History ContinuitySnarl / Literature

** The novels get into even more of a tangle than the series. Even apart from the fact that the writers couldn't decide if the Virgin novels and BBC Books novels were even ''meant'' to be in the same continuity (and the editorial staff apparently just didn't care one way or the other), resulting in some of them ''deliberately'' contradicting previous books, there are many examples of writers ''trying'' to reference past stories, but just confusing things. For instance, the many returning characters in the New Adventures MilestoneCelebration ''Happy Endings'' means we get a scene where Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart meets his great-great...granddaughter Kadiatu, which is a lovely moment. But it's presented as the first time he learns about the Seirra Leone side of the family at all, and it's set in 2010, with no suggestion that he's time-travelled. The problem is that the first mention of the Sierra Leonean Lethbridge-Stewarts is in the novelisation of "Battlefield", which says that an earlier Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart wrote ''The Zen Military: A History of UNIT'', published in 2006. It doesn't seem ''very'' likely that she wrote a history of her grandfather's service without her grandfather even learning she existed.

** The short story "The Elders' Concern", from the official ''Warriors'' app. The story is about how the elders are discussing how they're not happy with Fireheart as deputy, because he's young and not Clanborn and was named after moonhigh... except in this story, he's named deputy immediately after Lionheart; it takes place the day after Lionheart's death. Also, they're unhappy that Tigerclaw wasn't chosen, because he's the best fighter. Uh, Fireheart was an apprentice when Lionheart died. And how could they forget about the BigBad Tigerclaw becoming deputy after Lionheart and his subsequent attempts to kill Bluestar in order to become leader?
** Firestar's [[CatsHaveNineLives nine lives]] is probably the most major one. He first lost a life in ''The Darkest Hour'' to Scourge, and then ''Dawn'' to the falling tree; at the beginning of ''Sunset'', it said he had seven lives left, and then at the end after he's caught in the fox trap and is noted to be lying motionless, it says he has six left. Then ''Firestar's Quest'' came out - which takes place after ''The Darkest Hour'' and before ''Dawn'' - which said that he had ''six'' lives left, and then he lost one to rats in the book. When asked why it said six, Vicky said that he lost one to Scourge, one to the rats in the book (even though the line was before it occurred), and one helping Ravenpaw (the Ravenpaw manga was not released until years later, and when it was released, it took place after Firestar's Quest and he didn't lose a life in it), so that didn't clear up matters at all and just caused confusion; the "six" line is generally assumed to be an error. Vicky also said that he didn't lose one in the fox trap (and the short story "After Sunset: The Right Choice?" would later support this), despite ''Sunset'' itself claiming he had. He lost one in Long Shadows to greencough, and one just before The Fourth Apprentice to a fox. In Fading Echoes, Yellowfang says that five of Firestar's lives are in [=StarClan=], leaving him with four remaining. If you count all the lives we actually ''saw'' him lose in the books minus the fox-trap one - Scourge, rats, tree, greencough, fox - this is correct. He lost a life at the end of Fading Echoes to Russetfur, evidently leaving him with three left. And then he lost a life - his ''final'' life - in The Last Hope to wounds from the Dark Forest battle. The only way that this count is accurate is if you count the fox trap (which one book said did happen, and Word of God and one short story said it didn't), and the supposed "Ravenpaw" one which didn't actually happen in the manga nor was referenced whatsoever in the books, or perhaps just headcanon that his wounds in ''The Last Hope'' were bad enough to take more than one life. No matter which book directly references his life count, it's always incorrect each time.

* Chris Roberson aims for this on purpose — as a kid, he loved reading comic books and seeing all the ways they interconnected. Everything he writes that isn't a tie-in to ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' is in a single setting, but he explicitly uses the "many worlds" model of quantum mechanics, and [[ForWantOfANail slight deviations lead to massive differences over a relatively short period of time]]. Attempting to fit his works into a single continuity would be arguably meaningless, and it's uncertain whether even he knows what he's doing half the time.

** The short story "Moving On" by Peter Anghelides in ''Decalog 3: Consequences'' (1996) is a Sarah Jane story set around 1994-5 (based on the bibliography at the end). Which would be fine, if she'd just lived through the intervening years, but instead we're told that the Doctor had dropped her in her near future (and exactly what ''that'' means gets us into the mess of UNIT dating and "I'm from 1980"), into a world of microwave ovens and [=VideoPlus=] that Brendan, her teenage nephew from ''Series/K9AndCompany'' (1981) had to explain to her. While still a teenager. Obviously, there's absoultely no suggestion in ''K9 and Company'' that it's set in the early nineties.

