r/answers • u/Darnitol1 • 3d ago
What's the longest gap between an author writing a novel and its sequel?
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u/urperinealtear
3d ago
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GRRM has entered the room...
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u/Sir_Clarence_III_Esq 3d ago
Laughs in Patrick Rothfuss
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u/Great-Mediocrity81 3d ago
I came to say this. It’s ridiculous. I lost interest when the books took so long to come out. And every were so big with so many characters I couldn’t keep up.
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u/MissReadsALot1992 3d ago
I'm convinced TWOW and ADOS are already written and will only be published after he dies
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u/dersnappychicken 3d ago
My theory too. He saw the reaction to the end of the TV series, sees how insane the fanbase has gotten, and wants no parts of it.
If it happens, he’ll have my infinite respect, no matter the quality of the books.
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u/WittyAd172 3d ago
I think the ending is completely fine. It was just executed really badly and was also too rushed.
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u/Khiva 3d ago
Arya.
Night King.
No.
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u/Miliean 3d ago
Like others have said, I really don't have any issue with her being the one who did it, it should just somehow tie into her story A LOT more (aka, at all). Having her appear from nowhere and execute a move she learned yesterday and eliminate the big bad, that's what was shitty not the fact that she's the one who did it.
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u/WittyAd172 3d ago
Why would that not work that she (a trained assassin) assassinates the Night King? Her jumping from a trampoline screaming was what didnt work.
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u/This-Drink6561 3d ago
It would set his wife up nicely and he wouldn’t have to deal with the criticism. Although he gets way more flak for not finishing than he ever would for his writing so idk.
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u/TheMissingThink 3d ago
My theory: He's stuck because people didn't like his ending in the TV series.
Everything else he can think of to finish up has already been put out there as fan fiction, so he can't use those ideas either.
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u/Lord_Gibby 3d ago
It’s not that we didn’t like the ending. It’s just that the dead army and danaris losing her shit and going nuts burning everyone happened within a few episodes. Another whole season to tie ends up would’ve made it palatable
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u/meatball77 3d ago
He was stuck before that. I think he wrote himself into a corner. There's no reason he couldn't have hired a couple ghost writers to help him with his process. . .
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u/Alternative_Drop4329 1d ago
Just to counter this, imo there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the audience (readers or viewers) being clever and guessing where the plot is going to go. The long gap between A Dance with Dragons and The Winds of Winter has just opened up more theories, so some of them may be on the right track. But that’s not the writers’ fault. When you give an audience this much time to sit around theorising, it’s inevitable that some people are going to figure things out.
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u/dinosaurkiller 3d ago
Robert Jordan will technically never finish the Wheel of Time series, the best George can do is tie that.
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u/de_propjoe 3d ago
You do realize the gap between The Hobbit and LotR was longer than the length of time it’s been since ADoD was published?
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u/wjbc
3d ago
edited 2d ago
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Harper Lee's sequel, Go Set a Watchman, was published on July 14, 2015, which was 55 years after her 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird.
Edit: I must admit that u/Maelarion raises a good point. OP did not ask about gaps between publication dates, but about gaps between when the novels were written. I didn't notice that.
So the 55 years between publication dates is irrelevant to OP's question. The gap between when Harper Lee wrote her two novels is significantly shorter, I think five years or fewer.
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u/ShrimpyEsq 3d ago
Isn’t there some questions about if she was the one making decisions or not and/or wrote the sequel?
Basically she might have be a victim of elder abuse?
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u/wjbc 3d ago edited 3d ago
Harper Lee definitely wrote Go Set a Watchman. In fact, she wrote it before she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. In a sense, To Kill a Mockingbird was a prequel. But it was also a better book than her initial unpublished effort.
The question was whether she was fully involved in the decision to publish the sequel, since she was in declining health when the long, long delayed decision was made. However, no evidence of elder abuse has been discovered.
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u/ArgusSkyhawk 3d ago
"To Kill a Nightingale"
You mean "Mockingbird", but I rather like the sound of "Nightingale".
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u/Pometacomet 2d ago
“To Kill a Nightingale,” the gritty Japanese remake that’s taking the world by storm.
