Prequels You'd Like to Read But We'll Never Get

[Extollager]

As a companion to the Sequels You'd Like... thread, here's one for prequels. What's a book or story you'd like to see that comes before a book or short story that's intrigued you?

I immediately think of a prequel or even group of prequels to C. S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength that would reveal how it was that the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments came to be, that told the stories of some of the characters in that novel (notably Grace Ironwood -- Lewis seems to have had something in mind about her), etc.

Tolstoy's abandoned novel about the Decembrists could have become a prequel to Anna Karenina and a sequel to War and Peace.

 

[Bick]

I’ve given this a good deal of thought… and I’m coming up blank. Most of the very best books start where I feel they should. When it comes to SF, a lot of my favorite stories and series already have prequels.