Is it possible for one author to write an appropriate sequel to another author's novel? Yes.
The Night Of The Triffids by Simon Clark is an excellent continuation and resolution of John Wyndham's narrative. Has any author written an acceptable sequel to a work by Poul Anderson? Read
Multiverse:
Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds (see
here) and judge. Although I think that SM Stirling's Time Patrol story, "A Slip in Time," is by far the most authentic of the contributions in this anthology, none strikes me as the way Anderson himself would have continued the series but that is a tall order.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Writing sequels to other authors works used to be quite common, before standards about authentic authorship became so strict. Here I had in mind the spurious sequels to the first part of Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE, which was so popular that other writers tried to cash in with fake additions. Cervantes felt compelled to write the second part of QUIXOTE at least in part to defend his work against the plagiarists.
I agree with what you said about Stirling's contribution to MULTIVERSE, "A Slip in Time." I thought it a very satisfactory addition to Anderson's Time Patrol stories. It was true to the spirit and background of those stories. And I was keenly interested by the alternate Austro-Hungarian setting. I would have been interested to know how the Dual Monarchy became the dominant partner in the alliance with Germany, instead of being forced to play second fiddle to Berlin.
I thought Harry Turtledove's continuation of THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS interesting and well worth reading, but rather a downer, even jarring.
At first, I thought Raymond Feist's contribution, "A Candle," rather puzzling, till I read his afterword. He wrote that he thought Dominic Flandry (plus Anderson) too negative about the Empire. Feist thought Flandry's work was well worth doing, that he was helping to keep a candle alight in a dark universe.
Ad astra! Sean
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