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Authors With Characters Who Cross Over Into Other Books

Started by Serge, November 26, 2017, 08:31:57 PM

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mothman

Fizban the wizard in Weiss & Hickman's Dragonlance series, and Zifnab the wizard in their later Death Gate Cycle. And also apparently Zanfib the wizard in their later Starshield series (but I've not read it). Contractually they have to deny that Fizban and Zifnab are the same character, but he obviously is.

Captain Crunch

I wonder if Clarisse's uncle from Fahrenheit 451 was Leonard Mead from The Pedestrian?

(Any excuse to put this up, probably one of the best short stories ever)

Small Man Big Horse

Not quite on topic but Neil Gaiman has just turned up in Paul Cornell's The Severed Streets in a scene which was really on the nose, I'd guessed it was meant to be Gaiman before they named him, and if it had been handled more subtly it could have been fun but in the end it made me wince a bit.

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on July 13, 2019, 04:34:27 PM
Not quite on topic but Neil Gaiman has just turned up in Paul Cornell's The Severed Streets in a scene which was really on the nose, I'd guessed it was meant to be Gaiman before they named him, and if it had been handled more subtly it could have been fun but in the end it made me wince a bit.

Agreed. There's a fine line between subtle reference and brazen insertion at the best of times - but that blasted straight past that and got really uncomfortable and distracting - took me out of the narrative. I don't know if it's better or worse if Gaiman knows/approves or not - but it's not as though Gaiman is an obscure author anyway, especially to people who read Cornell. I guess that they both know each other from writing for Dr Who.

I still enjoy the Shadow Police series though - it feels like Cracker to Rivers of London's The Bill.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Imperator Helvetica on July 14, 2019, 12:14:35 PM
Agreed. There's a fine line between subtle reference and brazen insertion at the best of times - but that blasted straight past that and got really uncomfortable and distracting - took me out of the narrative. I don't know if it's better or worse if Gaiman knows/approves or not - but it's not as though Gaiman is an obscure author anyway, especially to people who read Cornell. I guess that they both know each other from writing for Dr Who.

It had the same effect on me, and though I used to be a huge fan of Gaiman's in my teens and early twenties I've gone off him a bit over recent years, so aren't exactly overjoyed to see him feature in the book.

QuoteI still enjoy the Shadow Police series though - it feels like Cracker to Rivers of London's The Bill.

Despite the above moan I'm really enjoying them, I tried to read Rivers Of London earlier this year but gave up after about sixty pages as Aaronovitch's writing style was really clunky, he has some nice ideas but I just found myself getting annoyed by certain aspects of the novel, the way the lead just accepts magic and ghosts exist without it really bothering him for longer than 10 minutes especially.

Alberon

I've quite got into the Rivers of London series. The rational approach Grant takes to understanding magic makes sense to me and I like the stories and the way they're told.

Bad news for The Shadow Police series though. Cornell said on his blog nearly two years back that the sales aren't there and the series has been dropped by the publisher. His plans for the last two novels are on hold, perhaps permanently.

chveik


The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Dr Rock on November 26, 2017, 08:57:58 PM
Kilgore Trout is in many Kurt Vonnegut novels. Trout is an unsuccessful author of paperback science fiction novels.
Not really a "character", but doesn't Vonnegut himself cameo in (at least) Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions?

NoSleep

Randolph Carter appears in "The Statement of Randolph Carter" (1919), "The Unnamable" (1923), "The Silver Key" (1926), "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" (1926-1927), "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" (1927), "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" (1933) & "Out of the Aeons" (1933), all by H.P Lovecraft. The HPL wiki suggests there's other recurring characters in the Cthulhu mythos (aside from the monsters) but none other come immediately to mind. Abdul Alhazred is cited many times as the author of the Necronomicon although he never features as a character (that would be a great origin story).

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Alberon on July 19, 2019, 10:00:30 AM
Bad news for The Shadow Police series though. Cornell said on his blog nearly two years back that the sales aren't there and the series has been dropped by the publisher. His plans for the last two novels are on hold, perhaps permanently.

Yeah, I saw that a couple of weeks ago which was disappointing to hear. He did say he hopes to somehow finish the story off one day, perhaps in a different medium, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Mister Six

Could he not just self-publish? Would his contract prohibit that? I imagine that would still be financially worthwhile on his part, given the relatively low overheads. Does mean a bit more work for him to do though.

Small Man Big Horse

#41
He's talked about possibly using the Unbound crowdfunding site in the future, but right now he's concentrating on his Lychford series which is apparently doing fairly well.

MattD

Some of the characters from Dubliners make a brief appearance in Ulysses.

