Prequels, Sequels, and Parallel threads, Oh My!

[IrrationalSanity]

Another thread mentioned that a series had, after several novels, had a prequel released. It seems to me that there are quite a few series (and I will include video, just because) in the SF/Fantasy genera that have gone down the non sequential (or "Insequent", if you prefer) lately.

Dune.
This is probably the longest continuous arc, with the most time jumps: Frank Herbert's original series, then his son Brian's immediate prequel trilogy, a universe origin series, a conclusion series, and an "inquel" series talking about some gap time in the original!

Ender.
Orson Scott Card took Ender's Game, created the Speaker series (sequel), The Shadow series (parallel), several fill in the gap stories, and now the Formic War series (origin).

Middle Earth.
I think The Hobbit was released after the LOTR. Then there was all of Christopher's posthumous work of assembling backstory, origin, etc...

Alien.
The original series has been supplemented by "Prometheus", a semi prequel

Star Trek.
TOS was sequeled with animation and TNG, which itself was paralleled and sequeled with DS9, Voyager. The whole thing was prequeled with Enterprise, And let's not even get into the films, and the series reboot. Not to mention the entire Novel Universe built around it.

Star Wars.
Original Trilogy. Prequel Origin Trilogy. Soon to be Sequel (Trilogy?). Clone Wars animated series. And a Novel Universe at least as large as the Star Trek version.

[I'm Murrin]

The Hobbit was published first, though LotR and the Silmarillion was his life work.

[IrrationalSanity]

OK. I see. It was retconned and edited to match the new story. Got it. Yet another variation on the theme, though...

[Vraith]

And let's not forget the Foundation books...a trilogy, a following one, a couple prequels, a merging of them with two other series, and bunch of "inquels" [including both shorter works by peeps, and the trilogy by the killer B's]

Wheel of Time was headed that way, but apparently it's been decided to not do any of the earlier stuff [besides the existing prequel].

[Avatar]

I liked the existing prequel for the WoT. And I'd read any more they put out probably, cause I think Sanderson nailed it.

And what about the Kharkanas books by Ericson? They're sorta prequels. So was Night of Knives, but I tend to think of them more as a parallel series.

Feist had the Empire and Magician books running parallel, and then a whole bunch of sequels. (I loved the early ones, but I gave up after Serpent War.)

As for retconning, I hate it. Bloody King and his rereleased DT1. And now the Star Wars expanded universe is declared dead. Bah.

--A

[IrrationalSanity]

Yeah, Canon is (unfortunately) whatever the current owner of the franchise says it is. Fortunately for Star Trek, none of the books were ever considered Canon (even those by key ST writers). The Animated Series has fallen in and out of Canon a couple of times.

As for Star Wars, I never got into any of the books, except the novelizations of the films themselves, so the EU might just as well be "Legends" as far as I'm concerned.

[Avatar]

Unfortunately for me, I followed the major story-arcs relatively closely. For long enough that, as far as I'm concerned, they really are what happened next.

--A

[Vraith]

Feist had the Empire and Magician books running parallel, and then a whole bunch of sequels. (I loved the early ones, but I gave up after Serpent War.)

As for retconning, I hate it. Bloody King and his rereleased DT1. And now the Star Wars expanded universe is declared dead. Bah.

--A

Holy crap, how could Feist be missed for this topic? [[probably the Pern stuff, too, to nod at Menolly. Not that Pern needs mention in yet ANOTHER thread. ]
I got up to the first Serpent War.
Fun Feist fact: [for me, anyway] one of his few novels, AFAIK, NOT related to those, takes place mostly right around where I lived for over a decade. To the point that there must be at least a dozen or more things in it that I'm all "been there, done that" occasionally I've thought I was sure I knew who exactly a couple of the minor characters were based on. [[may be wrong, may not be based on any real people...but almost all the location/environment is "real"]].

I dislike retconn generally in written stuff...though once or twice authors have done it so seamlessly I don't mind...making it seem more like "so THAT's what REALLY happened! It makes SENSE now!" or something pertinent. Where it seems to illuminate/deepen the original instead of "replace" or contradict or neutralize it.
I'm slightly more forgiving between different media...slightly...but then BOTH versions have to maintain their own integrity.