I was most impressed by “Jeeves and the Wedding Bells” by Sebastian Faulks, and I certainly hope he writes more. I was very apprehensive about reading it.
I’ve read three or four of Ace Atkins’ non-fiction books and got heartily sick of him, so whatever he’s doing now, I’m out.
1.) You must not have read Christopher Wood’s Bond novelizations.
2.) Gardner’s third Bond Novel, Icebreaker, is clearly his worst. But some of them are pretty good.
3.) It probably didn’t help that Gardner didn’t really care for Bond, had started his thriller career writing about a character – Boysie Oakes – who is consciously the anti-Bond (“he was of course a complete piss-take of J. Bond” Gardner later said), and initially turned down writing to Bond books.
4.) A Forsyth Bond might be good, if it was in keeping with most of his books. But, the way things work, it would probably turn out the way Forsyth’s other sequel to a previously published book by another author did – the abysmal The Phantom of Manhattan that transplants the Phantom of the Opera across the Atlantic. Another perfect example for this thread.
I’m alternately looking forward to and dreading someone carrying on the Flashman series. Frazer mentioned numerous bases for further stories about our hero, but I can’t quite see anyone speaking in Frazer’s voice or having his grip on the history of Flashy’s world.
Ha. You can take the boy out of Jersey, but you can’t take the Jersey out of the boy.
Under the Moons of Mars is an anthology of stories set on Barsoom that came out two years ago, in celebration of the centenary of the first Barsoom book. As far as I know, it’s the only “official” book of Barsoom stories allowed by the Burroughs estate.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/under-the-moons-of-mars-john-joseph-adams/1104326370?ean=9781442420298
As for Tarzan, the Fritz Leiber authorized book was a tie-in with a just-released Tarzan movie.
Back in 1995 the Burroughs estate authorized the release of Tarzan: The Lost Adventure, which is based on an uncompleted manuscript Burroughs left. It was completed by Jon R. Lansdale. A lot of people weren’t entirely happy with the result, which is charged with deliberately changing the course of the story as indicated by the story itself and the notes. I have to admit that I wasn’t happy myself with the martial-arts Tarzan, nor his “sparring partner” at the end.
Since then, the Burropughs estate has authorized the publication of R.A. Salvatore’s Tarzan: The Epic Adventures in 1997 and Philip Jose Farmer’s The Dark Heart of Time in 1999.
It must have been a thrill for Farmer, who has been a huge Tarzan fan, publishing not only an unauthorized biography of Tarzan – Tarzan Alive! and a Tarzan-meets-Sherlock Holmes pastiche, The Adventure of the Peerless Peer, but also close enough to avoid copyright infringement pieces like **Lord Tyger, Mother was a Lovely Beast, A Feast Unknown, ** and [Lord of the Trees.
Bleh. I hated Thompson’s Oz personally. Way too twee, way too cutsie. It’s like everything bad about the travelogue part of Emerald City of Oz was boiled down and distilled into Thompson’s writing.
Of the “Famous Forty”, I liked most of Baum’s 14 and I loved the two by Jack Snow (2 1/2 if you count “Who’s Who in Oz”).
YMVs of course. 
Why do you say such things, when you know I will kill you for it?
I gave up on WoT 3 books before Robert Jordan died.
Why is he taking the time to be interviewed? He should be wriiting!!!
D&R
So did I - 4 books, actually. Then, after the series was completed, I read their synopses on Wikipedia (spoiler: nothing happened) and jumped right to Sanderson. It was *totally *worth it. If only Jordan had died sooner.
Actually, the Tarzan novels and many of the Barsoom novels are out of copyright and SHOULD be available for any author to expand upon, as Sherlock Holmes is. But Burroughs’ greedy, talentless descendents have used the old "trademark character names"dodge to keep the novels effectively IN copyright long after the actual copyright has expired. So, fuck 'em.
Eek. But didn’t someone say Dex or someone was taking over the hypotheticals for you…
Oops. Wrong again. I guess, no pie for me.
This, and it’s mostly due to Martin. I’ve sort of got a supplementary rule, call it The Butcher Addendum, that there have to be plans to complete it eventually.
Oh, I’d never deprive anyone of pie. It’s just that yours will be delivered by cannon.
Copyright and trademark are two completely different things. The fact that A Princess of Mars is out of copyright means anyone who wants to can make (and potentially sell) copies of A Princess of Mars. It does not mean that anyone can make new books about John Carter, nor does it mean that anyone should be able to.
If DEFINITELY means that anyone SHOULD be able to.
Here’s the problem with that. Alan Moore. (And others)
He took the great hero Alan Quartermain and made him into a drug addict, and Alice, Dorothy and Wendy into kiddie porn.
These characters belong to the ages, and should not be muck-raked or messed with by 3rd rate hacks and thieves.
While I would be OK with another Tarzan tale, it shouldn’t be one where Tarzan has orgies with Cheeta.
So while I don;t think the Burroghs family has any right to make huge piles of pelf from their ancestors work, they should be able to keep further works somewhat respectable.
Cool! Didn’t know about that’n! Just nabbed it. Thanks!
Alas, nope. Public Domain includes pornographic pastiche. (Hey, “Alice in Sexland” was actually pretty good.) Seriously, I understand the moral desire here, but it needs to be exercised by the boycott, not by regulation. The way that the characters belong to the ages is by being read in homes, by families, in school, and over and over again. By being quoted.
The characters are not so weak as to need bodyguards.
Normally I would say no to the question in the OP. I’ll make an exception for W.E.B Griffin. I find his books to be quite interesting* and fun despite all being made in the very strict formula he came up with years ago. He is now 84 and his son William Butterworth IV has been coauthoring for years. Probably writing most of the books in recent years. There doesn’t seem to be much of a change in style or content since the collaboration started. And since I can usually blow through one of his books in a day I see no reason to stop getting them from the library.
*he’s had a very interesting life and uses his experience to have some unique historical back drops to his stories.
Incidentally, Return to the Willows is a quite good sequel to the beloved Children’s classic.