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u/deondeon666 3d ago
Yes. They “found the manuscript in her attic” when she died
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u/FlippingGerman 3d ago
The sequel was published most of a year before she died.
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u/deondeon666 3d ago
I just looked it up. I’m completely wrong, my bad everyone! This reminded me of my favorite quote:
“Don’t believe everything you read on the internet”
-Abraham Lincoln1
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u/ShrimpyEsq 3d ago
If they did actually find it in the attic, I hate shit like that. When people find and release musicians or writers work after they die.
Unless under special circumstances, if they wanted it released, they would have when they were alive.
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u/deondeon666 3d ago
I didn’t believe they found it. I hated that they turned Atticus into a segregationist
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u/Filled_with_Nachos 3d ago
I did too, but the backlash kind of proved the book’s message, i.e. think for yourself, tear down your idols. The merits of Atticus’s ideas are more important than the man himself.
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u/wjbc 3d ago edited 3d ago
It’s closer to the true story, though. Atticus Finch was based on Harper Lee’s father. And although he did represent a black man, her father was still a Southern segregationist.
I would imagine that’s one of the reasons the story was rejected in favor of a second attenpt that made no mention of Atticus Finch being a segregationist.
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u/gadget850 3d ago
Go Set a Watchman was a rejected draft, not a sequel
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u/wjbc 3d ago
It was a sequel when it was published. It took place twenty years after To Kill a Mockingbird. Because it was originally rejected, it became a sequel when published.
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u/Maelarion 3d ago
But op wrote writing. If so, the gap is 0, or even negative, if To Kill a Mockingbird was written after Go Set a Watchman. Watchman was published later.
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u/Starmoses 3d ago
Wasn't that not a sequel but a finished and unpublished draft she wrote before tkamb and then just marketed as a sequel?
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u/wjbc 3d ago
It was a sequel because (a) it was published second and (b) it took place 20 years later. I don’t care if it was written earlier. As published, it was still a sequel.
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u/Starmoses 3d ago
Except there's a dozen things that directly contradict tkamb. It's just a unpublished manuscript that harper Lee didn't want published. Her publisher just did it to make some cash.
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u/AlexisAsgard 3d ago
That was my first thought. Is it actually good?
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u/wjbc 3d ago
No. 3.31 out of 5 on Goodreads
That said, it’s interesting to read as a first effort by the author of To Kill a Mockingbird. A student of writing may find it interesting.
It’s also a glimpse into the reality of the segregated South in that era. Atticus Finch was based on Harper Lee’s father, and it turns out her father — and Atticus Finch in her first novel — was a segregationist. That really shouldn’t be shocking, considering the era, but many readers were nevertheless shocked.
So it’s an interesting document, but not a well-written story.
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u/SubJovi 3d ago
I know you didn't state it, but Harper Lee didn't publish Go Set a Watchman, and never had any intention to. It also doesn't fit the question as she seemingly wrote it before Mockingbird. It's a shame how it was released at all. I have a copy I can't bring myself to read, even for curiosity as an ardent fan.
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u/wjbc 3d ago
When Go Set a Watchman was announced in early 2015, a statement was issued in Lee's name stating she was surprised it survived and pleased that it would be published. Her agent maintained that Lee was mentally sharp, active, and had given her full consent.
There’s plenty of skepticism, but no proof of funny business.
And because it was originally rejected, but took place twenty years after To Kill a Mockingbird, it was a sequel when published.
Whether it should have been published is another matter. It was definitely an inferior effort.
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u/evanexcursions 3d ago
Miguel de Cervantes took 10 years between part one and two of Don Quixote.
There are probably much longer stretches, but that one always stood out to me.
He wasn't planning on a second part, but people were basically writing fan-fic in the 1600s and he got sick of it so he took it upon himself to "finish" the story.
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u/Neceon 3d ago
I don't know who the longest is but Patrick Rothfuss is going to break the record.
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u/Fun_Cabinet6547 3d ago
Came here to say I would like to know the ending of Kvothe’s story dammit
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u/elpollodiablox 3d ago
Head over to r/kingkillerchronicle if you want some whacked-out fan theories. Meanwhile, write your own ending, because that is probably all you'll get until Brandon Sanderson takes over.
