Embedded In Earlier Texts

Sometimes it seems as if all of literature is a single long series. Any new work may refer to Homeric gods, to Hamlet's father's ghost or to Sherlock Holmes. Sometimes the involvement with an earlier text goes beyond a mere literary reference. Poul Anderson wrote some sequels to earlier narratives. Also, Manse Everard of the Time Patrol became involved in one of Doctor Watson's untold cases and even conversed with the private detective.

However, SM Stirling goes even further as a group of his Emberverse characters move through the narrative of Robert W. Chambers' The King In Yellow even to the extent of eavesdropping on a conversation in that earlier text. The Emberversers have already had a glimpse of the horrific direction taken by Chambers' fictional timeline as extended by Stirling. Can there be something worse than the Draka?

Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, like Wells' narrator, were in the crowd that watched as the Martians emerged from their capsule. Many potentialities are created by imaginative re-engagement with earlier texts.