Are you a fan of sequels to classics or books using other author's characters?

[[deleted user]]

I usually steer clear of both these genres - the idea of a sequel to Pride and Prejudice or Jane Eyre for instance does not sit well with me. I did however enjoy the Laurie R. King Mary Russell books in which the heroine becomes an assistant and eventually wife to Sherlock Holmes (sounds awful but it really isn't)

[Anthony, Administrator, Keeper of the Really Good Coffee]

I barely like regular sequels...

[Marty]

It depends on the book/author, really. I do like to read books that use other author's characters, just to see what angle they take. I liked Jean Burnett's The Bad Miss Bennet: A Novel because she did try to make it sound like the Regency period. I'm not sure I'm going to like the sci-fi-fantasy version of J.A's novels though (Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters, for instance).

[[deleted user]]

Now thats an idea!

[Hayley]

I don't think I am. Not because I've tried one or two and disliked the result but because, for some reason or another, I just avoid picking them up when I go shopping :S Especially the 'such and such and.... MONSTERS' sort of thing - oh well, lots of other books to choose from ;)

[Anthony, Administrator, Keeper of the Really Good Coffee]

agreed, what over a million new titles every year?....

[Tracy]

The only one I will rather hang-doggedly admit to liking was "Scarlett" the sequel- by -another- author for Gone With the Wind. It's been decades, tho.

[Seamus]

I enjoyed Peter Carey's Jack Maggs which took Great Expectations as its starting point.

[Tracy]

Oh! How could I forget an amazing pre-quel book (do they count?) The Wide Sargasso Sea---incredible pre-Jane Eyre.

And Grendel by John Gardner.

Best of all-- I won't top this one: "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" by Tom Stoppard.

[Scott]

I also enjoyed Gardner's Grendel. However I'm glad I read Seamus Heaney's new translation of Beowulf first.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaB0tr...

[Maggie the Muskoka Library Mouse]

I can't say I have really experienced this genre. I'm nervous of trying it out, as the Classics are Classics for a reason. I'm worried that a book written as a prequel or a sequel by another author couldn't capture the original essence of the first author. :/ I do, however, have a few of them on my shelves. For example, I own copies of "Rhett Butler's People" by Donald McCaig, "Scarlett" by Alexandra Ripley, and "Before Green Gables" by Budge Wilson. None of these have I really tried, though.