Significant Series Continued by Other Authors

[greyman24]

The Hitchhiker's thread made me think of this.

Sorry to rant, here, but there's something about this that rankles me. When a ground-breaking novel or series of novels are written and then some other random writer comes and just tacks something on, it just feels wrong.

We aren't talking about licensed properties, here. We aren't talking about comics. We are talking about a singular long work of fiction, created, shaped and delivered in the form of words to the populace by one guy. Then, when that guy dies some other random person takes that work and just...adds stuff?

I think Sci Fi sees this most frequently. In addition to Adams, there's also Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, and David Brin tacking novels onto Asimov's work, or Brandon Sanderson writing an addition to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.

There's also the sneaky trick of "completing" unfinished works, like Roger Zelazny writing half of Alfred Bester's unfinished Psychoshop manuscript.

At least Kate L'Amour has required that all books published after her husband's, Louis, death must be 100% his work alone--compiled from his earlier writing.

Am I alone in this?

[Alisha Mynx]

Am I alone in this?

Of course not.   

I actually like a few things here and there that continue a series started or completely written by one author up to a point.  But I do agree that there are a number of continuations that just don't sit well with me either.  Some of them at least make sense (the author had planned to finish a story or part of a story was writtern, etc) but others leave me scratching my head and wondering why the new addition was made in the first place.

[@lantis]

First of all, how do you leave Frank Herbert out of your list?  Seriously, the Dune series is the worst perpetrator of what you're ranting about.

Now that my mini rant is out of the way I will add my other comments.  Finishing a series or having a new author pick it up should be acceptable to us.  It happens all the time in other forms of media, so what makes books so special?  Honestly nothing, but authorship is dealt with differently in other forms of writing.  So here is my criteria for when it is okay for a new author to pick up a series.

1)  Multiple authors are credited with writing the original series and one of them is involved in the additions.  Example, John Smith and Steve Johnson write all of Series A and when poor John Smith dies Steve decides to continue Series A with a new writer named Mark Doe

2)  The series had a rotating group of authors.  See comic books and television for examples of this.

3)  The new series is a completely different series set in the same universe as the original, but having nothing to do with the original directly.  See Star Trek series which took place after Roddenberry died.

I am willing to amend these rules since I know I'm probably not thinking of every situation I would agree with currently.  And I'd just like to end by sharing that the word Roddenberry is in Firefox's spell-check.

[andrew wiggins]

on the subject of dune as least its his son and not just some other guy i brain anderson its the other writer

[Navarre]

Finishing a series or having a new author pick it up should be acceptable to us.  It happens all the time in other forms of media, so what makes books so special?

Because buying a single book comes with the expectation that we are reading one person's story. Many books do not become series but, even if they do, we want to read the work of the person we enjoyed previously.

Comic books can't maintain that because of the long periods of time required to tell an ongoing story. A writer would have to stay on a book for decades to give us as much story time as we receive in even a single novel.

Comic book publishers also rotate their writers for any number of creative, marketing, and/or financial reasons. That doesn't happen on novels because the publisher must invest in a given writer to get the story they are trying to tell.

Personally I would prefer it if a comic book writer would remain on a title permanently. If Joss Whedon was still writing Astonishing X-Men I'd never miss an issue.

But novels and comics are two entirely different mediums despite featuring the printed word. They are entirely comparable any more than one can say that movies and television should be created in the exact same manner.

[@lantis]

You do realize that you're answering a rhetorical question right?

Also, some series do have multiple authors, they just aren't credited.  Long running book series that come out regularly will often employ ghost writers who follow the outlines of the credited writer.

[Navarre]

I am aware of both the existence of ghost writers and rhetorical questions, yes. The validity of my point remains.

Either way, Greyman's disgruntlement over beginning a series that is later assumed under another writer is understandable.

[greyman24]

What Navarre said.

I'm not even talking about ghost writing. It's horrible when publishers try to pass off some random guy as an established author, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about "John Q. Author's The Novel, by Lesser Known Author Who We're Trying to Pass Off as Better Than he Actually Is."

Nevertheless, as any writer or fan of that writer can tell you, the draw for a novel is that author. Novels aren't a collaborative creation. Yes, editors get involved, but any editor will tell you that the author always has the last word. It's called "final editorial approval."

This is the reason why film-makers hate when authors come to the sets of adaptations. Films are a collaborative medium, and authors don't like the idea that their creations are being filtered through so many perspectives.

[@lantis]

I don't think anyone in this thread has disagreed with that point greyman.