* The ''Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse'' novels get into even more of a tangle than the series. Even apart from the fact that the writers couldn't decide if the Virgin novels and BBC Books novels were even ''meant'' to be in the same continuity (and the editorial staff apparently just didn't care one way or the other), resulting in some of them ''deliberately'' contradicting previous books, there are many examples of writers ''trying'' to reference past stories, but just confusing things. For instance, the many returning characters in the New Adventures MilestoneCelebration ''Happy Endings'' means we get a scene where Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart meets his great-great...granddaughter Kadiatu, which is a lovely moment. But it's presented as the first time he learns about the Seirra Leone side of the family at all, and it's set in 2010, with no suggestion that he's time-travelled. The problem is that the first mention of the Sierra Leonean Lethbridge-Stewarts is in the novelisation of "Battlefield", which says that an earlier Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart wrote ''The Zen Military: A History of UNIT'', published in 2006. It doesn't seem ''very'' likely that she wrote a history of her grandfather's service without her grandfather even learning she existed.

* The author of the first three ''ComicBook/{{Bionicle}}'' books was probably only instructed to keep the books close to the comic series and ignore other sources. This lead to the events presented in online material (which at the time of the books' writing had a dubious place in canon), as well as the canceled PC game becoming irreconcilable with the book's plot. A lot of scenes also differ in their presentation from the source material, like how the Toa received their Golden Masks, and the entire final battle with the Manas and Makuta, the latter of which ''doesn't occur'' in the book, despite being the GrandFinale of that story arc. Many scenes are written in a way that makes the book unwarrantable for a CompressedAdaptation title, since the left-out events cannot be spliced in between the chapters. These could be forgiven, were the book meant to be a simple adaptation, or a "new take" on the story, but it was supposedly intended to be part of the official timeline.

* An entire cottage industry has sprung up around trying to wrestle the ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' stories into continuity — not only with each other, but with actual history. They [[FanNickname call themselves]] the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_Street_Irregulars Baker Street Irregulars]] after the street urchins Holmes often calls upon for help.

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'':
** ''Literature/TheCallistaTrilogy'': Here it's said Hutt clan names are not disclosed to outsiders. In ''Literature/TheHanSoloTrilogy'' (written later while being set earlier) their clan names are common knowledge.
** ''Literature/TheCourtshipOfPrincessLeia'':
*** The book is set a year prior to ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'', but implies the Empire has broken up into many independent warlords ruling fiefdoms in the galaxy. ''The Thrawn Trilogy'' meanwhile said nothing of the kind, having it that the Empire had simply shrunken in size over the five years after Palpatine's death at Endor. This was [[{{Retcon}} harmonized]] later by saying both were true-a number of warlords broke off to form their own fiefdoms, while the Empire proper also remained, and their holdings were then reintegrated after Daala [[Literature/TheCallistaTrilogy had the last warlords]] [[BoardToDeath gassed at a meeting]], then Pellaeon took power.
*** Luke believes sixteen is "too young to learn the ways of the Jedi". Later Legends books and the films showed children were mostly trained from ''childhood'' to be Jedi.
*** The book has Luke say droids too are living beings, and can be sensed through the Force, while most ''[[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Legends]]'' material had the opposite view.
** ''Literature/TheHanSoloTrilogy'':
*** Han can't remember who his parents are or what happened to them here. ''Literature/TalesOfTheBountyHunters'' has him briefly muse about whether they would be proud of him, with every indication he remembers them, and says they died early in his life.
*** Spice was also stated as illegal there, though in these books it isn't, but the legal price is so high it's often smuggled for profit on the black market.
** ''Literature/TalesOfTheBountyHunters'':
*** 4-LOM the Jedi droid subverts this because he only fantasizes about being a Jedi. ''Literature/TheBountyHunterWars'' reveals he later suffered partial memory loss due to battle damage, pushing the ResetButton on his CharacterDevelopment.
*** Boba Fett disbelieves in the Force here, though other material have him well aware of it being real (he experiences its effects himself). His tale also says spice was illegal, while other books say it is merely highly restricted (thus the smuggling of it). Fett is also stated to be a member of the [[WeirdTradeUnion Bounty Hunters Guild]] here, while other depictions are insistent that he is firmly independent. Indeed, ''Literature/TheBountyHunterWars'' begins its plot with him needing to be ''bribed'' into joining as part of a scheme against them. However, this ''might'' be harmonized since the events of ''Tales'' where this is mentioned take place later than the other material when he's independent (though the guild's destroyed in ''The Bounty Hunter Wars'' perhaps it was re-established later). Then Fett's entire backstory was {{retcon}}ned by ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' and "Jaster Mereel" became a different person (a mentor of his father whose name Fett used as an alias).
*** Han also reflects on his dead parents, wondering if they'd be proud of him. In ''Literature/TheHanSoloTrilogy'' it is established that he is unable to remember who they were.

