Sequel Gap

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    A film or other literary work where a Sequel is released long, long after the original work. May sometimes be a Trilogy Creep, very often related to Development Hell. Does not apply to Sequels In Name Only, Sequel Series, or Franchise Reboots. This Trope is for honest-to-goodness sequels. See also Capcom Sequel Stagnation, and a related Webcomic trope, Schedule Slip.

    Examples of Sequel Gap include:

    Anime and Manga

    • Slayers Try (1997) and Slayers Revolution (2008) -- 11 years.
    • Both in-universe and out-of-universe, there was a Sequel Gap between Mobile Suit Gundam and Mobile Suit Z Gundam. Real life: 7 years. In-universe, 5 years. This happened again later with Char's Counterattack, which came out 8 years after Z Gundam, and then after that, a couple of years later, came F91. Another, even bigger Sequel Gap is between Chars Counterattack and its direct sequel, Mobile Suit Gundam UC, which had its first episode launched about 17 years after CCA. The Universal Century certainly loves Sequel Gaps a lot.
    • Ghost in The Shell (1995) and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004) -- 9 years.
    • Last Exile (2003) and Last Exile: Fam, The Silver Wing (2011) -- 8 years.
    • Gunbuster (1988–89) and Diebuster (2004-05) -- 14 years.

    Film

    Literature

    • Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep came out in 1992; the sequel, The Children of the Sky, was released in 2011 (19 years). A Deepness in The Sky—set in the same universe but not a direct sequel—came out in the interim.
    • C. J. Cherryh's Cyteen and Regenesis (1988/2009) -- 21 years. Similar to the Vinge example above, Cherryh had other Alliance Union books come out between the two.
    • The Time Ships, an official sequel to The Time Machine was published to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the first book (1895/ 1995).
    • There was a 12-year gap between the third and fourth book in The Demon Princes series. The series was always planned to have 5 books.
    • The Earth's Children series had a 12 year gap between The Plains of Passage (1990) and The Sheltes of Stone (2002). Assuming The Land of the Painted Caves comes out as scheduled in 2011, that will have been another 9 year gap.
    • Part I of Goethe's Faust was first published in 1808. Part II (a sequel in all but name) was released in 1832 (24 years).
    • The Unicorn Chronicles had something like almost 10 years between the 2nd book and the 3rd book being published.
    • Peter And Wendy (1911) and its authorised sequel Peter Pan in Scarlet (2006) -- 95 years.
    • Closing Time, the sequel to Catch-22, was published in 1994; 33 years after the original novel.
    • In the Magic Kingdom of Landover series, there was a fourteen year gap between the fifth book, Witches' Brew, and the sixth, A Princess of Landover (for reference, there were nine years between the release of the first book and the fifth).
    • Gone with the Wind (1937) and its authorised sequel Scarlett (1991) have a gap of 54 years and then an officially authorized POV Sequel Rhett Butler's People (2007) 16 years later.
    • My Side of the Mountain (1959) by Jean Craighead George had its sequel On the Far Side of the Mountain published in 1990, leaving a gap of 31 years. The third book, Frightful's Mountain, came nine years after that.
    • Julie of the Wolves (1972) by Jean Craighead George got its sequels Julie and Julie's Wolf Pack in 1994 and 1997, respectively (22 and 25 years).
    • Psycho, the original Robert Bloch novel (1959), and Psycho II also by Bloch (1982), which was totally unrelated to the film sequel—23 years.
    • Magicians of Gor (book 25 in the series): 1988 -- Witness of Gor (book 26): 2001. 13 years.
    • Fans of Isobelle Carmody's Obernewtyn series waited 10 years for the fifth book in the sequence; the fourth book, The Keeping Place was originally published in 1998, The Stone Key in 2008.
    • In Clare Bell's The Named series, the release of the first four books was spread between 1983 and 1991. Seventeen years later, the series started its re-issue because of its new fifth book, Ratha's Courage (2008). The next year also saw a novelette written on Twitter and a short story in an anthology of speculative fiction.
    • The fourth book in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, Foundation's Edge, was published in 1982, 29 years after the original trilogy.
    • The third book in his "Robot Trilogy", The Robots of Dawn was published in 1983, 26 years after the second.
    • The Hobbit (1937), followed by The Lord of the Rings (three volumes, 1954-1955) -- 17–18 years.
    • The Pit Dragon Chronicles by Jane Yolen was originally a trilogy that was published 1982-1987. The fourth book came out in 2009–22 years.
    • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books: 8 years between So Long and Thanks For All The Fish (1984) and Mostly Harmless (1992), and 17 years between Mostly Harmless and And Another Thing (2009). Though the latter was due to Author Existence Failure.
    • The Iliad and The Odyssey were likely composed some time around 850 BC. The Aeneid, a Continuation Fic, was finished in 19 BC. If both are taken as part of Classical Mythology, that's a Sequel Gap of over 800 years.
    • The Egypt Game (1967) and The Gypsy Game (1997) -- 30 years. Both are set in The Present Day through the use of Comic Book Time.
    • The first two books in Leslie Barringer's Low Fantasy Neustria Cycle came out in 1927 and then '28. The third and final book was published 20 years after the second.
    • Some 65 years separated Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman.

    Video Games

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