The Sins of Sequel City

[vovat]

I finished reading Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl on the plane the other day. It was a pretty interesting concept, featuring a young thief from a criminal family who tries to rob the fairies. Artemis himself is an interesting villain, having a softer, more childish side that he tries to keep in check while carrying out his sinister plans. As for the fairies themselves, they have their own underground civilization and advanced technology, which it seems like Colfer had a lot of fun describing. I didn't really know anything about the series, but I'll probably read some of the sequels at some point.

Speaking of Colfer and sequels, I'm sure you've heard by now that he has been selected to write the official sixth book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. As I've said before, I think Douglas Adams' own sense of humor was a large part of the appeal of the original books, and I'm skeptical as to whether Colfer can recapture that. Nonetheless, I'm not opposed to the very idea of sequels written by another author, and I think Adams' universe is large enough for someone else to play around in it without ruining it. And it's not like continuity was ever that significant to the series anyway, seeing as how the books changed and rearranged a fair amount of the original radio show.

Adams isn't the only deceased author whose works are getting the sequel treatment these days, however. There's also a plan for a Winnie-the-Pooh sequel, called Return to the Hundred Acre Wood. I'm not entirely sure how David Benedictus plans to get around the rather final and melancholy ending to The House at Pooh Corner, but that's nowhere near as much of a challenge as bringing Arthur Dent back to life, is it? [1] I grew up with the Pooh stories, and once again, I think A.A. Milne's authorial voice was a significant part of what made them great. While Disney has done some decent stuff with the Pooh characters, they've never really recaptured the original feel of Milne's writing. I don't think it's impossible, though, and I'll probably check out this sequel. I think one thing it has going against it, though, is the gap. It seems that, with most series where sequels by different authors are accepted, a new author picks up the stories quite soon after the original one dies or quits. Ruth Plumly Thompson's first Oz book came out the year after L. Frank Baum's last, using Baum's own name in the byline to ease the transition (although the style is very obviously not Baum's). Adams' Mostly Harmless was published seventeen years ago, but Adams was allegedly working on another sequel himself [2], and that's probably not too much of a gap in the grand scheme of things. With this Pooh sequel, however, it's been over eighty years since the last Milne Pooh book (which, of course, was only the second), so I think it's much less likely to be accepted as official by the populace in general. You can never really tell, though, and the question of whether it's accepted as canon is a quite different one from whether it's any good.

[1] Well, maybe not, since we can see from Zaphod Beeblebrox IV and Agrajag that ghosts and reincarnation are real within the Hitchhiker's Guide universe.
[2] The rumor was that Adams was going to turn The Salmon of Doubt into a Hitchhiker's sequel, but since what survives stars Dirk Gently and isn't particularly Hitchhiker-ish, I seriously doubt Colfer will be incorporating any of it into his sequel.

Comments

[eagledna.livejournal.com]

I'll definitely be interested to hear what people think of it (the latest Hitchhiker's sequel). There's certainly no way to recapture Adams's voice, but it seems his was a universe that could be picked up by someone else and worked within, so long as they don't take themselves too seriously. Certainly very big shoes to fill.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I guess the Starship Titanic novel was essentially Terry Jones working within Adams' universe, although it wasn't really very good.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I was going to ask you if you'd heard about the Winnie-the-Pooh sequel! But of course I got distracted.

Anyway, I am regularly forced to read aloud a couple of HORRIBLE Disney Storybook Library books that contain Pooh characters. Two-year-olds only care that characters they love are in the picture-- they do not notice that, in order to fit into the book's format, those characters act and speak only VAGUELY in character, and that there are large sections of the book that are filler (seriously, one of them-- actually both of them, but one of them is even more blatant-- has about three 2-page spreads in a row where Pooh goes up to every other character in turn and basically says "Here is my idea" and each other character in turn says "what a good idea!" Not exactly like that, but that's the basic gist). So, I am willing to bet that this sequel will be Good Enough in my eyes since it's likely to ATTEMPT to live up to the original books, right?

There was a new prequel to Anne of Green Gables out last year. I thought it read like fanfiction. Then I realized that it technically WAS fanfiction. But I still thought it could have been better!

It's a moot point, but I would have appreciated it if The Salmon of Doubt had been a new Dirk Gently book, more than Hitchhikers. I loved the Dirk Gently books even more than the Hitchhikers books! Weird coincidence though-- I was totally thinking about The Salmon of Doubt earlier today. I was thinking about the scene where the guy named everything in the world after himself except for the places he named after Karen Carpenter. Anyway.

I still haven't read Artemis Fowl.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Artemis Fowl (well, the first book, anyway) seems like something you might enjoy.

Was the Anne of Green Gables prequel officially sanctioned? I think it's usually only considered fanfiction if it's not authorized, but I guess the line is blurred when the original work is in public domain.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was officially sanctioned for the centennial of the original, and the author is supposed to be renowned enough (though I had never heard of her myself). But it READ to me like fanfiction, like someone set out with the Goal of Writing a Prequel but didn't work so much on making that prequel able to stand on its own. Not that you had to read the original to understand the prequel, but that there was no reason you'd WANT to read the prequel unless you'd read the original and just wanted to read ANYthing else related to it. BUT, I should add, the copy I read was an ARC, and I've learned since that sometimes those have not finished going through the editing process when they're sent out, and it's possible that she was WORKING on making the writing more compelling and the final version was actually better. That's one of the reasons librarians are told not to shelve ARCs in the regular collection, but apparently whoever put that in the collection (it was before I was working at that library) ignored that. SO, perhaps it's actually a better book than it was when I read it, I don't know for sure!

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to give sequels by others the benefit of the doubt -- after all, isn't that what my fanfiction is? -- but I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of the new creators.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have to imagine they'll be getting a lot of flack.