How do deceased authors keep producing books? Such as Robert Ludlum.

[raccoon]

There are others, I just can't think of them right now.

[babylonsister]

1. Reincarnation?

:shrug:

[no limit]

2. They are pulling a tupac.

[raccoon]

5. ? nt

[no limit]

7. He was a rapper that released I think 5 albums since his death in 1996

I think that's more than he released while alive.

[nerddem]

6. haha that's what I'm thinking too. nt

[Turbineguy]

3. The same way

Reagan cranks out national policy.

[Benhurst]

4. Once the creative juices start flowing and you're on a roll,

it's hard to stop.

[Orrex]

8. Maybe we're all dead

So, naturally, we can keep reading the works put out by the deceased authors among us.

[NV Whino]

9. Ghost writers in the sky.

[Mabus]

10. They use Jimi Hendrix's agent?

:shrug: It seemed like there were more albums of his music after he died than when he was alive.

[pitohui]

11. v.s. andrews is the great example

they license the name, once somebody is dead, they lose their civil rights and the estate can cash in by selling the name

robert ludlum and v.s. andrews will still be "writing" in a 100 years

[Orrex]

23. That's messed up!

Do the post mortem "writers" need to attach a disclaimer of any sort? If not, that's a pretty shady way to cash in on somebody dead in the ground.

[pitohui]

24. no there is no disclaimer or disclosure

if you are dead you no longer have civil rights, the right to the name goes to the estate and it is in the estate's interest to carry on the gag and pretend you're still writing or that they found "later" works in a trunk or something

sometimes if the ghostwriter really raises hell he can get a "with" his name on the book, even tho there is no "with" about it -- he wrote the whole goddamn thing!

i once ghosted a book w. an "author" who never contributed a single solitary syllable, i didn't get a "with" or an "and" or any goddamn thing as far as credit, altho i did get extra money since i could not get any credit (they bought me basically)


and there are "authors" still alive who license their name and contribute nothing, it is said that arthur c. clarke hasn't contributed anything but an "outline" for years on books that carry his name, many of those books "and" or "with" gentry lee, gentry lee wrote every last syllable or so they say-- to be honest, to me, that's just as unethical

it isn't just writing, it's everything

we all know damn good and well that jennifer lopez is not qualified to design clothes or create perfumes, for one example, but she can license her name and the person who did the actual work gets no credit whatsoever -- they have "ghost written" the perfume

we have an entire society based on fraud and a few "big" names get everything and the people who do the real work of creating are unknown

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. A Ludlum book is so formulaic that just about anyone with minimal writing

talent could crank one out. They all work like this:

Affluent guy accidentally discovers a dastardly plot and the bad guys start framing him. As he flees from country to country, staying in first class hotels and paying walk-up fares to fly from continent to continet all the way, with nobody believing that he's innocent, he meets a stunningly beautiful woman who just happens to believe him. Together, they gradually rebuild his reputation and catch the bad guys. Then the guy and the gorgeous woman go off to some resort to lie in the sun and adjourn to their hotel room for mad, passionate sex.

Do I have the genre properly analyzed? :-)

And yes, I went through a Ludlum binge during my foolish youth, until I realized that all the books basically had the same plot.

[Forkboy]

15. Early Ludlum is formulaic but still good.

His later books were boring as hell because, as you say, they're entirely predictable. The best writer of that sort that I got into was Frederick Forsythe (Day of the Jackal). His books are fantastic. Craig Thomas was another good one (he wrote the book Firefox, which became the Clint Eastwood movie of the same name).

Too many of these writers were lost at the end of the cold war though.

[fadedrose]

13. Families, next-of-kin, deceased's wishes if known....

Van Lustbader does a nice job on the Bourne stuff....

[BOSSHOG]

14. Elvis is releasing a new Christmas Album in October

Its all duets with performers who are allegedly alive now.

[terrya]

16. I think Lawrence Sanders is still churning out books.

In spite of being quite spectacularly dead for about a decade.

As was said earlier, it's formulaic. These aren't exactly creators of great literature we're talking about.

[pitohui]

17. okay this really begs the question so how did he die so spectacularly?

i had no idea that he died of anything but old age, since he wasn't published until he was already 50-plus

DO TELL!!!!

i tried the google but had no luck, i guess i suck at der google

[pitohui]

19. still hoping to hear the story of sanders' "spectacular" death? EOM

.

[raccoon]

18. Also, I've seen titles by Robert Heinlein and Ray Bradbury, two other deceased but apparently still

productive writers.


:shrug:

[pitohui]

20. the names are licensed once someone dies, as explained above

coco chanel is probably not designing her line of clothing any more either

if you inherit a cash cow you just pay someone to keep the gag going, it works the same in any area

the thing i object to about the practice is that it chokes out new voices from being heard, for example, k w jeter might have had something of real value to say if he didn't get shunted to producing licensed trash, i'm sure there are many other examples of writers we'll never take notice of because their careers got turned in that direction

[raccoon]

21. I looked back and saw your earlier message. I had forgotten.

"is that it chokes out new voices from being heard," I agree.

[pitohui]

22. don't worry about forgetting

it's scary but i do the same