Elizabeth George controversy!

[Deathstroke]

Apparently a lot of long term fans are ticked off at the writer for events occuring in her latest mystery novel.

Here's the link to the story! (http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/books/04/14/books.elizabeth.george.ap/index.html)

[Expletive Deleted]

So . . . what's the twist?

[Deathstroke]

So . . . what's the twist?

Don't know. I don't read her books, but I thought the news would be interesting to the Books Forum denizens.

[Expletive Deleted]

So some people, somewhere else, are upset over something.

Good to know.

[Blueferret]

Apparently, she kills off one of the major characters. Don't know who, though.

[Deathstroke]

So some people, somewhere else, are upset over something.

Good to know.

The article gave rather broad hints about what happens, did you read it?

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

Guess it proves book readers aren't that different to comic book readers.

Difference is, book publishers know to ignore whining, comic book publishers maintain staus quo and bring Hal Jordan back.

[Solaris]

It might be comparable to JK Rowling killing off... oh, say, Hermione? (For that matter, a lot of people were pissed when *spoiler* Sirius died in the last book!

I haven't read this woman's books, but she sounds interesting. From the photo, she also reminds me of an actress I've seen, but can't remember her name.

Anyway, the news story and some reactions here do bring up an interesting topic: Book authors and publishers *do* seem to get away with more in terms of stuff like "an established character gets killed, or turns wrong/bad, has a change of personality (much like Harry Potter in the last book---IMO he was pretty much a prat!)", than comics writers.

Then again, with books you rarely have a different author being brought in to retcon your work (well, except for the "Dune" books!), but it's a pretty common practice in comics, from what I've seen/heard. So at times events that fans are unhappy with, get retconned by the next writer for the character. (Or, conversely, some writer will decide to retcon something that was *good* into something bad, just to "shake up the readers" and "make their mark on the series/character", which I really don't agree with.

DO you guys think that book writers/publishers get away with this kind of thing more? Or is it that the multiple writers for a comics character lends itself more to disasters and/or retcons?

While we're at it, what do you Dune fans think about the retcons Brian Herbert and Co. did with the Dune prequels, which apparently changed some things Frank Herbert had established in the books he actually wrote?

[Roquefort Raider]

It might be comparable to JK Rowling killing off... oh, say, Hermione? (For that matter, a lot of people were pissed when *spoiler* Sirius died in the last book!

I thought that after Stephen King's Misery, writers would be wary of killing off their major characters... ;)



While we're at it, what do you Dune fans think about the retcons Brian Herbert and Co. did with the Dune prequels, which apparently changed some things Frank Herbert had established in the books he actually wrote?

As stated previously, I find that the first three Dune prequels have all the qualities (and faults) of fanfic. A lot of implausible links are made between characters, Dune minutiae is given way too much importance, and the overall plot is extremely banal and formulaic, providing little more than a generic canvas to give the writers the opportunity to drop names all the time.

The second series of prequels, the Butlerian jihad, is very bad fanfic. The robots in it have all the subtility of the ones in Magnus, robot fighter. Actually, no. The Magnus robots made more sense. I mean, come on... a sadistic robot making statues of tortured flesh and making bogus philosophical soliloquies asking "...but is it art"??? That's teetering on the verge of self-parody.

Well, I'm not about to tie down Brian Herbert to a bed and smash his legs; still, I will definitely not be reading any more of his Dune books (I stopped after the first of the jihad series).