Heiress of Condowood

[The Doctor and K9]

i don't care for the BF audiodramas. to me they are dreary and depressing. and Parker's Mary Sue fiction veers so far outside OS canon i cannot take them seriously. but because the OS stars are involved in these productions they are considered the "real deal" by many fans.

I take the audiodramas seriously and consider them canon because the cast is continuing the story. But that's not the sole reason. The audio series is the only continuation of the show that has paid attention to continuity and told quality stories appeal to DS fans and also those unfamililar with the series. They have quite a following in the UK and have won several awards. They've resurrected characters I'd never thought I'd hear again like, Hallie Stokes, Amanda Harris, Danielle Roget/Eve and a host of others. I was dreading the return of Roger Davis as Charles Delaware Tate. I was prepared to loathe it because I really don't like his acting style on DS. They managed to record a very poignant and touching story that was as haunting as it was tragic. Do they always get the continuity correct? No they don't. They've made some errors, but then so did the original show. They couldn't decide how old certain characters were or whether Angelique was a child in Martinique or over 100 years old. I think it holds together with the orignal series remarkably well. I think it's a testament to the quality of the stories that they've released over 60 stories and lasted ten years.
One thing they did NOT get wrong was "Cassandra Collins." Many fans think that they just decided to call Angelique Cassandra in order to pair her up with Tony. That did not happen. Angelique was using the alias to gain entry to an island in order to obtain an artifact she desired. Angelique Collins does not exist. She has no ID, no friends, or references. Casssandra Collins is the former wife of Roger Collins. This identity got her invited to the private island where she met up with Tony and they were forced to work together. Their relationship developed and well..any more would be spoilers. Attention was paid to continuity though, unlike the way Cassandra was handled by Gold Key.

[Uncle Roger]

KLS and Lara are writing for a limited but loyal market. It seems that everything they publish is guaranteed a certain amount of sales, irregardless of quality or content. It's doubtful that they would achieve the same volume of sales outside the DS niche.

[Gerard]

I actually don't mind some "revamping" of the canon in the various novels that came out from the late '60's through today.  After all, "Marilyn (or is is Marylin?) Ross" created his own parallel universe in his various DS novels.  Few followed the canon, especially as the series of books progressed.  They certainly weren't literary classics but us young fans who bought them devoured them.  Of course, there were the horribly drawn Gold Key comic books.  Don't forget the year-or-so-long daily and weekend "comic" series that appeared in newspapers.  It was well drawn, but the plots were awful and as far from canon as could be.  Yet, no one trashed any of this; it has all been held in various forms of esteem at keeping the series alive and out there.

As I stated, I truly enjoyed Angelique's Descent.  I thought it was a marvelous novel and for the most part stuck with the canon.  Were there tweaks, especially at the end?  Of course.  The equally marvelous Hawkes Harbor had its tweaks.  Considering the inconsistencies within the TV series, tweaking has been necessary.  As for "AD," I thought Ms. Parker did an incredible job with one of DS's biggest inconsistencies:  Barnabas, by 1796, was around 40 years old, yet had a nine-year-old sister.  That would take some "crunching of the numbers" especially regarding Naomi's "birthing hips," yet Ms. Parker explained it.  She crunched (as I'm sure Naomi also had to) and it worked.  Ms. Parker looked at what the childhood of Angelique was like and even did it with controversy, the main one being that Angelique was mulatto.  Her mother was an African slave woman; her father was a French plantation owner (from what I recall).  That's some heady stuff.  Good for Ms. Parker.  Why would some skinny white girl be a witch?  Better Ms. Parker's explanation (she received her supernatural abilities from her mother who was a voodoo queen) than from the DS "canon" from the messed-up 1840/41 plot where she was a witch going back to at least the 1600's (if she was so powerful, how did she end up being a servant girl a hundred years later? - she needed to have a conference with Samantha and Endora). 

I didn't like Ms. Parker's later novels not because they so much traveled from the canon, but because they were poorly written.  No, I didn't like having Elizabeth being a flapper and movie star and some such stuff in the 1920's, when she was born, according to canon, in 1917.  That would make Liz over 60, at least, when the series began.  There are other things to pick at.  Sometimes canon is absolutely necessary.  And tweaking the canon is also absolutely necessary.  If Dan Curtis and the PTB stuck with canon, we would've had an entirely different series.  After all, Josette died in the 1830's according to canon.  Then, when the Barnabas plot took a soap opera low in the ratings into high (if not the highest) in the ratings, suddenly she died 40 years earlier.  And don't forget that Julia, Barnabas and Eliot so drastically changed not only the time-line but also the family history in 1840/41, that when they returned to 1971, none of the Collins family the knew and loved would've been there.

Gerard

[KMR]

I don't have much of a problem with veering away from DS "canon"--even wildly, as it sounds like is sometimes happening.  (I've not yet read Lara Parker's novels after Angelique's Descent.)  As long as the novel is written well and is able to tell a good story that doesn't contradict itself, that should be fine.  Each novel should probably be considered as a stand-alone story, not part of a continuity.  After all, the world generally is able to accept changes to characters, settings, and plot elements in derivative works based on Dracula, Frankenstein, etc.  Why not also Dark Shadows?  I suppose the difficulty may be that we're not used to that kind of freedom being taking in works deriving from much more recent original works.

Regarding Angelique's Descent, I enjoyed the book very much, although I had difficulty with the latter part that recounted events from the series.  It read much more like an outline of the story, not as fleshed out as the rest of the book had been.