Petey Pate

If children's literature counts, the Roly-Poly Bird appears in both Roald Dahl's The Twits and The Enormous Crocodile.

Jerzy Bondov

There's a hidden Gruffalo in most of the other Donaldson/Scheffler books. Supposedly you can see his arm in Room on the Broom but I've looked and it's not fucking there.

holyzombiejesus

That's just a nasty fucking lie. He's not in RotB, Squash and a Squeeze, Monkey Puzzle or the Ugly 5.

Squash and a Squeeze was the first one Julia D and Axel S did together, it's pre-Gruffalo

Panbaams

Quote from: Jerzy Bondov on July 25, 2019, 12:13:59 PM
There's a hidden Gruffalo in most of the other Donaldson/Scheffler books. Supposedly you can see his arm in Room on the Broom but I've looked and it's not fucking there.

Similarly, a toy Elmer appears in Not Now Bernard.

Gurke and Hare

Minor characters from one Wodehouse series will often pop up in another. There's a Blandings book where Sir Roderick Glossop turns up. And Leave It To Psmith, of course, is the ultimate crossover novel.

H-O-W-L

I haven't even read his work in full but nobody mentioned Molly Millions, aka Sally Shears who appears in a lot of William Gibson's works?

Fonz

Michael Conelley's different series have some crossover.

McEvoy, McCaleb etc

Panbaams

Not a single author, and not a fictional character, but anyway: I've read Michael Palin's and Kenneth Williams' diaries recently; both record visits to Alan Bennett and both mention the lady in the van.

Swift

Bumping a very old topic, but there was an unusual one I came across recently. In Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton, there's a very minor character (only shows up for about 5-10 pages) named Daniel Hanway. I have a copy of Three Brothers which I haven't read yet but noticed that one of the brothers is Daniel Hanway. The thing is the first character is in the 18th century, and the second in the 1960s.

Anyone read both and know if they're supposed to be distant relatives? Or just a case of Ackroyd liking the name and forgetting that he already used it elsewhere?

Alberon

No mention of Michael Moorcock yet? Different versions of the same characters pop up all the time, most notably different versions of Jerry Cornelius. Admittedly it's spread across a multiverse rather than one world.

With his Eternal Champion idea literally every hero of his books is an incarnation of the same being.

Kankurette

I hated Not Now Bernard. Fucking thing gave me nightmares. Mum had to get rid of it.
Quote from: Dr Rock on November 26, 2017, 08:57:58 PMKilgore Trout is in many Kurt Vonnegut novels. Trout is an unsuccessful author of paperback science fiction novels.
Also Dwayne Hoover.

Mister Six

Trout's an odd example because the details of his life change from book to book. But I suppose Vonnegut's world's are pretty openly metafictional anyway, so why not?

Probably doesn't count because it's more of an Easter Egg than a proper crossover, but the main characters from San Francisco-set queer anthology comic How Loathsome turn up in the audience at a gig in an issue of the unrelated Vertigo comic Lucifer (itself a spin-off of The Sandman). It was almost certainly just artist Ted Naifeh, who drew that issue, having a bit of fun, but it was odd to see these characters from this completely separate, more low-key series appear in a high fantasy comic full of demons, angels and gods.

popcorn

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on November 26, 2017, 10:54:33 PMOh god, there's all that stuff with David Mitchell's books, even down to a bloke in a Wolves tracksuit who appears in at least a couple of those I've read. There are loads of things about it online, although this site even had a downloadable spreadsheet...

https://oneclaymore.wordpress.com/2015/10/26/mapping-the-cloud-atlas-connections-in-the-novels-of-david-mitchell/

I liked this in his earlier books, but as it went on I found it had an odd trivialising effect, making his worlds seem small and fake.

holdover

There's a recurring character in Alan Moore's Voice Of The Fire & Jerusalem. It's the chap from the Chapter 3 - In The Drownings. I was delighted when he made an appearance and walks past Michael in chapter 6 of Book 2.

bgmnts

Quote from: Black Ship on November 27, 2017, 11:55:26 PMRe: Stephen King
Dick Halloran from the Shining turns up in IT, as an army pal of Mike Hanlon's father.
Randall Flagg Of The Stand turns up as a major player in The Dark Tower series. As does Father Callahan of Salem's Lot
Gerald's Game and Dolores Claiborne cross over. ( they both have incidents set at the Maine eclipse)


I think the Dark Tower is a stephen king universe of some sorts isnt it? In the 4th book dont the characters enter The Stand universe? I cant remember.

The turtle also appears in It as well I think and the turtle is something to do with Ka or whatever.