsh's completion of the unfinished novel 'Thrones, Dominations' is a good read for those who liked Lord Peter and Harriet Vane, but Jill's own Lord Peter book 'The Attenbury Emeralds', although a good mystery, doesn't quite reach the standard of Sayers.

The continuing James Bond imitations vary from good to awful. Re-reading Ian Fleming's originals after reading 'the book of the film' or 'the book that I, and my accountant, hope will be filmed' is a reminder that Ian Fleming had a lightness of touch that his imitators often lack. However, the Fleming originals have dated and do not feel the same as they did when they were first published. The world has moved on. The James Bond of the original books hasn't.

 

[SydneyBlake]

This is an article I found on Salon.com about authors who continue series and characters after the original author has died, such as Eric Van Lustbader, who has continued the Jason Bourne character created by Robert Ludlum.

http://www.salon.com/books/writing/...s/feature/2011/08/07/bringing_back_characters

I have to say that while I don't mind this, especially if the author's estate is on board, I generally don't read them. The one I did -- one of EVL's Bourne books -- I didn't like it at all. Now that was just him, I might like someone else's, but I thought I'd put this out there and see what anyone else thought.

Reminds me of the great hunt for someone to write a sequel to Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind. I thought it was an absurd idea. I never read it.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

Definitely, maybe

I haven't read any of the continuations referenced in the Salon article, but my experience with the concept has been mixed.

Many years after the death of Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson took over the "Dune" franchise. Frank left off one book before the climax, and for years I was sick over the fact that the grand space opera would never be finished. Brian found a trove of his father's notes, and with Kevin Anderson set out to finish the tale. They went much further than merely finishing the story, however. They wrote six volumes of prequel material before turning to the climax, and have continued writing fill-in novels ever since. In my mind, the climactic volumes absolutely necessary. The prequel volumes were self-indulgent, but the ending would not have made sense without them. The fill-ins that have been written since seem to be nothing more than milking the franchise.

Brandon Sanderson was hired by Robert Jordan's widow (and publisher) to finish the "Wheel of Time" story line. Jordan died two volumes before completion. Sanderson, working from Jordan's notes and drafts, breathed life into a story that had gotten stale and seemed to be meandering in search of a finale. He picked up the pace of the story and made it enjoyable again. After nearly two decades of reading, his contribution toward finalizing the story is greatly appreciated.

Isaac Asimov's estate commissioned a group of authors to write another "Foundation" trilogy. Three giants in the genre (Gregory Benford, Greg Bear, and David Brin) were hired. I only read the first one. It was so bad I haven't been able to read Asimov since.

I guess, to some extent, the reason for the "continuator" is an important factor in whether I will find the product entertaining. When a story is incomplete, then by all means please hire someone to finish it. But when it's merely a cash-grab, I am less impressed.

 

[lovecraft68]

To me the worst continuator of all time was August Derleth. Now as for HPL fans Derleth helped keep Lovecraft's work in print until he finally hit big and for that we owe him.

However Derleths Lovecraft "collaborations" were godawful. Watchers out of time and Lurkers at the threshold contained small kernals of HP's ideas but Derleth totally lost the concept and his attempts to imitate Lovecraft's style were pathetic. Yoko ono like in it's attempt to capitalize on HP's name.

Also the one unforgivable thing Derleth did was to try to divide Lovecraft's great old ones into good and bad and mixing in his own lame attempts like 'Hastur"

 

[3113]

I guess, to some extent, the reason for the "continuator" is an important factor in whether I will find the product entertaining. When a story is incomplete, then by all means please hire someone to finish it. But when it's merely a cash-grab, I am less impressed.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there. "Why" is it being continued is important, though, of course, we all know that they are continued because they were popular, well-liked (a fun universe to play in with fun characters to play with) and might make more money

BUT--there is a difference between finishing an unfinished story and trying to drag out a complete novel that really needs no continuation. For example, I really don't need to read a sequel to Pride and Prejudice detailing Elizabeth and Darcy's marriage problems This not only seems pointless as Austen did offer a summary of how things went for them as a married couple, but also hubris to think someone could or should add more frosting to that cake.

I think continuation works when something is unfinished--and can or should be continued and/or when the work is not complete in and of itself, like, for example, a series meant to continue on (or not). Like James Bond or Oz or Sherlock Holmes. I think Sherlock Holmes stories written by other people, continuing on the adventures, have been very successful for two reasons--first, Sherlock Holmes was not a single, complete novel like Gone with the Wind--it was series that allowed for more. Second, because the characters are very clearly drawn and the style is succinct.

Doyle's style is far easier for "continuators" to copy and mimic, getting the feel of those stories as well as the characters and plot, than a Charles Dickens is. Which is why I think you get so many successful Sherlock Holmes stories as compared to all the failures in trying to finish Edwin Drood.

 

[sr71plt]

Reminds me of the great hunt for someone to write a sequel to Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind. I thought it was an absurd idea. I never read it.