And as for Hawkes Harbor, I thought it was wonderful.  I had a prepublication galley copy, and read it sitting on the beach in Cozumel one Thanksgiving week.  (What a fabulous week...)  It took me a little while to realize that it was based on DS, since I knew nothing of the book's origins, and picked it up at the publisher's exhibit booth based on the author's name.  What a shame that DCP didn't accept it for the DS book series.  While the atmosphere of the book was quite a bit different from DS (for me), it worked very well and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

[Gerard]

From what I recall, KMR, "HH" was accepted for publication for the revived HarperCollins novel series.  However, in the interim the series collapsed when HarperCollins and DCP couldn't agree on how to split the take.  It was to be the third entry (after Ms. Parker's "AD" and Mark Rainey's Dreams of the Dark, the only two that were published).  There were others that were to follow, including another one by Mr. Rainey.  So as not to waste her work, Ms. Hinton simply took the DS names of persons and places, changed them (save for the deliberate retaining of "Roger Collins" in that one line), and had it published.

Gerard

[The Doctor and K9]

I actually don't mind some "revamping" of the canon in the various novels that came out from the late '60's through today.

I don't mind if the characters are pretty much kept the same. I enjoyed "Dreams of the Dark," the second Harper Collins novel. It really didn't fit continuity, but it felt like a lost story from the OS, even though Vicky was more like the '91 version. It was set after 1795 but there was no sign of Dr. Lang, Cassandra, or Nicholas. It's my favorite authorized DS novel.

[The Doctor and K9]

There were others that were to follow, including another one by Mr. Rainey.

Mark Rainey did finish his novel and has offered it as a free download. If it had been published, it might have been the first novel to be consistent with the original series. I'm not sure whether HH would have been.
http://www.stephenmarkrainey.com/dslabyrinth.htm

[KMR]

Thanks for the info about the HarperCollins series, Gerard.  I had no idea!  I thought I'd heard that Hinton's novel had been rejected, but that was apparently misinformation.  Good to know that DCP did approve of it, at least.  I still think it's strange that S.E. Hinton wrote it.  It's totally outside of the world of literature for which she's known, but she did a fabulous job with it.

[KMR]

Oh, BTW, I had the pleasure of speaking very very briefly with Ms. Hinton on the set of Tex back in summer 1981, then saw her again and took her picture at the world premiere the next summer.  I've been a fan of hers for a long time.

[michael c]

backpeddling a bit as to whether or not Parker even follows her own canon from book to book i'll have to say NO...


the only other one i read was TSB and i pulled it out for a quick cross reference. it's set in 1971 and without completely rereading it it doesn't seem to mesh at all with what's happening in HOC which takes place a year later. it's basic setup was closer to what would have actually been happening with OS continuity. HOC might as well take place on another planet it's so far off base.

again a year passes between the two. so i suppose Parker gave herself a bit of "wiggle room". but the framework of the story seems completely different.

[michael c]

actually the "Angelique" equivalent is a completely different character in both books.

so she's clearly not bothering to follow her own canon. 

[Gerard]

Thanks for the info about the HarperCollins series, Gerard.  I had no idea!  I thought I'd heard that Hinton's novel had been rejected, but that was apparently misinformation.  Good to know that DCP did approve of it, at least.  I still think it's strange that S.E. Hinton wrote it.  It's totally outside of the world of literature for which she's known, but she did a fabulous job with it.

I read somewhere, KMR, that Ms. Hinton was a long-time fan of DS and jumped at the opportunity to write a novel (I also read that it was to be called Collinsport - hence the title name-change to Hawkes Harbor, "Hawkes" obviously another bow to all DS fans since that ended up being Carolyn's married name).  It was a real coup that one of America's most beloved and venerated authors was contributing to the attempted novel re-boot.  Again, her knowledge of the canon is remarkable (even though - again - she needed to tweak things to fit the plot).  The novel concentrated on the life of Willie Loomis, something not touched by the series but did she ever touch it in an incredible way and led up to his arrival with Jason to Collinsport and, well, we all know the rest of the story.  The climactic ending was heart-breaking.  I'll always remember that blanket.  It causes me to tear up.

Gerard

[Gothick]

This is pretty close to off-topic, especially for this thread.  But at the moment I'm reading GENERATION LOSS by Elizabeth Hand.  It's the first in a series of three novels (to date) featuring anti-hero Cassandra Neary, a middle-aged punk survivor from the 70s.  In this first book, Cass travels to an isolated island off the coast of Maine where she encounters some very unusual people, and visits the ruins of an abandoned hippie commune from 1973.

One of the towns in the area on the mainland is called Collinstown.  I can't help wondering if that is a nod in our direction from Ms. Hand.  Her books suggest that she might have enjoyed DS both as a child and later on (she's around my age).

G.

[The Doctor and K9]

actually the "Angelique" equivalent is a completely different character in both books.

so she's clearly not bothering to follow her own canon. 

Yeah, I could never figure that out. How can you have two characters that are the reincarnation of Angelique? She never explained that. She just expected us to accept it, I guess and not question how it worked out. Maybe it's something like Adam and Barnabas sharing a soul.

[The Doctor and K9]

backpeddling a bit as to whether or not Parker even follows her own canon from book to book i'll have to say NO...


the only other one i read was TSB and i pulled it out for a quick cross reference. it's set in 1971 and without completely rereading it it doesn't seem to mesh at all with what's happening in HOC which takes place a year later. it's basic setup was closer to what would have actually been happening with OS continuity. HOC might as well take place on another planet it's so far off base.

again a year passes between the two. so i suppose Parker gave herself a bit of "wiggle room". but the framework of the story seems completely different.

My memories of the past books is sketchy I admit, but I don't think the books were consistent either. I think they are set at the same time and yet in TSB the house is densely populated and totally abandoned in HOC. Again though, my memory is not very clear about the former book and I'm not really up to going back and checking it right now.