What Do You Think of Pastiches and What Are Your Favorite and Least Favorite Pastiches?

[BAYLOR]

Weren't there Lensman Pastiches?

 

[tinkerdan]

Randall Garrett's Backstage Lensman short story::

Weren't there Lensman Pastiches?

:: was pastiche if that's what you are referring to.

 

[RX-79G]

Brian Herbert has forever cured me of wanting to read someone else's take on an author's creation.

 

[Vince W]

Brian Herbert has forever cured me of wanting to read someone else's take on an author's creation.

That wasn't a take. It was out and out assault.

 

[BAYLOR]

Brian Herbert has forever cured me of wanting to read someone else's take on an author's creation.

I read House Atreides. I thought it quite good.

 

[Inari Writer]

Does The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen count as a pastiche?

It's a massive jumble of characters from other authors that have passed into the Public Domain.

 

[BAYLOR]

Does The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen count as a pastiche?

It's a massive jumble of characters from other authors that have passed into the Public Domain.

An excellent question. It could fit into that category.

 

[BAYLOR]

Escape From Loki By Jose Phillip Farmer . A Doc Save novel and prequel in which a Young Claerk Savage fight in WWI first encounters the men who will become his 5 companions. It's the only DocSavage novel he ever wrote which sad because it was a really good book. I with he had written more of them.

 

[RX-79G]

Does The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen count as a pastiche?

It's a massive jumble of characters from other authors that have passed into the Public Domain.

It definitely is, but primarily as a satire. Which I'm in favor of.

I read House Atreides. I thought it quite good.

What do you not like for SF books?

 

[BAYLOR]

It definitely is, but primarily as a satire. Which I'm in favor of.


What do you not like for SF books?

I happen to like House Atreides. I also think Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson are both good writers. In my opinion.

By Brian herbert you might want to check out Sydney's Comet

and by Kevin J Anderson The Martian War

As to what i like in science fiction or any genre for that matter. I like a good story.
I tend to remember books that I like and tend to not remember books I didn't like.

 

[RX-79G]

I happen to like House Atreides. Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson are both good writers

By Brian herbert you might want to check out Sydney's Comet

and by Kevin J Anderson The Martian War



As to what i like in science fiction or any genre for that matter. I like a good story.

For many of us that quite like Frank Herbert's writing and ideas, it was abundantly clear that Brian didn't understand the source material and could not emulate his father's prose or style, either.

 

[BAYLOR]

For many of us that quite like Frank Herbert's writing and ideas, it was abundantly clear that Brian didn't understand the source material and could not emulate his father's prose or style, either.

Emulating his style wasn't the point. If that's the main criteria for judging the worthiness of his Dune books . It's a poor one.

 

[RX-79G]

Emulating his style wasn't the point. If that's the main criteria for judging the worthiness of his Dune books . It's a poor one.

It isn't. The main criteria is the other one I mentioned - he clearly doesn't understand the worldbuilding rules that Dune is constructed around.

 

[BAYLOR]

It isn't. The main criteria is the other one I mentioned - he clearly doesn't understand the worldbuilding rules that Dune is constructed around.

I liked the story Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson told and I liked the way did the characters. Isn't that enough ?

 

[RX-79G]

I liked the story Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson told and I liked the way did the characters. Isn't that enough ?

Enough for what? To make it universally acknowledged as great piece of pastiche literature, or for you to personally like the book? I'm not arguing that you don't or shouldn't like it, but if you want to argue about whether it does a disservice to the source material, you will find plenty of other people that feel like I do.

To give a simple example, the world works the way it does in Dune because of a balance of technological developments that have forced humanity into a culdesac. But Brian ignores this and throws in some juicy laser gun battles, even though the point of world is that this type of warfare just isn't possible. Throw that out and the underlying logic of the Empire completely collapses and become non-nonsensical.

 

[Rodders]

I'd have to go with Stephen Baxters Time Ships.

I need to get his sequel to The Wars of The Worlds.

 

[Danny McG]

Enough for what? To make it universally acknowledged as great piece of pastiche literature, or for you to personally like the book? I'm not arguing that you don't or shouldn't like it, but if you want to argue about whether it does a disservice to the source material, you will find plenty of other people that feel like I do.

To give a simple example, the world works the way it does in Dune because of a balance of technological developments that have forced humanity into a culdesac. But Brian ignores this and throws in some juicy laser gun battles, even though the point of world is that this type of warfare just isn't possible. Throw that out and the underlying logic of the Empire completely collapses and become non-nonsensical.

I always thought Brian Herbert totally misunderstood the Butlerian Jihad concept and thus backfilled by creating a woman who started the rebellion against machines.
Had he never read Erewhon?

 

[2DaveWixon]

Not having noticed this thread before, I'm glad someone (was that you, @BAYLOR?) revived it -- even though I don't expect it to go far.

My first reaction to seeing this is to remember Philip Jose Farmer, who I believe has to be considered THE master of pastiches. His Doc Savage effort has already been mentioned, but his Tarzan pieces are, imho, the classics of that "genre."

I must mention, however, that I think this thread suffers somewhat for lack of a definition of "pastiche." Nor am I sure I actually have such a definition -- all I can say, at least until I think further on it, is that I have a reaction that some of the works that have already been mentioned in this thread don't feel like pastiches to me...

As an example: three of Ted Sturgeon's books were cited as falling into this category. But as I understand them, they were "novelizations," which in my mind is a separate category -- that is, they were an example of someone producing a "novel" based on a movie that was produced from a script -- and usually such things are done at the behest of the movie producer, in the hope that it will make a little more money (if the movie is popular, people will be tempted to buy the book; and if the movie doesn't do well in the box office, there is a hope that readers of the book might be led to it...)

Or so I understand.

Nor would I consider Brian Herbert's work to be pastiches; to me, they seem to be attempts to continue Frank's series -- to me, that's not "pastiche" (just as a book I wrote -- Antagonist, which appeared with Gordy Dickson's name on it as well as mine -- was not a pastiche, but a continuation...)

All of this, please understand, is solely my own opinion; I'm no expert on this kind of thing, and I've never had occasion to think about it until just now...

Feel free to jump on me with both feet, should you disagree -- I won't get mad.

 

[Vince W]

I always thought Brian Herbert totally misunderstood the Butlerian Jihad concept and thus backfilled by creating a woman who started the rebellion against machines.
Had he never read Erewhon?

Only if it was ever published as a pop-up book.

 

[Danny McG]

I quite like basic meat and potato ones but I think the Cornish ones tend to be over seasoned