Lee Child, author of the popular Reacher novels (and Amazon series), has decided to retire from writing. The Jack Reacher character will live on in books written by his brother, Andrew Child.
When asked how he felt about inheriting the Jack Reacher series from his brother, Andrew Child said nothing.
I’m curious about why a six and a half year old author announcement is notable?
Two things: I saw this announcement this morning on my FB feed and hadn’t seen it before, even on the Dope.
And, I didn’t notice the date!
Right, this is not news. Coincidentally, I was just thinking about this series the other day. No reason to kill him off, or jump the shark, just stop writing the things. At the end, he is always out by the highway hitching a ride— just leave it at that. (One ending, instead of heading out of town immediately, he stays with the girl. He could have left it at that and let readers use their imagination. Or, remember, he is supposedly wandering around the U.S. because he never really got to see his country. But it has been decades by now. So, have him finally catch a plane back to Europe…)
Readers have difficulty letting popular series go, even when they’ve degenerated and become heavily redundant. Reacher is not the first character to be kept on life support. Other examples are Jason Bourne and even Hercule Poirot, due to other authors taking over. The Spenser novels are on their third author, Mike Lupica.
C’mon. Let these poor bastids die an (un)natural death and move on to new heroes.
At least Sherlock Holmes got to do some beekeeping, and he only had to die once.
I’ve read 31 Reacher novels and I don’t think the standard has dropped with Andrew taking over.
Even if the novels do stop, I trust they’ll keep making the excellent TV series!
Similarly, publishers and authors (and their agents) have difficulty letting a cash cow die.
I thought the last few novels were written by AI…just bleh..
I do. I stopped checking them out of the library after my second try.
I stopped reading Dick Francis novels when they declined after the death of his wife, whose role in research (and more?) evidently was critical to their excellence. I have no desire to read anything by his son Felix, who’s carrying on the series.
I read Exit Strategy and it was so bad, Lee Child should really consider firing his brother. But there’s lots of money to be made, so ca-ching.
Yeah, it’s a formula. And no, not anyone can do it.
He got better?
Yes, I remember an incident where a famous author was tired of his primary book series so decided to kill off the lead character. He then took a trip through Colorado to celebrate being rid of this character when he crashed his car. Fortunately, he was rescued and nursed back to health by a local who turned out to be his “Number One Fan!” When she read the book where her favorite character died, I think the character’s name was Misery something, she held him prisoner until he wrote a new book fixing all of the mistakes in his previous book. Since his life, or at least his foot (cut off with an axe or broken mercilessly by a sledgehammer depending on sources), are at risk he ends up writing the best book of his life! Who says fans shouldn’t have a say in popular series!?
I saw the documentary about that.