I noticed that Robert Crais' Elvis Cole character and Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch both live on Woodrow Wilson drive in the Hollywood Hills.

It got me thinking how cool it would be to see these two characters meet up in a novel.

I was wondering if that has ever happened? Has one author's character ever appeared in another author's novel?

Well if you count whatsername's sequel to Gone with the Wind. I can't think of any others off the top of my head.

Wow, I would love to see some authors combine there works. Kay Scarpetta could work with Harry Bosch. Repairman Jack would fit in with a King novel.

The possiblities (sp?) are endless.

Now my mind is cookin'

-Steve

Happens occasionally in some "shared worlds" novels, things like Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, etc.

Outside of that I can't think of any.

Flagg, in Steven King books

King has tons of crossovers! I always enjoy it when King (or any author) unexpectedly brings a character from one book into another. But I think Boatdrinks is looking more for crossovers of characters by different authors.

-Steve

Bret Easton Ellis and some of his fellow 'brat pack' writers occasionally had characters cross over. There are a couple of crossovers in 'American Psycho'--Bateman's brother and a minor character named Vanden were from other Ellis books, and Allison Poole belongs to another writer entirely, I forget which.

And then there's Heinlein, who brings most all his characters (and some of L. Frank Baum's) together in 'The Number of the Beast'.

In Ed McMahon's voice: You are correct, sir!

Weis and Hickman put Fizban in a lot of their books. Sometimes he is Zifnab, Fizban, and/or the god Paladine. I think he was in at least 3 different series.

Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys met up in a specially created series. Not that I read that kid stuff or anything.

[Edited by FREEJG on 05-13-01 at 11:03 PM]

Has anyone read "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire... I haven't, but I saw it today --- it's a totally "different" viewpoint about the wicked witch of the west in the land of Oz.

Made me think --- what good books are out there that turn a familiar tale or person on its head by telling the story differently...?

One that occurs to me that I HAVE read is the "Merlin" series by Mary Stewart...


any others in this genre?

Not sure if this is what you want, but it came to my mind. The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce H. Wilkinson takes a rather small character from the Bible and creates a story from it. I have heard that the book has had a profound effect on some people although I have not read it myself.

Cassandra, by Krista Wolf (I think) tells the story of the trojan war from the view point of cassandra - intermingled with the view point of Krista Wolf entering into the ruins of Greece - i.e. their identities become somewhat confused in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way. Good book, though I know some people that didn't like it.

Not a book, but the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead focuses on two minor characters from "Hamlet."

This has become a standard device for postmodern writers who set out to deliberately tear down old conventions by questioning the supposed "universality" of canonical writers, who are often white, male, and wealthy.

One of the more famous novels that does this is Wide Saragasso Sea by Jean Rhys, which rewrites Jane Eyre from the perspective of Bertha, the madwoman in the attic. It's a beautiful novel.

Also, Kathy Acker has rewritten several familiar stories from a feminist perspective, for instance, Pu**y, King of the Pirates (Treasure Island).

I guess John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor and Donald Bartheleme's Snow White would count, as would the novels of Ishmael Reed. His novel, Flight to Canada, satirizes Uncle Tom's Cabin and is one of the funniest things I've ever read.

John Gardener's Grendel. Speaking of Hamlet, John Updike retold it from Gertrude's POV, I believe, in a recent book. Full title escapes me, but it contains "Gertrude."

Gertrude and Claudius, if I remember correctly.

Honk!

As a teenager I read a John Gardner novel using as its anti-hero a certain Moriarty from the Holmes canon!

Going off at a tangent, having just watched a repeated episode of the UK dramatisation featuring Jeremy Brett (the episode where he returns three years after going missing - presumed dead - at the Reychenbach Falls) does anyone know if any enterprising author ever filled in the whole of those three blank years; perhaps using the information ascribed to Holmes in "The Adventure of The Empty House" following his return?I just did a search and found that one Jamyang Norba produced "The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes" as a result of the Tibet part of the above quotation....

Carole Nelson Douglas also took a minor character from a Sherlock Holmes story, and turned it into a 5 book series (with another due in the fall.) The books are called the Irene Adler mysteries, based on the SH story 'A Scandal in Bohemia.' (Good Night Mr. Holmes, Good Morning Irene, Irene at Large, Irene's Last Waltz, Chapel Noir, and Castle Rouge.) She also did a couple of romances (Crystal Days and Crystal Nights) which were almost mysteries instead, but the publisher hacked into standard series romances. She then made a mystery series (the Midnight Louie Mysteries series with titles like A Cat on a Blue Monday, etc.) that intertwined with the characters in the romances, and was able to bring out the romances the way she had originally written them (broken into a 4 book series called A Midnight Louie Las Vegas Adventure, with titles like The Cat and the King of Clubs, etc.)

Piers Anthony wrote a series of books called 'Incarnations of Immortality,' following the lives and interactions of various supernatural "incarnations" such as Death, War, Fate, Nature, Time, Good, and Evil. The main character in one book was a supporting character in the next, with overlapping time periods.

This was a pair of cool topics that might benefit from a second look!