I saw this interesting question posted. What is a book that is part of a universe but not in sequence to other books in the series called? Brilliant question. However, there is no simple answer. So I will list out three possible answers.
One. Expanded or extended universe. This one gets used for comic books and Star Wars. As these companies like to change up the story a bit without following the original story line. In Star Wars, this ticked off a lot of fans when the new trilogy came out. Star Wars basically threw out all that was ‘canon.’ Where Han Solo and Princess Lia were married happily ever after and had a set of twins, Jacen and Jania. Jacen, the boy twin turns to the dark side, but much later than Kylo Ren in the movies. He is closer to Luke’s age in a New Hope when he turns to the dark side.
Two. Mythos. Usually this when someone whose not the author writing a story in the universe made by a different author. More notably is the Cthulhu mythos. Though, I don’t recommend reading HP Lovecraft. His style is like three pages of description and one sentence of action. I won’t go into his racism, though many writers who are minorities write awesome stories that are in the Lovecraft mythos.
Three. Cycle. Ursala K. Le Guin wrote a series of sci-fi books called the Hainish Cycle. Each book in this series did not tie in with any other book in the series. It was all about a Federation of planets where you had people explore other worlds. One of the most memorable books in that series was The Left Hand of Darkness. In that book, people didn’t have a sex until they started mating. So they were neither male nor female until the hormones kicked in on one person in the couple. Then the other became the opposite.
So, I think the best answer for the question would be a cycle. Mysteries are different. They are a part of a series, but yet, they are mostly stand alone novels.
This is my intriguing thought about stories and novels that I had this week.
You know how you have star actors and character actors? Where a star actor is him or herself playing a character, the character actor becomes the person they are playing. Tom Cruise, though I love to watch his movies is a star actor. No matter what role he plays, he will always be Tom Cruise playing that part. Where as Brad Pitt becomes every character he plays.
Most books and stories out there, the writer or author writes characters that are different from themselves. Like the character actor. So what I was thinking was: What if I wrote a mystery where I was the main character solving the mystery vs a detective solving the mystery? Anyway, it’s a thought.
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