Parker's new book

[Gothick]

Stuart posted an interview on collinwood.net today with Lara Parker in which she gives some fairly detailed information about her new book.  Most of it is set in the 20s, and Liz appears as an amorous, gun-toting flapper.  I've heard others discuss the desire to read fiction about Liz has a flapper, although in the original series Liz was born in 1917 and would have been about ten at the height of the flapper era.

Parker tactfully (?) discusses how some fans get upset when she "re-imagines" characters.  I guess this is her way of expressing reckless disregard for well established continuity over which she rides roughshod in her confections.  Even a series as "fluid" as DS did have its rules... I'm sure it will sell like hotcakes, though.

G.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

her way of expressing reckless disregard for well established continuity over which she rides roughshod in her confections.

Gee, ya think?    I still haven't gotten over what she did in Angelique's Descent.    And I probably never will...

[Uncle Roger]

I didn't care much for Angelique's Descent--too much of a bodice ripper for my taste. I liked the Salem Branch better. Intentionally or not, I found the idea of Antoinette as a cross between Joni Mitchell and Phoebe Buffay to be quite funny. So I'll probably buy this one too, if Amazon offers a good deal.

[MagnusTrask]

You know, if these "re-imaginings" (I hate that word... I think it's an oxymoron.  Not criticizing you, Gothick) started with a page announcing, "This book takes place in Diagonal Time, reachable through a loose floorboard in Angelique's old room at the Old House", then fans might have no difficulty with any of it.   The problem is, we'd never get to see Joan Bennett playing gun-toting (10+ years older) Liz, which was where the fun was in PT.   If you just write it, without those actors, do you care about very different Liz?

This is a question I have about the new film, too.   I can't get to see it yet.   If you change everything and everybody around, that can be fun like PT was, but that worked when you had the same actors there to ground it all.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

The problem with Angelique's Descent is that it was promoted, not as if it was a reimagining or an alt-DS, but as if it fit in perfectly with the original series. But it so did not. Yes, the latter part of the book took actual scenes from the series and reproduced them word for word. However, it also took one particular scene from the series and put words in one character's mouth that were never there and those words changed the thrust of the scene completely. 

[Gothick]

I enjoyed quite a bit of Angelique's Descent.  But that final group of chapters was practically unreadable for me.  I still to this day don't understand why she bungled all of that so badly.

I think it might have been much better if it had ended with Angelique preparing to knock at the door of the Old House.  There could have been an epilogue where Balberith made ironic comments upon her fate or something while Nicholas leered in the background.

I don't actually remember the scene you mention MB, but I do remember your mentioning it back at the time.  I was so sick of the thing by the time I finished it that I quickly gave my copy away to another fan so I never bothered to check up on that scene.

Parker herself spoke of what she does as a "re-imagining."  I'm afraid I was already rolling my eyes so much I could barely get through the interview at that point...  I love the idea of Diagonal Time, reachable through a loose floorboard in Angelique's old bedroom!

Best, G.

[arashi]

I liked Angelique's Descent, I didn't like The Salem Branch, but I'll still read this one.  She gave away an awful lot of the plot in that interview.

[spoiler]One nitpick, if Liz knew Quentin during Prohibition, and especially if they were so involved, why wouldn't she recognize him later when his ghost was haunting the house OR LATER after Barnabas changed history and he was still alive (and eternally 27) in 1969?[/spoiler]

[MagnusTrask]

[spoiler]One nitpick, if Liz knew Quentin during Prohibition, and especially if they were so involved, why wouldn't she recognize him later when his ghost was haunting the house OR LATER after Barnabas changed history and he was still alive (and eternally 27) in 1969?[/spoiler]

Hi, arashi.  That's one big nitpick.   You could tear a limb off or two, trying to evict a nit that humungous.   (I may never have used the word "humungous" before... if it is a word)   It's time.  We need to track Lara down, get some dirt to blackmail her with, or corner her in a dank, atmospheric, dark alley, and somehow get her to accept the concept of Diagonal Time under duress, if only to save the very space-time continuum from blowing up or something.

[michael c]

i'll def be skipping this one...

apart from disliking 'the salem branch' intensely i'm currently still trying to absorb the changes made to story continuity via the film.

i really can't cope with another "diagonal", or "parallel", or "alternate" DS universe at the moment.

[MagnusTrask]

i'm currently still trying to absorb the changes made to story continuity via the film.

The new film?  I haven't even seen it yet, but from what everyone's saying, continuity does not exist between either of the two TV series and the new film.   Tim Burton did what he wanted, and that doesn't affect the events in the original series.   I can understand not wanting to deal with alternate realities though, declared (PT) or undeclared (Tim Burton, Lara's books).

This made me wonder, though -- generally we accept Depp/Burton's right to rewrite the story, without the slightest explanation.   Is Lara doing exactly the same thing?  If so, why do most of us mind it so much?  Or, why don't we mind it with the new film?

I've never seen the last Star Trek movie reboot, but I know they "justify" changing ST history by having Leonard Nimoy give a little intro speech about some terrible alien assault on time that screwed everything up, and made the entire history within Trek different.   I'm glad no one thought that was needed for DS fans; it seems a little silly.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I have absolutely no problem with new versions of DS reworking the characters/stories and giving them their own spin. In fact, I pretty much find fascinating what they decide to change - and I sometimes even think the changes actually work better than what was done originally. But when something is promoted as being completely within the established canon of the original series but is not, that's when I have a problem.

(And funny, I don't even remember a Leonard Nimoy speech as part of the ST reboot. I guess it didn't make all that much of an impression on me. But then, as with DS, I was open to whatever the reboot was going to do, so maybe that's why...)

[arashi]

I think, and this is only my opinion here, that part of the problem is that as an actress on the original show and someone who played such an iconic character in the series, her works are seen as all the more official by sources outside the fandom because Hey! It was written by Angelique herself! Surely she would know all the history of the character and her motivations and everything over the span of 1,225 episodes! The opposite is most often the case. I'm kind of leery of how she is going to write a whole novel with Quentin in it as she wrote him so poorly and with very little understanding of his character in The Salem Branch.

It's weird, and I'm sure it's true for other people as well, but I can enjoy all the different renditions of DS and hold them completely apart from each other. Know what I mean? It's like, there are a few of the Marilyn Ross books that I enjoy and have read a couple times, but the story in no way bleeds over into the storyline of the original show, or the audio dramas or comic books, etc. It's its own separate thing.

[Gothick]

Magnus:  believe me, I am to say the least, not at all thrilled with the "rewrites" or "reimaginings" in the Depp film.  I simply *choose* not to rant about it all here.

Because I choose to do so!

Just checking in.

G. (turning to open the casement, stare broodily out at the gathering storm over Widows Hill, adjust my drop earrings, and contemplate my latest Chopin nocturne for the evening)

[MagnusTrask]

I know many people hate the specific things Tim Burton did with the characters, but I don't know how many of those fans object to the very idea of any changes being made, because of an assistance on continuity with the series.   I had the idea that few fans felt this way about the film, but they did with LP's novels.   I don't know, though.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Some or even all of the changes that were made in the film may bother some fans - but at least with the film we were told at the outset that changes would be made and those involved with the film never made any claims that anything was going to be completely in keeping with the original series or with the characters as they were presented on that series.

On the other hand, the novels are supposedly dealing with the very same characters as they were presented on the original series. So, when they're not presented in the novels as they were on the original series, it's a different type of situation than it is with the film...