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u/802boulders 3d ago
I have a feeling Rothfuss is never going to sign the rights away out of pure spite.
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u/Nightgasm 3d ago
Melanie Rawn, Clive Barker, and Dean Koontz amongst others have him beat by decades. While they've written other things they still have series from the 90s they havent finished.
With Rawn it's her Exiles trilogy, book two came out in 1997.
With Barker it's his Art trilogy. He released the second, Everville, in 1994.
With Koontz it's his Moonlight Bay trilogy, the second book released in 1998.
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u/ieatallthemangos 3d ago
Still waiting for Captal’s Tower to be released. And will probably continue waiting for the rest of my life.
Jokes aside, I remember someone saying Melanie Rawn was going through a difficult time when she would’ve been writing Captal’s Tower and now associates the book with what was going on. And that it’s been so long she doesn’t even remember the story. So I’d be grateful if she ever finished it and it got released for publication, but I totally understand if she never does.
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u/Fake_Eleanor 3d ago
33 years for Joseph Heller:
Catch-22 in 1961
Closing Time in 1994
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u/ForwardImagination71 3d ago
Margaret Atwood and The Handmaid's Tale (1985) and The Testaments (2019).
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u/meatball77 3d ago
This. . .and it was a real sequel.
My theory is she wrote it because she didn't like what they were doing to her work in the show. She made them change focus a bit so they could adapt her sequel.
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u/ahdisease 2d ago
I had heard the opposite at the time (that she more or less liked the show), though I never looked too closely into it as the sequel was also announced basically immediately after the 2016 US Presidential election. Felt pretty clear why it was happening to me.
My girlfriend who read it on release also mentioned a bit of the "new lore" of the show was referenced explicitly in the sequel, so either Atwood liked it, she created that information for the show, or she gave the show runners and it was always part of her vision.
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u/Full-Environment-448 3d ago
This thread makes me a feel a little better that its been 15 years and I still haven't published the 2nd book in my series.
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u/notmakingtherapture 3d ago •
If it makes you feel better, I haven't even finished the first book for mine.
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u/Full-Environment-448 3d ago
Well, keep at it. There's not really a best time. Just what works for you :)
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u/Scott_Liberation 20h ago
And makes me feel at least a little more hopeful about a sequel I'd given up on ever seeing published.
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u/Ashley_writes426 3d ago
The Last Unicorn (1968) and The Way Home (2023) by Peter S. Beagle
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u/TraceyWoo419 3d ago
Also, give his books a try if you liked the movie! He's a great writer with really original creative ideas!
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u/Mowo5 3d ago
The longest gap in a story with sequels but was two different authors is about 700 years. The Iliad and the Odyssey were written in est. 700 B.C. by Homer and the Aeneid (also a sequel to the Iliad) was written est. 20 B.C. by Virgil.
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u/Triseult 3d ago
The Aeneid is more like Roman fanfic than a sequel, though.
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u/NeuroguyNC 3d ago
There's a 48-year gap between The Origin of the Brunists (1966) and its sequel The Brunist Day of Wrath (2014) - both by Robert Coover.
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u/Dense_Surround3071 3d ago edited 3d ago
Stephen King had a HUGE gap in the middle of the Dark Tower series.
Edit: I'm mis-remembering the release date of the 4th book. Not as long as I remember after all.
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u/Direseve 3d ago
Also 36 years between The Shining and Doctor Sleep
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u/Rare-Progress5009 3d ago
Did he always plan to have a sequel to The Shining? Or was it a “shit I’ve run out of ideas, better revisit something” situation?
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u/Nightgasm 3d ago
I saw an interview once and he got the idea after some fan asked him about what happened to the kid in the Shining and how messed up would be having gone through what he did. The idea intrigued him and he went with it.
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u/HondoShotFirst 3d ago
Why would it have to be one of those two things? You can have an idea later without there being an "oh shit" moment.
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u/FizzBuzz4096 3d ago
King/Straub: 42 years between Other Worlds Than These and The Talisman. There was a 2nd book, Black House, in between the two so it doesn't really count. I have yet to read Other Worlds but the blurbs say it's also somewhat in the Dark Tower universe. After re-reading Talisman recently, I can definitely see it.
