Once More, Without Feeling

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle grew heartily sick of his Sherlock Holmes novels. He felt that he had written much worthier work (both in the fields of medicine and spirituality) and that his writings on the master detective were pulp trash. Yet his publishers and his public wanted more about Holmes and so he wrote them what they wanted, if only to make sure that he was allowed to write about the things that he loved.

I recently found a novel that I hadn't known existed - 'Son of Rosemary's Baby' by the author of the original 'Rosemary's Baby', Ira Levin. Frankly, it's a pale shadow of the first book, with underdeveloped characters and a truly risible, laugh out loud ending. But Mr Levin is quite honest to say that he'd resisted writing a sequel for decades before an offer came along that he simply couldn't turn down.

I can understand him doing it for the money, certainly. And I can also get the idea that, if people really love a novel then they'll naturally want to find out what happens to its characters after they've turned the final page. And for the author there's a built-in readership in a sequel which equates to much-needed income. That's something that every writer, even Sir Arthur, welcomes.

So the author might (if they're lucky) end up financially happy but will they be artistically satisfied? Surely all of us write because, at some level at least, we have to and would write whether or not anyone eventually read our work? Tell me it's not just me that does this? Tell me that best-selling authors of sequels aren't just literary whores, pandering to their customer's every desire whether or not it's what the writer really wants to do?

I understand that, with a sequel to a well-received novel, everyone goes away happy, at least to some degree, but wouldn't they be even happier with a new novel full of new ideas? Eoin Colfer has sold millions of Artemis Fowl books, but his later, adult novel - 'Plugged' - is so much better (to these adult eyes, at least). It's full of completely fresh ideas, not weighed down with the baggage of previous work. And then he went and spoiled it by writing a terribly inferior sequel, 'Screwed'.

And I've even written sequels to my own short stories, usually when readers have asked me the same question: What happened to the characters next. I've been as interested as they have and I've given it my best shot but it seems to me that it's a bit of a cop out, a waste of talent and imagination. That story's been told, let's all move on to the next one.

So I think I've made my view clear. I'm not a great fan of literary sequels. But at least they're so much better than the sequel penned by a different writer after the original author's death. That really is a ghastly idea.