J.K. Rowling has been quite active on the Harry Potter newsfront this year, scuttling Ron and Hermione’s relationship, revealing new excerpts from her notes on Pottermore, and penning a Harry Potter prequel play, while just yesterday WB announced that the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them spin-off movie will now be a trilogy.
As if that weren’t enough, Bloomsbury UK and Scholastic have announced that Rowling will return to the wizarding world of Hogwarts with a new book series. Except this time, the star of the series won’t be Harry Potter!
In a press conference held at King’s Cross station last night, Rowling and her publishers revealed a new set of middle-grade books to be centered on Colin Creevey.
“I had been wanting to return to the world of Hogwarts for some time,” Rowling explained. “But instead of continuing the timeline forward I wanted to re-approach the relative innocence of the first volumes of the Harry Potter series.” The author went on to explain that she felt stymied as to how to approach this desire until she happened to catch a few minutes of the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets movie in her hotel room during a convention appearance in the U.S. in 2013.
“Right there, it hit me. Colin Creevey. He’s got such charisma, his innocent impetuousness is clear, and his arc is simultaneously tragic and heroic.” She was further delighted to find a small but fervent fanbase for the character online.
According to Bloomsbury UK, the Adventures of Colin Creevey series will take place in and around the adventures chronicled in the main Harry Potter book series. Readers will see familiar events from a different angle, and Rowling hopes to balance the darker portrayal of Hogwarts in the latter books with Creevey’s more lighthearted view of the school and his classes. “I always regretted that,” the author elaborated. “As the war against Voldemort took precedent I lost the opportunity to portray Hogwarts as a school and a place where young wizards feel welcome.”
When questioned as to what Colin’s adventures will be like in the Adventures of Colin Creevey novel series, J.K. Rowling quipped, “Well, he’s going to be taking a lot of pictures, I can guarantee that! There’s an important aspect to Colin’s photography that I never got to reveal in the main series, so watch for that!”
For those who have never read a Harry Potter novel, Colin is mostly remembered for his excellent photography skills in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in which he basically follows Harry Potter around and snaps photos. While initial reads confused Colin’s friendship with “stalking,” his deeds in further books revealed a fiercely loyal companion and vigilant shutterbug, aspects that undoubtedly contributed to why the character has been so well-received.
Some Harry Potter fan camps are disappointed in the announcement, citing other Potter-verse characters who deserve their own novel series just as much, if not more. Since the announcement, a poll on Mugglenet has been asking what other characters in the series should get spin-off novels. Tonks and Lupin currently enjoy a wide lead ahead of the other frontrunners Mad-Eye Moody, Lily Potter, and Argus Filch.
Rowling responded to the poll in a later tweet. “Could Filch have his own book after Colin Creevey? You know what Dumbledore would say: inspiration can strike at any time!”
Showdown, the first volume of The Adventures of Colin Creevey is tentatively scheduled for publication in fall of 2015, to be followed six months later by the second volume You’re a Star, Colin Creevey!
Rowling has not set a volume number or end-date to the series. “The books are short and don’t take long to write, but I’m having so much fun that you never know, I may write 15 of them! I fucking love Colin Creevey!”
Such an announcement on the 1st April must surely be true!
Will she hopefully address the serious continuity error that led to Colin’s, er, end of arc (I don’t know whether we are really supposed to be spoiler-avoiding this long after DH) when, as a Muggle-born, he shouldn’t have been anywhere near Hogwarts at the time?
If done well, a return to Rowling’s humor might be welcome (especially given its near-total absence from the films). And before the money-related accusations start flying, my take is that an author can write as many in-universe books as he/she wants, and they should be judged on whether or not they’re any good, not on whether they add to the total take.
I am SO STUPID I can’t believe I fell for this. This breaks years of not being taken in by Tor.com on April 1. I’m going to go headdesk for an hour now. And then try to fool someone else with it to get my dignity back.
The continuity error comment still stands BTW. It’ll go into the reread thread someday.
Well, it would be…. it would be…
Quite a lot of authors have written their own fanfic – Robert Heinlein and Orson Scott Card, among others in the SFF field – so we can’t rule out Rowling doing so. Even if it is announced on April 1st.
Potential title: Harry’s Shadow.
mutantalbinocrocodile: Calling it a continuity error is an overstatement, I feel; lots of people from outside Hogwarts turn up for the battle. It would be nice, certainly, to have an explanation of how they contacted him, but one can think of various ways.
In the absence of a like button…
I like @5…
Pictures taken instantaneously! I’m a photographic genius, if I do say so myself! Okay, get ready for an instant memory! Look at the camera… Ready… Say, “fuzzy pickles.”
Despite the date (and my own habit of posting wildly implausible statements to see who my gullible friends are), it wasn’t until the last line of the article that I realized this was written on April 1st. For most of it I was just trying to remember who the hell is Colin Creevey. Well played, Stubby. Well played.
@6, They were using the DA coins Hermione put the Protean charm on, and Colin was in the DA.
“I fucking love Colin Creevey!”
Brilliant. That sounds just like something Jo would say. :-)
Yes, yes, I know the date, but I kind of wish she would do it. There’s something appealing about the idea of going back to the Hogwarts of the first few books, back when it was the most awesome place in the world, and pretty much any kid would have given his right arm to get one of those admission letters.
Yeah, having reread those books just now(thanks EmmetAP!) they did have a hell of a body count as they went on.
We were talking in the reread thread about how much bigger Hogwarts is stated to be than it is revealed to be in the books. And if the death count was THAT bad for the 2+ yrs we saw, how bad must it have been for a war that had been going on for 10+ years prior.
Okay but I really want this to be true.
Much more than I want 3 “megamovies” about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
C’mon – I want her to start writing more under her Galbraith name! That series has real potential, two characters with so much back story only hinted at, she could write about them forever.
Please please please do write anything and everything about Hogwarts as soon as possible. I’m happy that you’re continuing to write books even after all that fame. You’re a great author!!