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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Guardian 2000: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by Zipacna: [qb] I'm currently listening to the audiobook versions of the new Discovery novels, and some of those aren't even consistent {…} so the arguement can't even be made that the canon includes the new novels. [/qb][/QUOTE]That's not how canon policy works. Just because the creators suck at continuity doesn't necessarily mean the declared canon policy is invalid. Consider [URL=http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWCanon.html]this[/URL]: [QUOTE] [qb] For instance, Arthur C. Clarke discussed the concept of canon in the 2001 universe in the valediction of the fourth novel 3001: The Final Odyssey. He says: [/qb] Obviously there is no way in which a series of four science fiction novels, written over a period of more than thirty years of the most breathtaking developments in technology (especially in space exploration) and politics could be mutually consistent. As I wrote in the introduction to 2061, "Just as 2010: Odyssey Two was not a direct sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, so this book is not a linear sequel to 2010. They must all be considered as variations on the same theme, involving many of the same characters and situations, but not necessarily happening in the same universe." If you want a good analogy from another medium, listen to what Rachmaninoff and Andrew Lloyd Webber did to the same handful of notes by Paganini. So this Final Odyssey has discarded many of the elements of its precursors, but developed others -- and I hope more important ones -- in much greater detail. And if any readers of the earlier books feel disoriented by such transmutations, I hope I can dissuade them from sending me angry letters of denunciation by adapting one of the more endearing remarks of a certain U.S. President: "It's fiction, stupid!" [qb] Here, then, we have an instance of a series of books whose internal continuity is largely disavowed, primarily on the basis of some 30 years of production (during which time, most notably in the political sphere, the Soviet Union was dismantled, affecting much of the plot of 2010). That said, it is possible for a fan to do the mental continuity fixes necessary to maintain a single cohesive 2001 universe. In broad strokes, then, it is possible to maintain that the 2001 universe is just one universe, and not four as Clarke suggests. However, because Clarke has suggested four separate universes, any analysis of the 2001 canon would have to take that into account. [/qb] [/QUOTE]In other words, Clarke chose to abandon rigid internal continuity in favor of a mix of continuity and currency, and was kind enough to do so openly, declaring a quartet of loosely connected universes. However, had he instead claimed it was all one universe, perhaps with "reimagines" between books, he'd be leaving the continuity problems for those with enough care to try to work them out. That's fun for a universe with decent continuity . . . a waste of time for one without. Either way, continuity failures don't rewrite declared policy, at least when there is a well-communicated policy to point to. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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