In an interview with EW, Stephen King said one of his hesitations about doing a sequel to the Shining is that "most sequels really suck." He gives only two exceptions: Huckleberry Finn and the Godfather II.
Do you agree? I'm not sure I do. I think sometimes a story is better as it continues because the writer is in familiar territory and is working to their strengths.
Here are a few sequels that did not suck:
1. The Drawing of the Three, Stephen King(I have not read Talisman or Blackhouse)
2. Odyssey, Holmer (The Illiad)
3. World Without End, Ken Follett (Pillars of the Earth)
4. The Empire Strikes Back, Glut/Lucas (Star Wars)
5. Piercing The Darkness, Frank Peretti (This Present Darkness)
6. Return of Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes)
7. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins (Hunger Games)
8. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter)
9. Patriot Games, Tom Clancy (The Hunt For Red October)
10. Leaving Cold Sassy Tree, Olive Anne Burns (Cold Sassy Tree)
11. The Two Towers, Tolkien (The Fellowship Of The Ring)
Many famous writers have actually resisted the temptation to go back and write sequels. Charles Dickens and John Steinbeck to name two. I also notice that John Grisham also does not do a lot of sequels.
I think King may feel some pain when it comes to sequels, since his own works have had to endure the likes of Return to Salem's Lot, Firestarter II and all those dreadful Children of the Corn movies.
George Beahm once said that Eyes of the Dragon deserved a sequel.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION:
1. What is your favorite sequel?
2. What Stephen King book would you like him to write a sequel to?
I'm not sure I have a favorite sequel.
ReplyDeleteAs for which King book deserves a sequel? Well, none of them, I'm convinced. I've laid out my reasons elsewhere (thanks for putting up with that again, those who know what I'm talking about) so I won't go over it.
Instead I'd like to use the ideas I laid out earlier (and which aren't even mine to tell the truth) in order to say what my thought's are about stories that naturally do and don't deserves sequels.
I do believe there are such things as "serial stories" (for lack of a better word). Serial stories are tales of the type that have the possibility of ongoing continuation built into them. The best example of course is Sherlock Holmes, who is written in such a way that it is possible to write again and again about this character.
However, this isn't true about all stories, even those with sequels. Some stories may demand only so much in the way of limited sequels, the best examples of this sort being Twain's Sawyer/Finn series and King's Towers story along with Lewis Carroll's Alice.
Each of these stories have unique features that separate them from the Holmes type story. It's not a difference in quality so much as style and content.
In the case of King's Tower series, it's not a series of sequels so much as one story doled out among eight books. Twain and Carroll's books are similar to each other and different in content from Sherlock Holmes in that Alice and Huck change and mature as their respective stories move on, and both books featuring them are in fact, about growing up in one fashion or another and come to a proper and final conclusion when the main characters have reached a state of full maturity, ergo there's no more to tell because they have learned all they need for how to live well the rest of their lives.
I would argue that Danny from the Shining stands in the exact same relation to Huck and Alice.
Homes, on the other hand, is essentially static, remaining the same throughout his entire series of stories, with Philip Marlowe being about the same, which goes double for comic book super heroes.
ChrisC
I will add just this much. With all that's said above, I agree with a point King made in an EW article about when to end "Lost."
DeleteThe point being that ultimately, all stories, even the serial ones should have their definitive end. The link to the King EW article is here:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20397912_1100673,00.html
I also believe that the pitfall of the sequel is that if they are continued for too long, they run the greatest risk, which is that the viewer will begin to treat a book less as a story to be experienced, and more as commodity like a big mac to be used and disposed of as they see fit.
The risk here, is that if gone on long enough, even if the orginal story every other potential sequel is based off of is, by it's nature, great, still the response of the sequel bessotted fan will be:
"Well, I sort of got into such and such a book way back when. It started out okay, at least I thought it did. Turns out their ain't much behind it, just stupid going nowhere stuff."
To be fair, that's another fear I have about "Sleep".
Anyway, here's a Popmatters article on Star Wars and comic books that raised all these fears and helped define my position.
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/167853-no-reason-to-end-star-wars-and-perpetual-fiction/
ChrisC
I think Jaws 2 is pretty fun. It gave me more nightmares than the first one. Poltergeist 2 was pretty great. I like the last Hunger Games book the best out of all of them.
ReplyDeleteAliens is better than Alien.
I have little interest in Dr. Sleep, mainly bc it's got vampires or something to that effect, same old same old. Actually sounds a lot like Carrion Comfort. I think Steve's AA stuff has gotten stale the last couple books and this one just sounds like it even more of that. I'll wait for the reviews but right now I'm not excited at all.
-mike
Two Towers isn't technically a sequel. The Lord of the Rings is one giant book. They only published it in three parts because they didn't think anyone would want to read it if it was that long.
ReplyDeleteTechnically you are correct. Authors (all of them) seem to hate sequels -- thus they create second books as part of series and avoid the sequel label of the second book.
ReplyDelete