ecl@hocsj.UUCP (09/19/84)
jayembee, >Methinks that you show a slight ignorance of this >subject. First of all, this trend you describe started >*long* before THE SILMARILLION. DeCamp and Carter, for >instance, were hauling Robert Howard material out long >before Christopher Tolkien did the same with Dear Old Dad. That is probably true, they did. However I am not sure I really see it as a trend until Tolkien did it. Such diverse works as MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD and TURANDOT had unchosen co-authors after the famous author's death. It is a moot point when it became a trend. > >Secondly, The circumstances behind Piper's lost Fuzzy novel >had nothing at all with whether Piper thought it was good >enough to be published. He had written it, but never got >around to submitting it before he blew his brains out, >because he thought his stuff wasn't selling well enough for >him to make a living as a writer. What I had heard was that the last Fuzzy novel had apparently actually been hidden by the author. I don't remember the exact story, but it seems to me it was hidden at the bottom of a box of correspondence or or a stationery box or something of the sort. It was really this story that prompted my original comments. >And as far as the dead >author never chooing his "collaborator", Jerry Pournelle has >written permission *from Piper himself* to write more Space >Viking novels (now if only Jerry would write the suckers!). If you look at what I said, I claimed only that Smith and Howard did not choose their co-authors. Who said that Piper never chose a collaborator? Any reference I made to Piper concerned the new Fuzzy novel and that I said concerned a related trend co-authoring trend. >> >Thirdly, the "new Doc Smith" books are nothing of the sort, >except for SUBSPACE ENCOUNTER. The first Family D'Alembert >book was a novelette by Smith expanded by Stephen Goldin >into a novel. The further books in that series are *solely* >the work of Goldin, though there are claims that he's >working from notes left by Smith, and despite the use of the >collaborative byline. I still contend that they claim to be collaborations with the dead author. Smith's name is prominently on the cover. Whether or not they are really serious collaborations, the way the Conan books are, is irrelevant. They are still using the dead author's name to sell books without the dead author's consent. >The same is true of the Lord Tedric >series by Gordon Eklund. And the new Lensman books are >solely the work of the authors whose bylines are on the >books. > >As for the Robert E. Howard material, there has never been >any pretense that it is "new" material by Howard. In some >cases, whole stories found in storage have been published >here and there, but in most cases what we end up with is >DeCamp, Carter, or whoever writing a story from notes or >fragments found in Howard's papers. And in all of these >cases, a collaborative byline is used. They still do the same thing, trade off a dead author's name and exploit completists of that author's works. >I also think you are making a mistake in assuming that the >reason a given story was never published in the author's >lifetime was because it was an inferior work, and that the >author recognized it as such. The phrase I use is "more often than not." That may be taking some license, since I haven't done a statistical study, but I do not claim it always is that way. >In the case of Howard, it was >simply that many of his stories couldn't find a market. >Some of the stories of his that found their way into print >in the last couple of decades have been a lot better than >much of what he sold in his lifetime, and I am glad they >were discovered. I do not say it is an invariable rule. >In the case of WEB, it could well be that Wyndham couldn't find anyone >who wanted to buy it, not that he was "ashamed" of it. >Remember, Cordwainer Smith couldn't sell "Scanners Live in >Vain" for *years*, but once it finally found its way into >print, it was hailed as a classic. Madeleine L'Engle tried >selling A WRINKLE IN TIME for quite a while before one >publisher finally accepted it, and then it won the Newbery >Award as Best Chidren's Novel of the Year. Don't forget WATERSHIP DOWN, CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, and CATCH-22. Each of them nearly did not get published. Still, none of these contradict what I was saying. >Admittedly, there are times when I think it gets a little out of hand, >and often a "collaborator" doesn't do justice to the >original author's material. On the other hand, many of >these "resurrections" are for reasons of literary historical >interest, such as, say, T. H. White's THE BOOK OF MERLIN. >I can sympathize with the idea that an author may not have >wanted some of his work to see the light of day, but I can >also sympathize with his fans' interest in seeing more work >from that author. Are their "rights" any less important >than his? Sure they are. Writing is a struggle and not all exercises work out. An author has a write to privacy on what he considers his mistakes, even if his fans would love to see it. I am no Ayn Rand fan, but her point in FOUNTAINHEAD is well taken. A creator has the right to complete ownership of his creation. [There are special cases where a creation is already sold before it comes about... For example, I have sold away the right to my software creation when I came to work for AT&T, but it was my right to do so.] The right may not be enforceable for a dead author, but it should be. >I don't mean to come down so hard, and I could well be reading things >into your comments that you didn't intend. But I felt the >need to debate your comments. > Feel free. I don't agree with your arguments, as obvious from the above, but the discussion was worth having. In any case, I suspect that John Beynon Harris would have probably wanted WEB to come out under his real name. It is closer to the quality of those books that did. Only the few books he wrote that were especially good seem to have been published under the pseudonym John Wyndham and it is unlikely he would have wanted WEB associated with books as good as WHEN THE KRAKEN WAKES (OUT OF THE DEEPS), MIDWICH CUCKOOS (VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED), THE CHRYSALIDS (REBIRTH), and especially DAY (REVOLT) OF THE TRIFFIDS (I wonder what American publishers had against his original titles?) (Evelyn C. Leeper for) Mark R. Leeper ...ihnp4!lznv!mrl