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Post by Zagreus on Nov 7, 2016 2:34:56 GMT
Dark Shadows: Heiress of Collinwood, by Lara ParkerLara Parker's fourth novel is due out on the 8th, and I thought it'd be better to move its discussion over to a dedicated thread rather than any of the general novel topics. The Amazon product page has a preview that contains the first few chapters mostly intact plus snippets from throughout the rest of the book: www.amazon.com/Dark-Shadows-Collinwood-Lara-Parker/dp/0765377764And even just within that preview is some great stuff! No word as of yet, that I know of, on an audiobook reading, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they'll get Alexandra to read it. It is of course perfectly acceptable if Lara does it, she's done a splendid job on the previous ones after all, but the book's in first person from Vicki's perspective, so it'd be a real treat if they got Miss Winters herself to give it a read.
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Post by omega on Nov 7, 2016 3:21:34 GMT
I've pre-ordered the ebook, so now I've got even more to like forward to once my final exam is over on the 12th (after the cinema screening of Power of the Daleks of course).
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Post by Zagreus on Nov 8, 2016 17:56:58 GMT
Starting on the kindle version while I wait for the physical book to plonk itself down on my doorstep!
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Post by Trace on Nov 9, 2016 1:08:54 GMT
The book arrived on my doorstep today!!!
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Post by Zagreus on Nov 9, 2016 2:55:34 GMT
SO I've just finished the book! Hahahah I devoured it. I've taken notes as I read, and am going to compile them into one big spoiler-filled mess of a post that I'll probably put up in a couple days. After I've had a chance to digest everything and maybe read through a second time. Good stuff
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Post by Zagreus on Nov 10, 2016 3:18:05 GMT
Some thoughts (lots of spoilers, obviously): The first couple of chapters are a little confusing at times, and seem like they were part of a different draft than the rest of the book. Chapter 3 Seems very much like it should be the opening of the book, and you could happily ignore the first two chapters and not miss a damn thing. A lot of stuff from the first two chapters is repeated elsewhere in the work, or retold a little differently. The first two chapters also get a lot of little details about the show wrong, whereas the rest of the book is fine and in line with the show (and even some of the audios) to the point where it actually contradicts some things from chapters 1 & 2. It's... odd. I'm going to go with the rest of the book as far as figuring out timelines and such, but still...
The present day stuff is set in 1972, at least six months after the events of Wolf Moon Rising, which were set around November/December in 1971, the prior year. Timeline of books is so far:
April, 1971 - Angelique's Descent Oct/Nov, 1971 - The Salem Branch Nov/Dec, 1971 - Wolf Moon Rising June/July(?), 1972 - Heiress of Collinwood
As we begin Chapter 3, Vicki's on a train to Collinsport. Amid a recap of stuff that only happened a page or so back in chapter 2 (I swear, different drafts), we start to get a more concrete version of the timeline of events that was mismanaged in the opening chapters. It is, as far as I can tell, as follows:
Most of the 1797 stuff in Chapter 1 happens, but instead of poisoning herself, she threw herself from Widow's Hill, as per the show. She woke up in Collinsport in 1970/71, and left without telling anyone she was back, just wanting to get away from everything. She went to Bangor and eventually got a job in the mail room of the local broadcast studio. Some six months before our story begins, she was offered a position as a reporter, and wound up with the "Death in the Afternoon" segment. She keeps worrying that she's not really here, and that she's dead, and frequently has nightmares and hallucinations about 1797, which we can hand-wavingly ascribe the first chapters as her having one in the middle of her broadcast and just sort of working through it, which is why some of the details are different from what really happened.
She gets out a copy of Jane Eyre and start reminiscing about her childhood at the foundling home, comparing it to the novel. We find out that up until Vicki was nine or so, the foundling home was run by none other than Charity Trask! Ms Trask was old and cold, a bitch of a woman, crippled by an accident (I guess she survived throwing herself off the hill, but not enough to walk properly afterwards), who badly mistreated the children. Mrs Hopewell was her replacement, brought in after Ms Trask was fired when Vicki was discovered and treated after trying to run away one particularly horrid day. The foundling home was also, by the by, one of the (apparently many) institutions that Gregory Trask set up as he roamed the nation.
I find it amusing that Vicki's various episode-opening monologues were apparently her dictating to her diary. She's a little embarrassed at how she sounded as she reads back the episode 1 intro heheh.