I knew Alexandra Ripley, the continuator of Gone with the Wind. She was a delightful person, but the fit wasn't good for her. When challenged on that, though, she said that old tavern she bought (which was once Lafeyette's headquarters and about which she was writing a book when she died--which I'm sorry she didn't finish, as the parts I read were quite good) and restored with the money she got from writing Scarlett fit just fine.

Jeffery Deaver was in town last Saturday and was asked about inheriting the James Bond franchise, but he changed the subject--didn't seem to want to talk about it.

 

[PennLady]

BUT--there is a difference between finishing an unfinished story and trying to drag out a complete novel that really needs no continuation. For example, I really don't need to read a sequel to Pride and Prejudice detailing Elizabeth and Darcy's marriage problems This not only seems pointless as Austen did offer a summary of how things went for them as a married couple, but also hubris to think someone could or should add more frosting to that cake.

I agree here. I have no need or desire to read a sequel to Pride and Prejudice -- although I did enjoy Pride & Prejudice & Zombies -- nor one to Gone with the Wind or any other completed book that was indeed completed. I don't begrudge the authors or the estates or anything; I'm just not going to read them.

I would not be averse to reading Sherlock Holmes by another author. Perhaps it's because as others have noted, that was a series and not a "finished" one. I read the first six Dune novels and felt 1-2 were good, 3-4 decent and 5-6 not worth the trouble. I have not even been tempted to read the continuations by B. Herbert. And for Wheel of Time, if reading the new ones means slogging through the rest of the ones Jordan wrote, I'll have to take a pass.

And I think to a great degree, Van Lustbader's Bourne novel really put me off the whole thing in general. I was so disappointed. I felt that his Jason Bourne was nothing like Ludlum's (nor even Liman's and Greengrass's in the movies). The disappointed was increased, I think, because I wanted to like it.

 

[oggbashan]

It is easy to parody or mimic an author's style if he/she has a distinctive voice. I have done it with my parodies of Jonathan Swift and Rudyard Kipling. Jeanne D'Artois has two parodies in her poems.

It is harder to write an author's story pattern convincingly without being left at least an outline of the plot. Some novels were left unfinished because even the author had lost the way.

It happens in other arts as well. Many music critics think that Schubert's 'Unfinished' Symphony was left unfinished because Schubert considered that he had written a complete work. It just didn't fit the classic symphony outline. That hasn't stopped other composers from writing the 'missing' third movement that probably wasn't missing at all - or writing Beethoven's 10th Symphony that he barely started.

Why did Zane Grey's son write more Zane Grey stories? Zane Grey had written enough and his later stories are poor compared to his best. His son's continuations fall below his father's worst and except for the name "Zane Grey" on the cover probably wouldn't sell.

 

[lovecraft68]

Not that it's classic literature but haven't the Hardy boys and Nancy Drew books been written bu several people?

 

[sr71plt]

John Jakes is a committee. And James Michener was more of a committee than most readers realize. (I can point to passages in both Centennial and Chesapeake that would be exactly what I would have written. )

 

[TE999]

Not that it's classic literature but haven't the Hardy boys and Nancy Drew books been written bu several people?

Both of the characters were conceived by Edward Stratemeyer and ghost written by a host of writers including his daughters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Drew

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardy_Boys

 

[maggot420]

Not that it's classic literature but haven't the Hardy boys and Nancy Drew books been written bu several people?

and Tom Swift and the Bobsey Twins. They were produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate.

 

[SydneyBlake]

I knew Alexandra Ripley, the continuator of Gone with the Wind. She was a delightful person, but the fit wasn't good for her. When challenged on that, though, she said that old tavern she bought (which was once Lafeyette's headquarters and about which she was writing a book when she died--which I'm sorry she didn't finish, as the parts I read were quite good) and restored with the money she got from writing Scarlett fit just fine.

Jeffery Deaver was in town last Saturday and was asked about inheriting the James Bond franchise, but he changed the subject--didn't seem to want to talk about it.

Maybe you should continuate Ripley's novel about Lafayette. You'd be the continuator's continuator. Sounds better when you say it with an Austrian accent.

 

[3113]

Both of the characters were conceived by Edward Stratemeyer and ghost written by a host of writers including his daughters.

and Tom Swift and the Bobsey Twins. They were produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate.

Well, of course, that sort of thing is a whole other kettle of fish. They're really not "continuators" as there wasn't a single book/story that came out by a single author which the author might or might not have continued him/herself.

If Sherlock Holmes hadn't been an instant hit, Doyle might not have bothered to write more stories and we'd only have the one. It was, and he, himself continued them, to the point where he even wanted to stop and tried to kill the character. But the examples above are more like television shows. Create a "show" with characters then give it to writers to write episodes each week. And if it does well, continue the series and if it doesn't, create another.

 

[estragon]

Felix Francis is trying to continue his father's franchise. It remains to be seen how successful he will be.

As for Sherlock Holmes "continuators", our own FarFromCD just posted Chapter 1 of a new Sherlock Holmes series today. And of course I had to quibble it.