Under the Cover: The Posthumous Literary Career

Back in 2014, I published an article on “Estate Planning for Authors” in which I argued that if authors wanted their canon to outlive them, they should (a) have a will, and (b) appoint a separate literary executor. I cited examples of families fighting over control of deceased authors’ work (and the associated revenues) when there was no will; cases where disapproving family members removed books from print; and cases where contracts expired and there was no one to sign off on getting the book back in print. I further argued that the executor suitable for taking charge of one’s mundane assets may not be the best person to navigate literary markets, contracts, and perhaps self-publishing to keep one’s works in print. Indeed, a literary executive could make sure that even one’s incomplete manuscripts were finished and published.

The late Dave Duncan was a prolific and popular author of fantasy and science fiction with over 67 traditionally published novels to his name—and to the pseudonyms Ken Hood and Sarah B. Franklin.

Following a mild stroke, Duncan announced he was retiring from writing. As his editor, he asked my advice on putting his literary affairs in order and I sent him my article. Having made a full recovery from his stroke, however, he found it impossible not to keep writing. Going through his files, he had come across a number of unfinished manuscripts he had always intended to get back to but never had. He decided to at least finish up those incomplete manuscripts.

The first of these was Corridor to Nightmare. Corridor feels like a fantasy, but a close reading suggests it is actually post-apocalyptic science fiction where a few leftover artifacts provide magic-like powers. The novel was complete, but having contemplated a sequel, he had put itaside in case the sequel required him to make changes. Now, however, he brought Corridor to me to edit. The beta readers and I provided feedback, including assurances that it was up to his usual standards.

Next up was The Traitor’s Son, an SF adventure novel set on a failing colony world. I got the manuscript on a Thursday, and worked on it through the weekend (because having picked it up, I could not put it down). Editing a Duncan novel is a joy, because his manuscripts were always more polished drafts than other authors’ I’d read, and because, having edited Duncan manuscripts for well over a decade, I had a good sense of how he would react to suggested changes. I would often start to suggest a change, then hear his voice explaining why, in this instance, he felt his was the better phrasing. Usually, I had to concede he was right. I sent the manuscript with my surviving input back to him Sunday night.

That Monday I got a call telling me Duncan had taken a fall Thursday and passed away on Sunday. And I said, “That’s not possible. I’ve been talking to him the whole weekend.” It took some time for the reality to sink in that I hadn’t been, actually.

Duncan’s family knew he was working on finishing these manuscripts and that he had wanted them to become part of his literary legacy. To my surprise and great honour, the family asked me to take charge of his unpublished manuscripts. I discovered that Duncan had not only organized the files, but left some explanatory notes for me. I have therefore taken on the task of editing and/or finishing his incomplete manuscripts and shepherding them through to publication.

I had already done the first edit on The Traitor’s Son, so that was more or less ready to go. I did a couple of more passes, as one normally would, to finalize the text to be as faithful to Duncan’s vision as I could make it. This was perhaps Duncan’s most political book, an allegory about a tiny oligarchy determined to hang onto power even in the face of ecological collapse. Duncan’s work always has some subtext beyond the surface adventure, but he never allowed that subtext to become preachy, or reference the real world too blatantly. A second theme is how expectations can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The oligarchy is so afraid our protagonist will become a “traitor” like his dad, that it is almost inevitable that our young hero grows up to lead the resistance. Thus, The Traitor’s Son is a coming-of-age adventure for those coming of age in the era of climate change.

The next step was to get these initial two books published. I placed The Traitor’s Son with Five Rivers Publishing almost immediately. Five Rivers had previously published nine of Duncan’s books, so I knew he would have approved that choice. Unfortunately, Five Rivers closed for family reasons before The Traitor’s Son could come out. I then contacted another publisher that had recently brought out a Duncan series, and they expressed interest before suddenly ghosting me. (I later discovered the press had not lost interest, but merely suffered abrupt staff turnover. The company had been bought out by a larger press, and by the time the new editor found our correspondence and responded, I had moved on.) 

