The Living Dead (book) - George Romero's final book on the living dead

[Neil]

I somehow missed the news last month! - https://io9.gizmodo.com/george-romer...ing-1823032001 Romero worked on the book, off and on, for over a decade—after his death, his wife and manager sought someone who could complete it (Kraus said some of it is near-complete, while other parts need a lot of work). Beyond examining Romero’s Living Dead series, Kraus said he’s been poring through Romero’s full body of work, along with interviews and personal interests, trying to get a sense of who the man was in order to best represent him on the page. I hope this isn't just a cash grab by those still with us!

[JDP]

I somehow missed the news last month! - https://io9.gizmodo.com/george-romer...ing-1823032001 I hope this isn't just a cash grab by those still with us! It might be better to publish the book "as is", even if incomplete.

[MinionZombie]

JDP - seeing as it is a narrative story, that'd be a bad idea. There's be gaps dotted about here and there, there'd be hanging plot threads, contradictions and all sorts most likely. It needs to be shepherded those last few steps to be complete. It's a shame that Romero never got the chance to finish it, but it does sound interesting and I'll be sure to read it when it comes out. It's nice to know that there's still a bit of the man's work on the horizon to look forward to. Fingers crossed that Kraus is able to get the tone and sound of Romero's voice right.

[JDP]

JDP - seeing as it is a narrative story, that'd be a bad idea. There's be gaps dotted about here and there, there'd be hanging plot threads, contradictions and all sorts most likely. It needs to be shepherded those last few steps to be complete. It's a shame that Romero never got the chance to finish it, but it does sound interesting and I'll be sure to read it when it comes out. It's nice to know that there's still a bit of the man's work on the horizon to look forward to. Fingers crossed that Kraus is able to get the tone and sound of Romero's voice right. Hiring someone else to "fill in" the gaps that Romero left might likely in fact be a worse idea than just presenting the work "as is". It is customary to present a deceased author's work as he left it before he passed, not hire someone else to finish it. If push comes to shove, the posthumous edition can present the text as the author left it, and attempts by someone else at finishing it presented as an appendix to the incomplete original work.

[MinionZombie]

Hiring someone else to "fill in" the gaps that Romero left might likely in fact be a worse idea than just presenting the work "as is". It is customary to present a deceased author's work as he left it before he passed, not hire someone else to finish it. If push comes to shove, the posthumous edition can present the text as the author left it, and attempts by someone else at finishing it presented as an appendix to the incomplete original work. It's all relative as we don't know what state the text is in, but even still, hmmm ... that'd be a lumpy way to read a narrative story. Jumping back and forth. You could do that better with a non-fiction book (IIRC the book that Patton Oswalt's wife was working on when she died has recently been released, having been finished by other people), but a narrative has to flow from beginning to end. I do agree that it'll be a challenge to make sure the 'finishing prose' blends in well with the original text by Romero himself, although it is doable, but presenting a narrative in some clunky part-finished fashion would be a terrible way to present a fiction book IMHO. While not quite the same situation, there are numerous instances where different authors have written books as sequels to a series (e.g. James Bond, the Dragon Tattoo series) that was created by someone else and seem to be well received. It's not the same as having the original author, but when that's impossible and you've got an appropriate someone to fill-in, it can work.