EPBOT Readers discussion

I was having a discussion with my husband last night. For the Pop Sugar 2018 challenge one of the categories is Nordic Noir. I know on the challenge page they are reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I read those books back when the movies came out, so I chose to read a Jo Nesbo book instead. Anyway, I mentioned that another author has taken over the series and put out another book or two. I don't know how I feel about that. I feel like if it's not the original author then any subsequent books are not real, or not canon because they can't be written as the original author would have written them. They are really kind of like fanfiction (which is fine, but it's not canon in a series). My husband thought I was crazy.
He said by that logic the newest Star Wars movies weren't real, and I was like "kinda". But I didn't feel as bad about that because the prequels were so terrible. (IMO).

Anyway, I just wondered if anyone else felt this way? Do you like to read series that were continued by another author? I know Wheel of Time was a big series that this happened to. Although I believe Brandon Sanderson had some of the original author's notes to work from, which makes it closer to being written by the original author, but still not quite the same. Or do you think if the new author has the original editor that they will keep the book more true to the original author's ideals?

I just want to say, I have read fanfiction I have liked. I have read several books that were a classic from a different character's point of view. But, especially after Sue Grafton's death and her family's announcement that the alphabet would end with Y, I really have thought about this. I hope you guys understand the spirit I intend this discussion, I thought it might be better shared here than on the Facebook FOE group. This is just my personal weird rules, and I understand also loving characters or a series so much that I would be willing to read more no matter who wrote the book.

So much this! And it doesn’t matter if the author is someone approved by the estate (ie the Lord Peter Wimsey series) or the child of the original author (Felix Francis, Todd McCaffrey, Anne Hillerman). The books aren’t the same!

Agreed. I have tried the continuing authors of Dick Francis, Margaret Truman, and Lawrence Saunders and found them to be lacking something. Elizabeth Peters had another Amelia Peabody started when she died, and her friend Joan Hess finished it. It was nice to have one more adventure and it was good but not great. It was set in between two of the earlier books, not an extra one at the end, which helped. But there was one glaring discontinuity relative to the previous book in the character timeline that was distracting.

I've had the opposite experience with Brandan Sanderson finishing the Wheel of Time and some of Christopher Tolkien's work, like the Simarillion. But, in the former case, Jordan knew he was dying, and so left extensive notes just in case he didn't survive to finish the series. And Christopher Tolkien also had a wealth of notes and his relationship with his dad to help guide him in his work, so both authors had a lot to work with. So, in these cases, I find it's fairly seamless. Some other series, though, I feel like it's more driven purely by commerce (read: let's make more money off of this!) then someone wanting to lovingly finish something that the original author wasn't able to. I mean, of course they make money from it, too, but, IMO, it's not quite the same thing.

I agree that there are differences in Wheel of Time and a series like Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I understand that Jordan wanted his series finished, which I think counts for a lot. There are of course exceptions to the rule, but more often than not the motivation seems to be to continue milking the cash cow. And it sounds like we are in agreement in finding that especially distasteful.
I think it also depends on if the series is one large story arc versus a series of loosely connected smaller stories. Something like Harry Potter would have been devastating to not get the last book in the series.

Jessica wrote: "I think it also depends on if the series is one large story arc versus a series of loosely connected smaller stories. Something like Harry Potter would have been devastating to not get the last book in the series. " Yes--I wasn't directly thinking of it this way, but that seems to be another common thread in how I feel about continuing the work of an author posthumously.

I think it also depends on the medium for me. For example, comics are so expansive, there's constantly different authors, artists. There's movies, there's cartoons. At this point the originals are already so dispersed from the original, there's no sense even getting mad about it. I feel like Star Wars also falls into that, with the books, the movies, the tv shows, etc. It's just too big to really belong to one author any more.

But yeah, I've read the two newer Millenium books by the new author. They're ok, but I think they could just as well have been written about a different investigative journalist and a different computer hacker, without trying to specifically ride on the coattails of the original trilogy.