Can sequels ever really work?

This week it was announced that William Boyd will succeed Sebastian Faulks in writing the next Bond book and will be published by Fleming’s original publisher, Jonathan Cape. But, the question I’m asking myself is: can there ever really be a successful sequel?

Sequels come about in lots of different ways – written by the author themselves, written by another writer (like Boyd) years later, film sequels, prequels, spin-offs – but it’s rare that I ever enjoy them as much as the original. One of the more famous sequels was Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James, who developed characters from Austen’s classic, Pride and Prejudice. I’ve heard that people have enjoyed it, certainly PD James is a phenomenal talent, but surely it can only be disappointing? Mr and Mrs Darcy are together now – why would we want to see them either move on in an unrealistically blissful manner or everything gets pulled from under their feet again so that we await another reconciliation.

There’s also the question, of course, of whether a writer has the right to do a sequel for a famous classic written by someone else. Susan Hill may, perhaps, be the best possible modern-day writer to tackle Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier but did Mrs. De Winter detract from the original novel’s conclusion?

Some have called Michael Cunningham’s The Hours a sequel but it’s slightly different. It is not a furthering of the story, more a new interpretation of the original Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. I really enjoyed this book but can understand people’s complaints that this, perhaps, might be a story better left untouched. Saying that, at least, I suppose Cunningham provides Woolf with a voice in his book… even if he, himself, is still in control of it…

That’s not to say these books don’t make any money or have any success – thinking of Death comes to Pemberley again, and Wide Sargasso Sea, to name just a couple. Then there are the great franchises of Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Twilight and Hunger Games etc – the list goes on and there are plenty of sequels in the pipeline too. Most recently Bret Easton Ellis has hinted that he may write a sequel to American Psycho.