Sunday 5 July 2020

Actual And Potential Sequels

When Gardner Dozois invited Eric Flint to contribute to Multiverse, Flint considered writing a sequel to:

Operation Chaos
The High Crusade or
Three Hearts And Three Lions

In fact:

Poul Anderson himself had written a sequel to The High Crusade, as to others of his works like The Enemy Stars;

Harry Turtledove and Tad Williams wrote sequels to Three Hearts... for Multiverse;

Flint opted for Operation Chaos;

other Multiverse contributors wrote sequels to other works by Anderson;

so there are many sequels.

Another option is a prequel, which Anderson also sometimes wrote.

Flint decided against a sequel to The High Crusade because he would:

"...find it difficult to write a story in that setting that stayed true to Anderson's own vision of it. And doing so, I think, is important for this kind of anthology."
-Tad Williams, AFTERWORD IN Greg Bear and Gardner Dozois, Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds (Burton, MI, 2014), pp. 181-182 AT pp. 181-182.

Whether it is important to stay true to Anderson's vision is a matter for the editors of an anthology. Larry Niven's Time Patrol sequel has nothing in common with the original series.

Please allow me an important pause for food.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Well, Tad Williams basically chose to write a humorous story. And, while there is some comedy in THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS, it was not of the broad, rather slapstick kind of humor we see in "Three Lilies." So the story had to be very different.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

I'd always wanted to do a Time Patrol story... 8-).

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

And I ENJOYED your "A Slip In Time," esp. the Austro-Hungarian setting!

And you have mentioned also wishing to do a Dominic Flandry story. And I hope you can, for a hypothetical second MULTIVERSE.

Ad astra! Sean