How do y’all feel about continuing a series after an author dies? To me, I think one last book can be written to end it, but the series should rest with the author, just my thoughts though. I’m in the middle of a series right now and some random lady is “finishing” it, but she has written like 7 books that show no end. I’m not mad, but I just want to feel the satisfaction of completing a series and having the whole collection.
Basically after a certain degree of notoriety is achieved (ASOIAF or KKC) you as the author, while still having MASSIVE influence, do NOT have the final say anymore. If the fans hate some part of the story so much that they decide to ignore it, there is nothing you can do, you got overruled.
Now, this is similar to finishing books after the author’s death. If your story has a large following, and you presumably made money off that following, you have given up the right to not finish that series. Another author can pick up your slack. Hell, you don’t even need to be dead. I feel that after something like 10 years, if you dont continue your series, then morally it is fine for someone else to pick it up and finish it.
That said, whoever picks up the task of finishing a series, accepts the responsibility that they NEED to emulate the original author. You are not writing a new story, you are continuing an existing one.
Totally up to the literary estate, if they want to see their relative’s work keep going then whose to say they’re wrong. Sometimes it doesn’t work but at the end of the day posthumous works have no bearing on the original texts so it’s all good. Every year there’s a bunch of Sherlock Holmes or Dracula books but it doesn’t affect the quality or reception of the original works.