While a healthy amount of the book takes place in the Collinwood estate, a sizable portion of it takes place down in town proper. It's nice to see some of the faces from the early early episodes. Mr Wells is still running the front desk at the inn, and Harry Jones still runs the taxi service. I hope we get more down into the town in this one. The last three books largely focused on the Collinwood estate in the "present day" segments, so it's nice to change that up a bit.
So, leaving the actual events of the book aside, there are several times throughout the book where Vicki peruses Liz's diary during her search for hints as to why Liz might have left her the house. She also visits the foundling home and looks up her file for information. We find thus:
The bit of Wolf Moon Rising where Paul Stodard shoots Quentin happened in 1946 (it wasn't specifically mentioned in that book). Paul must have done something extra, because this actually put Quentin in the hospital and on the verge of death (but couldn't quite finish him off, as he was basically on the verge of death for a little over nine months). Liz tracks down Magda Rakosi and begs her to help. Magda agrees... if Liz will give her the child she's carrying. This was a bit of a shock to Liz, who didn't even know she was pregnant. Liz refuses, but comes to realize that there's no way Quentin can be around to play dad if he's dead, and alternatively that there's little way in hell that Paul is going to be happy about this child. Liz flies to Paris for an "extended vacation" to round out the pregnancy and give birth, and tearfully hands her off to Magda (who's a little disappointed it's a girl, but is optimistic that she can turn her into someone all the men ruin themselves after heheh).
For reasons unknown, Vicki was left at the foundling home in the basket, but Magda came to pick her up after a bit, and temporarily housed her there on and off until she was five or so. Vicki has basically no memories of wandering around with the gypsies for the first half decade of her life.
So, she's Liz & Quentin's daughter (which has worrying implications if she ever settles down and has a son). Quentin's never actually named in Liz's diary, so Vicki doesn't know her dad's Quentin (not has she ever formally met Quentin, for that matter). She and Liz have a talk about it at the end of the book, but it's left open as to whether or not they actually told anyone else about it, or whether any of the other members of the family (excepting Barnabas, who knew Vicki's parentage the whole damn time and just never said anything) were even informed that Vicki was briefly in town.
Minor random notes:
Jackie is just wholesale going by "Miranda" now, and I like to think it's because Angelique is back, so we now have Angelique and Miranda as separate entities (at least until something happens to Jackie, I assume).
Barnabas apparently found out about the Vicki/Liz thing at some point, and assumed Vicki had been told.
It is heavily implied that Barnabas and Victoria had sex when she spent the night at the old house in 285/286/287.
There was apparently a whole novel's worth of adventure between the end of Wolf Moon Rising and this, with Barnabas going off and meeting with other vampires in Europe to learn how to survive without blood, Mrs Johnson's identical twin sister coming in to fill in for her and promptly getting killed off in a grisly way, Miranda and David getting betrothed, and a mad scientist somehow trapping the whole family and hooking them up to a life extracting machine (okay he had Angelique's help, but still).
With some handwaving and squinting, this aligns with The Ghost Watcher (Maggie's out of Windcliff, and back working the inn), Return to Collinwood (no one else knows about Vicki's parentage, or that she's even back), The Fall of the House of Trask (Charity became crippled and bitter after an un-talked-about incident, presumably dancing herself off the cliff), and the Tony & Cassandra stories (Angelique is alive again by the end of the book)
Overall I'm very pleased with it. I'm looking forward to the audiobook, which I assume is happening but haven't seen any word on yet. Keeping my fingers crossed that they get Alexandra to read it.
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Post by omega on Nov 10, 2016 3:52:51 GMT
I can't reconcile the background of the Miss Trask that Vicki remembers and fears to the Charity Trask we see in Fall of the House of Trask. The only known survivor of those who have successfully fallen/jumped/been pushed off of Widow's Hill is Adam, who is Frankenstein's Monster.
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Post by Zagreus on Nov 10, 2016 17:19:14 GMT
Is the locked room in the basement the one that Paul was supposedly buried in? And then in the last book was the one that Julia's coffin was in? I'm going to assume that Vicki heard Julia doing something behind the door.
Also damn my "some thoughts" was a lot longer than I thought it was, and that was the trimmed down version!
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Post by joehart1962 on Nov 11, 2016 6:25:57 GMT
Lara's novels take place in another parallel time. You cannot reconcile them with the BF audios.
