Heiress of Condowood

[Gothick]

I don't see any posting regarding the appearance of a publicity blurb for Lara Parker's new DS novel. It seems to have been posted on Amazon and other venues sometime around the 4th of July weekend. The blurb seems very poorly written--particularly the tortured, repetitive syntax of that final sentence.

http://www.collinsporthistoricalsociety.com/2016/07/victoria-winters-returns-in-dark.html

The blurb doesn't mention Barnabas, but he is featured in the cover art, which has as its source one of the old publicity stills from 1968 (if I recall aright, a photograph from the same session was used for the cover of the very first issue of the magazine AfterNoon TV back in 1968--such was the prominence of DS on the daytime scene in that era).

Thanks for my fellow fan Michael C. for pointing this out to me.

G.

[michael c]

the "condo" plot sounds so suspenseful! 

[michael c]

is anyone reading Lara Parker's latest DS fiction 'Heiress of Collinwood'?

i'm not generally a fan of her writing but this one is centered on Victoria so i picked it up. without "spoiling" too much i'm on page 110 in a state of complete bewilderment.

i suppose it's her story and she can take it where she wants to. but what i'm most struck by is her complete lack of understanding/memory of the basic structure of the original story.  her work seems to take place in some sort of "parallel time"variation of events. i have no idea how she came up with the outline of this plot?

Vicki as a television reporter in Bangor in 1972? she really seems to have no memory at all of what actually happened to the character in the OS. or that Maggie replaced her as Collinwood governess. the dates and timelines of everything is completely wrong. none of it lines up with OS canon. none of it makes sense.

not surprisingly she also doesn't seem to understand the fundamental nature of the character. what made Vicki "tick".

i'm trying enjoy it as a "stand alone" story but the huge gaps in continuity are extremely distracting. i can really only compare her work to an "inspired by" story along the lines of the Ross novels or the Dynamite comics more than OS continuity.

anyone looking to her work for OS plot "resolutions" is in for a rude awakening. 

[The Doctor and K9]

What also struck me was the way that this book didn't even seem to fit very well into her own continuity. I read it a few months ago and I'm already vague on many of the details, but isn't Barnabas supposed to be human in 1972 of the Harper/Perkerverse? Maybe this takes place before the cure. If so then where is Julia?  Again, I read an advance copy of this, so I'm foggy on the details but it does not seem to mesh with her own books. i'd love to stand corrrected on that.

[michael c]

the "present day" sequence takes place in 1972 of all years. was Barnabas still "cured' when he and Julia returned from 1840? was that even addressed? i forget.

apparently Julia is not even referenced once in the entire book.


and there's just sloppiness. when Vicki's rummaging through city records she finds "newspaper articles" about Jason McGuire's "disappearance" (which of course there was not) but she also knows what really happened to him (which of course she didn't. no one ever did).

and since Parker wasn't in the first year it's obvious her extremely limited knowledge of that period and the original story setup is based on skimming synopsis and maybe watching a few episodes just as a cursory reference point. i recall in TSB she described Liz in the black gown and jewels getup she wore only in the pilot episode as if that was how she dressed daily. and here she has Liz a "recluse" into the 1970s when, of course, that period ended in 1967.

she also knows Barnabas is a vampire, as does the entire Collins family, which is completely innaccurate in terms of the original story. the whole thing is bizzaro land.

given the title i'll assume the big "reveal' is going to end up being the fan favorite Liz-as-Vicki's-mother theory but with all the other major continuity gaffes i can't even consider that "resolution" or "closure" although many fans already consider that mystery to be "solved".

[michael c]

there are also multiple references to present day Quentin who of course Vicki never knew. something like that is extremely easy to cross reference even without first hand knowledge.

[michael c]

i turn each page with increasing mystification...

Vicki "seems to recall David mentioning his mother". forget that she knew Laura well and was intimately involved in her storyline.


she gets EVERYTHING wrong. 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Why don't any of the things you bring up surprise me? Oh, could it be that after she changed actual 1795 dialogue from the show to suit her purposes in Angelique's Descent (no doubt because the actual dialogue wouldn't have supported her premise for the book) I vowed never to read another one of her books. She thinks nothing of twisting canon for her own needs. And that would have been fine, if, as you say, the books were supposed to be an alternate take - but AD was promoted as fitting completely within the canon of the show - but it does not. Whether or not her writing is no longer supposed to fit with canon I couldn't say because I haven't paid any attention. But at the very least the new liberties she's taken seem extremely strange...

[michael c]

here she's not just twisting canon to suit her own agenda...

she simply doesn't understand, really at all, the underlying foundation of the show. particularly characters and storylines she herself did not play in.


at the end of the day these were just actors who simply memorized the scripts they were handed. they did not write or create the story. and it's obvious Parker's basic grasp of the material is minimal at best.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

and it's obvious Parker's basic grasp of the material is minimal at best.

Agreed. And that's true even when it comes to plots she was in...

[michael c]

there's also a misfired attempt to "modernize" Vicki by making her more progressive and sexualized.

granted a 1960s Gothic ingenue wouldn't "read" particularly well today. her preternatural naivete coming across as dated and dim. but this character doesn't "feel" like Vicki at all.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

this character doesn't "feel" like Vicki at all.

Other fans have said the same of Julia and other characters, too. Another reason why I haven't read anything beyond AD. I figure why set myself up for disappointment?

[michael c]

in one of the most laughable attempts to i guess to tie the story into a "larger mythology" the founder of the Hammond Foundling Home, in New York City, where our dear heroine was brought up, was none other than...

MISS CHARITY TRASK. who subjected a young Victoria to all manner of Victorian cruelties.


i "guess" this throwaway detail is mean to illustrate now Vicki was "persecuted" by the Trasks "across the centuries" but it makes absolutely no sense. 

[Gerard]

Her first novel, Angelique's Decent, stuck to the canon.  It was so well-written.  As for the rest of her work, pheh.  The one where Liz was a flapper when, by the cannon, she was actually only 10-years-old, forget it.

Gerard

[michael c]

i only consider the OS to be "canonical" but for many fans the RTC presentation and subsequent BF audio dramas have become "official" continuity. and Parker clearly doesn't try and mesh her work with what's happening with that timeline. this story goes completely outside the structure of the OS and all other subsequent attempts at continuity.

it's a self contained story. fine. but it really doesn't make any sense at all.