ShannonA
05-22-2007, 10:30 PM
I recently finished reading Swords against the Shadowland, which was the posthumous continuation of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & Gray Mouser stories written by Robin Bailey and put out by White Wolf about a decade ago.
(It'd been sitting on my shelf unread for those intervening 9 years.)
Sadly, I was disappointed. The writing was good enough, and she seemed to capture the style of both the two protagonists and Leiber's stories. However, the story really never gripped me. I don't even know if that was her fault or not since I haven't read Leiber's originals in quite some time, and I could easily find them fallen out of favor.
What annoyed me most, however was (and this is a spoiler, but a relatively minor one) the poor continuity of the books. As I was reading it I was feeling like Fafhrd & Gray Mouser were meeting people that they shouldn't have known yet and dealing with problems that they'd have to deal with again ... but I wasn't really sure since it had been so long since I'd read them. But sure enough, at the end of the story Fafhrd & Gray Mouser are given a draught of forgetfulness allowing them to "reboot" and meet characters for the first time and deal with certain issues all over again in Leiber's own stories. Which is just such a gross disregard for continuity that it makes me wonder, "Why bother?"
As far as I know, Bailey never wrote any other books, because White Wolf got out of the fiction publishing business.
-------------------
So I was trying to figure out if there have been any successful post-humous continuations.
The Dune continuations I find adequate as science-fiction novels
and atrocious as Dune books because the authors are so far off the style. Maybe I was just influenced by knowing what else Anderson had written, but his Dune books read like Star Wars. I've only read the first three, I should note.
The three Foundation continuations were quite good. The authors didn't capture Asimov's style, and I think they wrote things he wouldn't have, but they were all (Bear, Benford, and Brin) good enough writers that what came out was worth reading. So I guess that's the one success of this batch. Kind of.
The Amber continuations are OK. I feel like the author has captured the style of the books, and his stories are interesting, but he's also unfortunately clearly a lesser writer than Zelazny was.
Everyone in the world derides August Derleth for the post-humous work he did on H.P. Lovecraft's stories. Here because he totally failed to understand Lovecraft's mythology and worldview.
Has anyone actually managed to catch another writer's genie in a bottle well?
(It'd been sitting on my shelf unread for those intervening 9 years.)
Sadly, I was disappointed. The writing was good enough, and she seemed to capture the style of both the two protagonists and Leiber's stories. However, the story really never gripped me. I don't even know if that was her fault or not since I haven't read Leiber's originals in quite some time, and I could easily find them fallen out of favor.
What annoyed me most, however was (and this is a spoiler, but a relatively minor one) the poor continuity of the books. As I was reading it I was feeling like Fafhrd & Gray Mouser were meeting people that they shouldn't have known yet and dealing with problems that they'd have to deal with again ... but I wasn't really sure since it had been so long since I'd read them. But sure enough, at the end of the story Fafhrd & Gray Mouser are given a draught of forgetfulness allowing them to "reboot" and meet characters for the first time and deal with certain issues all over again in Leiber's own stories. Which is just such a gross disregard for continuity that it makes me wonder, "Why bother?"
As far as I know, Bailey never wrote any other books, because White Wolf got out of the fiction publishing business.
-------------------
So I was trying to figure out if there have been any successful post-humous continuations.
The Dune continuations I find adequate as science-fiction novels
and atrocious as Dune books because the authors are so far off the style. Maybe I was just influenced by knowing what else Anderson had written, but his Dune books read like Star Wars. I've only read the first three, I should note.
The three Foundation continuations were quite good. The authors didn't capture Asimov's style, and I think they wrote things he wouldn't have, but they were all (Bear, Benford, and Brin) good enough writers that what came out was worth reading. So I guess that's the one success of this batch. Kind of.
The Amber continuations are OK. I feel like the author has captured the style of the books, and his stories are interesting, but he's also unfortunately clearly a lesser writer than Zelazny was.
Everyone in the world derides August Derleth for the post-humous work he did on H.P. Lovecraft's stories. Here because he totally failed to understand Lovecraft's mythology and worldview.
Has anyone actually managed to catch another writer's genie in a bottle well?