2 new Harry Potter books set to be published in October

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From E News:

British publishing house Bloomsbury announced Tuesday that two Harry Potter books will be released in October, coinciding with the opening of the British Library’s Harry Potter exhibition, “A History of Magic.” Harry Potter: A History of Magic – The Book of the Exhibition will take readers through subjects studied at Hogwarts, while Harry Potter – A Journey Through a History of Magic will cover mystical topics including alchemy, ancient witchcraft and magical creatures.

Each chapter in The Book of the Exhibition “showcases a treasure trove of artifacts from the British Library and other collections around the world, beside exclusive manuscripts, sketches and illustrations from the Harry Potter archive,” according to the publisher. Each subject area includes a “specially commissioned essay” from people like Steve Backshall, Richard Coles, Owen Davies, Julia Eccleshare, Roger Highfield, Steve Kloves, Lucy Mangan, Anna Pavord and Tim Peake.

Link to the rest at E News

22 thoughts on “2 new Harry Potter books set to be published in October”

  1. So, indexes rather than stories.

    Sort of like that big book of Star Trek I’ve still got around here somewhere that had the breakdown/blueprints for the ships in the series.

    And from the sound of it to cash in on the opening of the ‘British Library’s Harry Potter exhibition’.

    • I have the technical manual – and the original set of fold-out blueprints for the Enterprise.

      Actually, I need to dig those out again sometime soon. Many good ideas in those for future ship design (and, before someone else notes this, some very bad ideas, too).

      • I’ve seen a number of Star Trek Bridge Crew players complaining about how hard it is to control the TOS Enterprise when none of the controls are labeled…

        And, yeah, I think I have those blueprints too. I was never a real Trekkie, but I found them for sale cheap in the local junk shop one day when I was a kid.

      • I took the Universal Studios tour in the Eighties. They brought us to the set of the original BattleStar Galactica, with Lorne Green and before Starbuck had his sex change.

        The bridge was all cheap plywood hammered together with nails. They painted it silver, and had instrument readings taped to the plywood. It looked like hell.

        Then they showed us that very same bridge in the TV show. All that cheap plywood now looked like the bridge of an interstellar battle cruiser.

        • This was the advantage of low-def television. It is more expensive now to look good. See also: porn.

          • Yes. Watching Space 1999 in HD was an interesting experience, with the out-of-focus shots and the (presumably) plywood mountains outside the windows of the Moon base.

            Star Trek holds up pretty well though, particularly with the new CG effects.

            • Yeah, I once went to… I think it was called “Star Trek: The Experience”. Some traveling museum type display of ST props, where you could get touching-distance from the actual prop phasers they used in TOS and TNG and stuff. Having been a Trekkie all my life, I was underwhelmed. I think you need a certain amount of blurriness with those kind of shows to keep the illusion. That was the problem I had with a lot of early attempts at blu ray. I haven’t noticed it so much lately. They seem to have worked out a way to have HD without showing the seams, or maybe it’s just the things I’ve been watching. It’s definitely problematic when they do HD versions of sci-fi shows that were never intended to be shown in HD.

              • It is one of the reasons they’re getting so heavy into computer graphics, adding seams would actually be ‘more’ work.

    • Yes.
      I understand people want to keep cashing in…. but at a point, it just isn’t anything to write home about.

  2. These sound like simple encyclopedias, similar to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which wasn’t a story at all, just a bestiary. I checked the later out of the library (based on the title and author) and was relieved that I’d not purchased it. I suppose publishers can’t resist milking the franchise, but I get annoyed when they manage to fool me into thinking I’m getting something that I’m not. Of course, I’m unlikely to be fooled by this particular ploy again. I understand that Rowling is done with writing Harry Potter and has moved on. Understandably so. It was a huge success, but now she’s breaking fresh ground. Good for her!

      • No one owns film rights to The Silmarillion. The Jackson films were supplemented by The Lord of the Ring‘s appendices.

        Incidentally, The Silmarillion was Tolkien’s lifework. The Lord of the Rings was just a spinoff that was created when he was pressed for a sequel to the (unaffiliated, except for a couple placenames) book The Hobbit and decided to retrofit The Hobbit into the world of The Silmarillion and develop a sequel from there.

        I expect if The Silmarillion had been finished, it’d have been much more along the lines of The Children of Húrin.

      • There are readers out there who adore The Silmarillion. It has a big fan base, many of whom prefer it over The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. I’m a Hobbit fan myself. 😀

        (Quite right, Nathan Haines, about the appendices material in the films. Even though I’m a Hobbit fan, I’ve read the LotR appendices many time.)

  3. J.K. Rowling and George Lucas should co-teach a master class on creating something people love and then beating it to death until it’s a bloody smear on the ground.

  4. A lot of Rowling’s Potter derivatives are fan service with revenues earmarked for charities.

    It’s not really fair to lump her in with Lucas as she rejects the majority of the marketing proposals she gets pitched, whereas Lucas had marketing in mind from the very beginning and many of his characters were created solely for marketing purposes. (BB-8!)

    • Haha, considering the amount of HP merchandise out there, I’d hate to see what she rejected.

      I’m not really talking about marketing, though. OTOH, I could say that at least Star Wars is putting out new stories (even if they’re bad). Most of what new “content” Rowling is putting out isn’t even stories. SW is at least making more movies (the original form of the story). People have been wanting new Potter novels for years, and she keeps putting out lots of stuff that isn’t novels. Though really, the fans who are really desperate for new Potter stories can just look online for new prose stories. Since there are probably millions of HP fanfics, it’s not too hard to find some really quality novel-length ones. (That’s probably true for SW too, though I haven’t looked for those as hard.)

      There comes a time when a lot of the real fans of a property are more interested in seeing what other fans can produce in those worlds rather than what a creator who is obviously milking it for the cash wants to put out.

      • Look at the Star Wars catalog.
        Subtract the Potter merchandise.
        That is what she’s rejected to date.
        A whole lot, really.

        Likewise, for the movies she demanded veto power on casting and scripts and demanded UK actors to play UK characters.

        There’s tons of money to be made off Potter without huckstering and she isn’t about to leave money on the table–she gets fair value for what she allows–but she is very careful to protect the brand. And yes, that means limiting sequels and prequels and spinoffs.

        Part of it is that she doesn’t want Potter to take over her writing career–hence the non-Potter books–nor is she interested in licensing her world out. She doesn’t make a fuss over fanfic, though.

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