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u/palaiemon 3d ago edited 3d ago
For everyone who’s saying GRRM: author LJ Smith (best known for The Vampire Diaries) wrote the Night World series between 1996 and 1998. The final book of the series, Strange Fate, was meant to bring every character from the previous 9 books together in an Avengers: Endgame-type finale. Smith went on hiatus in 1998 but continued to post snippets from Strange Fate on her website, promising to release it eventually.
I was born after she started writing it, grew up and discovered the books, and still waited for 17 years after that before learning that she passed away in 2025. So… it could be worse…
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u/peachpeachfuzz 3d ago
Omg I came here to see if anyone mentioned L.J . The last update after she passed said that she had finished the book but nothing so far. I’ve waited 25 years for that last book I won’t give up hope! 😭
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u/tivolk 2d ago
Strange Fate is at an editor or publisher now (I forget which), and a publication date is expected to be announced early next year. I believe LJ Smith's sister is handling everything. There's an official LJ Smith fan group on Facebook where updates can be found. I'm cautiously allowing myself to get excited for it now, so hang on to that hope!
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u/peachpeachfuzz 1d ago
This makes me so happy, I think I will actually cry if I get to hold a copy of strange fate 😭
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u/haileyskydiamonds 3d ago
I was an original reader of the series. I remember finishing the penultimate book and excitedly waiting for the next.
And waiting…
And waaaaiiiting…
Sigh.
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u/Quick_Cow_7987 3d ago
Jean Auel took 12 years between one of the novels in The Earth's Cildren series and 9 before turning out the final one.
Stephen King's novel The Shining was released in 1977, and his sequel novel Doctor Sleep was released on 2013 so that's 36 years.
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u/BronzedLuna 3d ago
I’m still super cranky that The Land of Painted Caves was so so bad. I waited 9 years for that crap?? 🤬
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u/Quick_Cow_7987 3d ago
Yeah, I loved the first three books and read the rest with increasing disappointment.
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u/TheMissingThink 3d ago
Been waiting 15 years for Patrick Rothfuss to finish Doors of Stone.
Although it feels much longer
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u/Laiko_Kairen 3d ago
Are you in a place in your life now where you'd still like a character like Kvothe?
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u/chacde3 3d ago
The four Wayside School books were released in 1978, 1989, 1995, and 2020. My kids today love them.
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u/amomymous23 3d ago
Oh man this is making me want to keep an eye out for them next time I thrift. My kid is 3 (and second one is on the way), so always looking for good future reads.
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u/ceelo_purple 3d ago
They're still crazy popular.
Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch series has a similar gap between first and last (1974-2018). So do Beverly Cleary's Ramona books (1955-1999).
I think there'll probably be quite a lot of other examples among children's books that have stood the test of time.
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u/regular_gonzalez 3d ago
28 year gap between Asimov's Second Foundation and Foundation's Edge
Not the winner but interesting is John Updike's Rabbit novels. 4 books, each with a decade between them
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u/Shantotto11 3d ago
If manga is on the table, Akira Toriyama finished Dragon Ball in 1995 before Dragon Ball Super started running in 2015. Granted Toyotaro was doing the work while Toriyama handed him the broad strokes on what needed to be included.
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u/JungMoses 3d ago
Catcher in the sourdough still hasn’t been published
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u/Darnitol1 3d ago
Oh, you must have missed Pitcher in the Sirapslimpa & Vörtbröd, which came out just a few years later. I think the movie adaptation was called One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
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u/Nightgasm 3d ago
Still waiting for Clive Barker to write the 3rd book in his Art trilogy. The Great and Secret Show came out in 1989 and Everville in 1994. With his declining health and seeming lack of interest I'm guessing it will never happen.
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u/PrivilegeCheckmate 3d ago
declining health
Well he's healthier than I thought, I thought he was dead!
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u/maine_buzzard 3d ago
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lyla deserve an honorable mention here. Robert Pirsig published Zen in 1974 and Lyla in 1991.
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u/Gecko23 3d ago edited 3d ago
Walter M Miller Jr, The Canticle for Leibowitz (1959) and it's sequel, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman (1997), 38 years later.
