A sequel can either continue the narrative from the point at which the previous work left off or can acknowledge a passage of time between fictional events mirroring that in the real world: metafiction. At the end of Black Easter by James Blish, a powerful demon, the Sabbat Goat, promises to return for the last magicians at sunrise. At the beginning of the sequel, The Day After Judgment, the magicians are still waiting. Something has delayed the Goat... Even a final ending was not completely final. I never saw any Ghostbusters films, but, in a trailer for Ghostbusters II, a character remarks that maybe his equipment is not working so well after all this time.
Harvest Of Stars introduces Anson Guthrie and the Lunarians but does not tell us that some of the latter are the former's great-grandchildren. "There's a hell of a lot that we didn't tell you..."
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And of course there are PREQUELS, stories written to show events earlier in a character's life, but written after the stories showing us that character in later years. An example being the three Young Flandy novels Anderson wrote after the stories collected in AGENT OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE and FLANDRY OF TERRA.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
And THE STARS ARE ALSO FIRE is both prequel and sequel.
Paul.
Post a Comment