My apologies if this has been asked before; I ran a search and couldn’t find it. In the foreword to Callhan’s Crosstime Saloon (at least the eighth edition, which my copy is from), Robinson, speaking of an anecdote involving a then-dead author), notes:
“As the story goes, this writer proceeded to write the worst, most hackneyed novel of which he was capable- and not only did he succeed in selling it, the public demanded better than two dozen sequels.”
I’m trying to figure out who this author (and book) is. Robinson says to “ask around at any SF convention; it’s a reasonably famous anecdote”, but no one I’ve asked has heard of it, and I haven’t found anything definitive online or amongst the readers I know. (To be fair, I didn’t attend many sci-fi conventions in the 70’s, owing to a combination of financial constraints and not being born until 1984). There aren’t many sci-fi authors who were dead by 1977 (or 1983, when this edition came out) who had a series that ran anywhere near that many books, but Robinson’s wording doesn’t actually say it was science fiction- or that the author wrote all the books, which actually leads me to suspect Lyman Baum and The Wizard of Oz, but that’s hardly in keeping with what I know of his public image.
Anyone know anything definite, or at least have a better guess?
No way, in either case. "Doc’ Smith liked his Lensman stories, and Howard was having good success with his Conan stories, which he showed no signs of thinking were inferior material. (And he only wrote one Conan novel, in any case. Nor were there as many as two dozen Conan stories.)
If the story’s true, I suspect that Robinson was exaggerating. And I observe that “two dozen sequels” might not refer to novels, but to stories. I have no idea who he might have meant.
I used to have an address for Robinson, but it’s long out of date I’d presume. I’d write and ask if it was Gor, as that seems to fit the story rather neatly.
Wouldn’t work; Lange is still alive. As it Goulart, so that knocks him out. CalMeacham makes a good point about how Robinson didn’t say that all the sequels were novels; but that opens it up so wide I’ll probably never know unless I ask the guy myself.
Summary: No series and no author matches the quote. It’s not common at conventions and nobody has an answer. People keep coming up with a similar set of ludicrous guesses and insults, though.
Thanks, Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor for reminding of one of my all time favorite authors. My two favorite books are ‘After Things Fell Apart’ and ‘Brainz, Inc.’, with ATFT being superior. Thanks to your mention, I have reordered the books and plan on spending some quality time reading them.
You may be correct about his other books. In particular, I seem to remember that I was never able to get into the Barnum series.
If you’re willing to step out of SF, Dick Francis wrote pretty much the same novel, over and over and over again. I wouldn’t call it hackneyed, though: you pick up one Dick Francis novel, and it will be a good read. It’s just that the next one will be practically the same.
I’d say “No”. Hal Clement wrote a novel-length sequel (Star Light) to his classic Mission of Gravity , but he also wrote two short stories set on the same world, with the same characters (Under and Lecture Demonnstration). I’d unhesitatingly call all of them “sequels”. There are plenty of other examples.
