Heiress of Condowood

[michael c]

apologies for the blow-by-blow but this book gets weirder by the page...


in a bizarre attempt to, i guess, merge the Elizabeth character with the actress who played her here was have Liz as having been a winsome blond movie star in the 1930s!


this totally random detail adds nothing to the overall plot of the book. just another example of Parker's staggering lack of understanding of the basic structure of this story. 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

No need to apologize. I, for one, am finding each revelation you share to be fascinating - though not necessarily in the way the novel's author may have hoped...

[Uncle Roger]

Lara has made no secret of the fact that she doesn't remember a lot about her own time of DS. Memory is a tricky thing at times and certainly not exclusive to Lara. I have not purchased Heiress of Collinwood as yet but I pulled my copy of Wolf Moon Rising off the closet shelf and found some interesting things in the forward. Again, Lara refers to "all the story lines that I couldn't possibly remember." Fair enough. Her agent and editor are presumably not DS fans, so they would have other concerns about the book than adherence to continuity. So she turned to Marcy Robin and Kathleen Resch for story information. I'm sure that they could have given her the correct information. Whether their input was taken is something else entirely. What I did find baffling is that she thanks Jim Pierson twice "for facts and details that I had forgotten." Since the book bears a copyright notice by Dan Curtis productions, it would seem that Pierson would have been a bit more zealous about guarding the integrity of the property. Maybe, to paraphrase Jim Aubrey, with your audience, it doesn't matter. 

[The Doctor and K9]

What I did find baffling is that she thanks Jim Pierson twice "for facts and details that I had forgotten." Since the book bears a copyright notice by Dan Curtis productions, it would seem that Pierson would have been a bit more zealous about guarding the integrity of the property. Maybe, to paraphrase Jim Aubrey, with your audience, it doesn't matter. 

It never mattered when Paperback Library, Gold Key, or the comic strip were published. I think DCP or whatever the rights are held by now only care about the licensing fee.

[michael c]

under ordinary circumstances i wouldn't hold someone accountable to accurate recollections of things that happened 40-odd years ago.


but Parker's made a decision to write and sell books based on this show. the VERY least she could do is familiarize herself with the basic framework of the series.


she gets almost EVERYTHING wrong. timelines. dates. backstories. the fates of most of these characters. she simply has no understanding of this material. just typing the name "Barnabas" on a page doesn't really make it a DS story.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

It's not just KLS who has gotten things wrong or passed over misinformation in the PomPress books - Pierson has as well. I honestly think that with the possible exceptions of Marcy Robin and Kathleen Resch, no one who publishes DS material has as much and certainly not more knowledge than we fans do. I mean, even the writers often had to go outside to ask the studio fans about certain plot twists. And even at that, DC never gave the fans credit for paying close attention to the show's plots - quite the opposite, in fact, because he always thought no one would notice if/when goofs came up. So, apparently the people behind all the current books share DC's same thinking.    But we did - and we still do...

[michael c]

when KLS goofs in the Pompress books it's one thing. it's really just a recollection...

she's not trying to craft a story out of this source material. that's why Parker's fiction is so frustrating.


here she has Vicki leaving Collinwood..on her own two feet..to move to Bangor in 1970. that simply IS NOT what happened to the character. she "disappeared in time" with Peter in 1968. ALL she had to do was get that simple, easily referenced detail right and this story could have launched effectively. she could have taken it anywhere. but getting basic framework like that so wrong makes the rest of the story impossible to follow.

[Josette]

Given that the whole series has been available for quite some time, it would seem obvious that if one was planning on writing something based on it, that the first thing to do would be to familiarize oneself with it!!!  It's incredible that she hasn't!!

[michael c]

it really gets more ridiculous by the page...

i think Parker is trying to create some sort of larger "mythology". a "grand sweep" across the centuries by randomly dumping a bunch of 1897 characters..Charity Trask, Magda, Quentin, Aristede..characters who would have been long dead, into the narrative. even though it doesn't make sense.


and needless to say Parker has her "Mary Sue" moment by describing this iteration of Angelique (a character she herself played) as a radiant, ravishing, incomparable beauty. it really reads like bad fan fiction.

and again simple details, like when Vicki was written out of the OS and how, could easily be referenced with a quick glance at one of her BFF's almanacs or episode guides. 

[alwaysdavid]

Thanks for all the info. I had considered reading this because Vickie is one of my favorite characters, but having attempted to read her other swill, I was wary. This sounds worse than anything Sam Hall could write.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

when KLS goofs in the Pompress books it's one thing. it's really just a recollection...

she's not trying to craft a story out of this source material. that's why Parker's fiction is so frustrating.

Completely agreed! Though the greater point I was attempting to make was that TPTB all seem to be following DC's belief that no matter how blatantly they goof, whether it be in a reference book or in plotting a DS novel, none of us are ever going to pick up on the goofs. 

[Gerard]

The plots of DS stories are available everywhere, from books to the internet.  There's no excuse for not knowing the "canon."

Gerard

[Gothick]

Wow, Parker didn't even bother to look up an online entry on the Victoria Winters storyline when she wrote that thing?

That "research" would have taken her all of about five minutes.

Happy New Year!

G.

[Uncle Roger]

Surprisingly, the reviews of the book on Amazon give it 4 or 5 stars.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

   And right there could be the sad proof that no matter how blatantly they goof, whether it be in a reference book or in plotting a DS novel, some DS fans really aren't picking up on the goofs - or they don't care.