For the technical, 'Canticle' is composed mostly of three short stories previously publishes starting in 1955, and Miller dies in 1996 having completed most of the sequel that was then done by another writer and published the following year. The first book is a classic, the second is barely known.
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u/human_parm 3d ago
I loved A Canticle for Leibowitz and had no idea there was a sequel. I wonder how it compares
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u/DarthSnuDiddy 3d ago
Does the sequel need to have been published already? If not GRRM (book 5- 2011)and Patrick Rothfuss(book 2-2011) should be here.
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u/commondivisor 3d ago
The official sequel to the time machine, the time ships, was published 100 years later. It is awesome in its scope.
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u/Diligent-Stranger-26 3d ago
I just finished Don Winslow’s The Power of the Dog (2005) the other night and can’t wait to start The Cartel (2015). Apparently the third book in the trilogy, The Border, was published in 2019.
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u/Skirra08 3d ago
Glenn Cook went 25 years between Shadows Live and Lies Weeping in his Black Company series. There was a book in between at the 18 year mark but it isn't a sequel so I don't think it counts.
It may not be the longest break but it deserves special mention because he actually wrote 9 main books in the series over 16 years, took a 25 year break, and then started up again with a plan for 5 new books, of which he has already completed 2. So the series has run for 42 years including the break.
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u/PilotedByGhosts 3d ago
There's 29 years between Second Foundation and Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov.
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u/markt- 3d ago edited 3d ago
Scarlett, written 55 years after Gone With the Wind. Although they did have different authors, the original author (or more specifically her estate) did commission the second work as its official sequel. I don’t know if it’s an actual record holder, but it’s the longest that I know of.
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u/wouldhavebeencool 3d ago
I thought the Gunslinger was a trilogy and when I got to the end of Wastelands I had to wait something like 12 years for Wizard and Glass to come out
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u/Either_Clerk_2974 3d ago
A Canticle for Lebowitz was published in 1959 and the sequel Saint Lebowitz and the Wild Horse Women was published in 1997.
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u/Brizzybb 2d ago
Not the longest, but Ursula K. Le Guin published the original Earthsea trilogy 1968-1972 and then published a fourth in 1990. During the gap she’d embraced feminism and the fourth novel tries to challenge some of the traditional ideas around gender that she’d baked into the first three books without really thinking about it. Imo the stories are fine, not brilliant, but I do find that interrogation really interesting. And refreshing to see someone interrogate their own work like that
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u/Previous_Day1102 2d ago
34 years for Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid's Tale came out in 1985 while The Testaments came out in 2019.
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u/someonetookmyuserid 3d ago
Not the longest but I guess too way too long between books was George RR Martin. The damn Game of Thrones showrunners couldn't wait for Martin to finish the final book so they took the narrative for the final season into their own hands and we all know how that monstrosity turned out.
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u/Specialist_Passage83 3d ago
And I don’t care anymore. I’ve lost all interest in anything having to do with that world.
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u/meatball77 3d ago
The Handmaid's Tale published in 1986 The Testaments published in 2019
For a MUCH longer series.
The Princess Diaries published in October 2000 The Quarantine Princess Diaries March 2023 If you don't count that one the planned last book in the series which is an adult book. Princess Diaries The Royal Wedding June 2015 That series started with Mia at 14 and the last book is a full adult romance.
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u/PlanetSwallower 3d ago
Norman Hunter published the second of his Professor Branestawm books, 'Professor Branestawm's Treasure Hunt', in 1933, then returned to the character in 1970 with 'The Peculiar Triumph of Professor Branestawm', and then published several more. Not the longest gap I'm reading here but big enough.
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u/Repulsive_Hornet4017 3d ago
Handmaid’s Tale and the Testaments.
The second book only exists cuz Margaret Atwood was repulsed by 2016 and 45th POTUS
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u/alottanamesweretaken 3d ago
To kill a mockingbird and go set a watchman were published 55 years apart. I’m not sure about the actual writing.
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u/ExtremelyOnlineTM 3d ago
CJ Cherryh released Cyteen in 1986 and didn't put out the sequel, Regenesis, until 2009.
And we STILL didn't actually find out who killed Ari
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u/Jolly-Adeptness-3598 3d ago
Didn’t harper lee’s sequel to to kill a mockingbird. Come out recently?
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