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Post by omega on Nov 11, 2016 8:46:24 GMT
Vicki reading and thinking about Jane Eyre comes across as very meta since the concept of her character was based on that very novel and character.
Is Stephon's life force machine related to Dr Lang's experiments somehow? If his wife really wanted to become a Collins, body swaps are doable through the I-Ching and Petofi's Hand. Carolyn has had more than her fair share of unusual love interests (hormonal Frankenstein's Monster, werewolf, space octopus), so a 37-year old seemingly normal man would be a welcome suitor.
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Post by Zagreus on Nov 11, 2016 18:27:15 GMT
Lara's novels take place in another parallel time. You cannot reconcile them with the BF audios. You can, easily. I'm not sure why it matters either way.
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Post by gregm on Nov 15, 2016 10:54:22 GMT
I'm about a quarter of the way through...
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Post by Zagreus on Nov 16, 2016 17:58:07 GMT
So, uh, it's come to my attention that some of the stuff from the early chapters that I thought was really confusing was actually just recapping stuff from the show that I haven't gotten to yet, so my comments might be a little off base there. It'll be interesting going back to this after I'm past Vicki's sendoff in the show, and seeing if there's any references and such that went right over my head.
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Post by gregm on Dec 3, 2016 3:42:06 GMT
Done. Pretty good. Vicki is Vicki, and so even the several faintings at the end of chapters and her indecisiveness and following questionable advice aren't out of character. Lara plays up the soap opera elements in this and Angelique's Descent (I haven't read the other two yet...) which makes it consistent with the style of the TV series.
I'm curious about the mysterious Miranda (who has no real role in the book, but sounds like she was important somewhere - or will be in the future!). Hopefully futher reading will clear her up for me.
I agree with SRandom that Lara's novels aren't irreconcilable with BF's output (there's enough nudging of history onto different paths in the TV series that this could be the reason why things don't gel completely).
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Post by Zagreus on Dec 3, 2016 3:47:12 GMT
Miranda plays a big role in The Salem Branch and Wolf Moon Rising.
Anyone heard any news on a potential audio reading of this?
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Post by coldlazarou on Dec 3, 2016 8:01:03 GMT
Miranda DuVal also appears in the TV series, of course - Episode #1140 i think.
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Post by Zagreus on Dec 9, 2016 20:00:39 GMT
Okay so A Face From The Past in the recent Haunting Memories release also delves into Vicki's parentage a bit, and I think I've settled on how I'm going to reconcile things. So, put quite frankly, Vicki's parentage, as presented in Heiress, isn't possible at the beginning of the series. Quentin died half a century before she was born and proceeded to haunt the mansion. There's no way he could have fathered her. At the same time, Big Finish have shown that people in Dark Shadows remember aborted timelines. David remembers being haunted by Quentin's ghost, and being murdered, even though those things now never happened, due to the magic of time travel.
So, my handwavey reconciliation of Heiress of Collinwood with A Face From The Past is that the latter explains her parentage prior to time travel, and that the former explains how it changed after. The important bits are still there. She's still Liz's daughter, she still got dropped off at the orphanage in a basket, etc, just, the circumstances of who her father is changed along the way, and both can exist simultaneously while being consistent with the effects of time travel as shown in various Dark Shadows audios here at Big Finish.
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Post by joehart1962 on Dec 14, 2016 1:49:30 GMT
Okay so A Face From The Past in the recent Haunting Memories release also delves into Vicki's parentage a bit, and I think I've settled on how I'm going to reconcile things.
Nice try! LOL! But Haunting Memories takes place in 1986, well after the Haunting of 1969 and subsequent "resurrection" of Quentin. Why does Elizabeth remember Victor instead of Quentin at that late date? I still think Lara's books taking place in a parallel time is an easier solution.
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Post by Zagreus on Dec 14, 2016 4:25:09 GMT
Why does David remember getting killed, or being haunted by Quentin's ghost? Both are things that subsequently never happened thanks to time travel. Not just him either, Hallie also remembers being killed, and Angelique's timeline is all over the place. So, again, both versions of history existing contemporaneously isn't really anything new in Dark Shadows.
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Post by silverednickle on Dec 27, 2016 15:06:08 GMT
One could always through in a disguise, whether magical or not. Soap operas are known for having access to amazing disguises, almost as if the disguise was a totally different person... Either that or the majority of the characters are pretty imperceptive to them.
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