Characters In Sequels And Series

We are full of appreciation for what fiction writers do. An author creates the plot of a novel and commits it to writing, then plots a sequel. In the second work, the earlier fictional events are mentioned, maybe even summarized, and also become part of the background story for later events which are then imagined with comparable creativity. Thus, in Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire, Dominic Flandry and Miriam Abrams are by this time married and there is also a climate modification project on Ramnu although it is unfortunately suspended at the outbreak of hostilities in a new civil war. Although the background conditions affect what can happen, they are not allowed to delimit future possibilities. Sequels should take us where we had not expected to go.

In Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice, Irma Bunt recognizes an intruder in the Castle of Death not only as James Bond but also as the man who had called himself Sir Hilary Bray because that had been the single past occasion on which she and Blofeld had encountered Bond. The books follow their internal logic even if some readers have a looser idea that Bond and Blofeld are old adversaries, long acquainted.