Untold Stories I’ve Always Wondered About…
Last week I launched the first post in a new SF Signal series, Fantasy Heroines That Rock My World.
The heroine I started out with was Aravis from CS Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy. But you know how a post on one topic gets you thinking about another? In this case the riff was to all those books or series that complete but there’s an untold story in there, which you never get to read but always wonder about?
For me (as for many people, I suspect) that Narnia story is “Whatever Happened To Susan?” After everyone else died and went to heaven, that is (in The Last Battle.) I’ve always wondered how that was for Susan, with all her immediate family, parents as well as siblings, dead in a train accident. Pretty traumatic, I suspect…
All the same: “Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen in Narnia.” So I’m thinking that however sad, alone and bereaved, Susan was almost bound to stumble into some kind of fantastic adventure, whether she wanted to or not.
Now the author’s take on the culmination of the series would suggest probably not—but then again, characters like stories tend to have a life of their own, one which not infrequently pulls the rug out from under authors. So yeah, I’ve always wanted to read Susan’s untold story.
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Another untold tale I’ve always yearned to read stems from John Wyndham’s SF classic, The Chrysalids.
[SPOILER Alert!]
At the end of The Chrysalids three of the characters are airlifted away to a safe haven on the far side of the world. But although there would have been room for him, another character, Michael, chooses to remain behind in a dystopian corner of his post-apocalyptic world.
The reason Michael stays is because the rescue aircraft doesn’t have sufficient fuel or carrying capacity (because of the need to allow for the return journey) to fly on and pick up the last “chrysalid”, his lover, Rachel. But if he hadn’t stayed she would have been abandoned: left alone and in danger, not knowing whether he and the others had lived or died.
The last we see of Michael in the book, he is standing on the ground as the aircraft leaves, but with the intention of rejoining Rachel then setting out to find the safe haven—which lies on the far side of a dangerous, post-apocalyptic globe.
So I expect you can understand why I have always wondered what became of Michael and Rachel and very much wanted to read their story.
Then again, sometimes the untold story as you imagine it can be so much greater and more powerful, and also more vivid living in your imagination, which may be an argument for the story remaining untold…
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But what about you, dear “…Anything, Really” readers — what are the untold stories you would love to read?
I read The Chrysalids when I was a child and still remember it to this day. It is a very good story.
Yes – I too wondered about the guy that choose to remain to get his girlfriend. I also wondered about the 3 that made it. What their new lives were like.
It’s my favourite John Wyndham, although I liked “Chocky” a lot, too. I always felt you got more of a sense of what the other three were heading into, though, which may be why Michael and Rachel’s story always seized my imagination more.
I seem to recall someone did indeed set out to imagine Susan’s story as it would unfold later… The name of the book and author escape me, however!
I’ve heard Neil Gaiman may have done a short story, but I don’t know the title either…