* ''Literature/TheCourtshipOfPrincessLeia'':
** The book is set a year prior to ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'', but implies the Empire has broken up into many independent warlords ruling fiefdoms in the galaxy. ''The Thrawn Trilogy'' meanwhile said nothing of the kind, having it that the Empire had simply shrunken in size over the five years after Palpatine's death at Endor. This was [[{{Retcon}} harmonized]] later by saying both were true-a number of warlords broke off to form their own fiefdoms, while the Empire proper also remained, and their holdings were then reintegrated after Daala [[Literature/TheCallistaTrilogy had the last warlords]] [[BoardToDeath gassed at a meeting]], then Pellaeon took power.
** Luke believes sixteen is "too young to learn the ways of the Jedi". Later Legends books and the films showed children were mostly trained from ''childhood'' to be Jedi.
** The book has Luke say droids too are living beings, and can be sensed through the Force, while most ''[[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Legends]]'' material had the opposite view.

* ''Literature/TheHanSoloTrilogy'':
** Han can't remember who his parents are or what happened to them here. ''Literature/TalesOfTheBountyHunters'' has him briefly muse about whether they would be proud of him, with every indication he remembers them, and says they died early in his life.
** Spice was also stated as illegal there, though in these books it isn't, but the legal price is so high it's often smuggled for proit on the black market.

* Another devout Catholic fantasy author (1892-1973) had similar problems with ''his'' massive fantasy opus about small people who save their world from evil. It's possible that Creator/HenryDarger had so many characters with similar (or the same) names simply because he forgot that he'd [[OneSteveLimit already used that name]] back in ''Literature/InTheRealmsOfTheUnreal'' Book CLXVII 2.0.

* The ''Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse'' novels get into even more of a tangle than the series. Even apart from the fact that the writers couldn't decide if the Virgin novels and BBC Books novels were even ''meant'' to be in the same continuity (and the editorial staff apparently just didn't care one way or the other), resulting in some of them ''deliberately'' contradicting previous books, there are many examples of writers ''trying'' to reference past stories, but just confusing things. For instance, the many returning characters in the New Adventures MilestoneCelebration ''Happy Endings'' means we get a scene where Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart meets his great-great...granddaughter Kadiatu, which is a lovely moment. But it's presented as the first time he learns about the Seirra Leone side of the family at all, and it's set in 2010, with no suggestion that he's time-travelled. The problem is that the first mention of the Sierra Leonean Lethbridge-Stewarts is in the novelisation of "Battlefield", which says that an earlier Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart wrote ''The Zen Military: A History of UNIT'', published in 2006. It doesn't seem ''very'' likely that she wrote a history of her grandfather's service without her grandfather even knowing she existed.

** [[WordOfGod Sir Pterry freely admitted]] that he never let continuity problems spoil a good joke or situation, reasoning that his readers probably won’t care either

** An in-universe example happens in ''Literature/{{Pyramids}}'', where it's mentioned that Djellibeybi's mythology has been changing so thoroughly over the years, several concepts and objects have multiple gods and stories that explain them, each of them contradicting each other. The sun ''alone'' has several gods who are supposed to move it around. The High Priest is the only one that can keep them straight, mostly through prodigious Doublethink that lets him believe each mythological continuity simultaneously while being aware they can't exactly mesh. [[spoiler:And when all of these mythologies come to life when [[RealityIsOutToLunch reality goes on a Pyramid-assisted lunch break]], they cannot keep the stories straight either, and agree to decide who's real through an all-out brawl, complete with announcer]]

* The ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' mini-novels made by Michael Teitelbaum and Ron Zalme; the novels clearly take place in the [[WesternAnimation/SonicSatAM SatAM]] universe, yet the Robotnik used in it is the one from ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog''. How ''that'' fits into continuity is anyone's guess.