I therefore contracted with an agent to place Duncan’s work. In addition to the usual markets, he identified a press known for Westerns that was interested in branching out into SF&F. When approached with Duncan’s manuscripts, the editor there was beyond enthusiastic because he himself had grown up reading Dave Duncan. Not only was he interested in the two completed novels, he sketched out plans for having the incomplete manuscripts finished by one or more big name authors, similar to Brandon Sanderson finishing the Wheel of Time series. I and Duncan’s regular beta readers would remain involved to ensure everything was appropriate to Duncan’s canon, but this deal would give Duncan posthumous publications equivalent to a normal author’s entire career. Duncan’s family was encouraged to see Duncan’s legacy embraced so.

Alas, the deal ultimately fell through when the company realized that these new books would be competing directly with the 50+ Duncan novels still in print and selling well from Duncan’s backlist.

[Engaging other writers to finish Duncan’s remaining manuscripts is nevertheless still an idea worth pursuing. In his notes to me, Duncan was explicit that he was quite prepared for someone else to take his work and run with it, as long as he is given due credit. We are therefore open to other qualified writers taking on the task (and appropriate royalties) of finishing one or more of these books as Duncan’s co-author, should any Duncan fans out there wish to take on the challenge. I would remain the editor to ensure the work remains true to Duncan’s vision and quality.]

At essentially the same moment, however, author Edward Willett was starting up a new Canadian regional press. Dave and I had both known Willett for decades and knew him to be an established figure in the writing community, a smart marketer, and an overall standup guy. So, I casually raised the possibility with Willett of publishing the first two titles, and when Willett allowed that he might indeed be interested, turned the negotiation over to my agent. Thus, Duncan’s first two posthumous works are now out from Shadowpaw Press and doing well.

That still leaves me with eight to 11 Duncan manuscripts to finish (depending on how small a fragment counts as a manuscript—a couple are essentially just outlines with a few scenes sketched out). The logical next candidate is The Angry Lands, not just because it is the sequel to Corridor to Nightmare, but because it is the one manuscript I had already discussed with Duncan at some length. When The Angry Lands was two-thirds written, Duncan had complained that it was not jelling for him. When he asked me to take a look, I was able to identify where it had gone off track. Revising it meant excising backstory from the first third and throwing out the remainder. Duncan assured me that these revisions represented no difficulty for him and he would begin on them shortly. The last thing he said to me in person was, “I’ll have to change the ending I had intended, though.” (I will always regret that I did not think to ask in that moment “What’s the ending?”)

As Duncan’s editor for over a decade, one of his four core beta readers for another decade before that, and a long-time reviewer and fan of his work from the very beginning, I’m reasonably certain I can channel him well enough to know what he is trying to achieve in each of the remaining manuscripts. It remains to be seen if my writing is up to standard to fill in the missing bits, especially in those cases where the missing bits represent more than what is actually there in the manuscript. My own short fiction has been published over a hundred times, but channeling a writer of Duncan’s standing is something else altogether. Whether I or others take on writing these books, Duncan’s core beta readers will ensure nothing goes out that Duncan himself would not be proud of.

The take away for writers should be that who gets control over what, and what happens to unfinished manuscripts (finished and published, donated as-is to archives, or burnt) can be laid out in advance to ensure one’s wishes are known and respected.

The good news for readers is that Dave Duncan is not done yet.

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Robert Runté is Senior Editor with EssentialEdits.ca. A former professor, he has won three Aurora Awards for his literary criticism and currently reviews for the Ottawa Review of Books. The late, great Dave Duncan called him the best editor he had worked with in his career and left his unfinished manuscripts to Robert to finish. Robert’s own fiction has been published over 100 times, and several of his short stories have been reprinted in “best of” collections, most recently, Best of Metastellar 3.