New ‘Dragon Tattoo’ book receives backlash

CEBU, Philippines - The day that Lisbeth Salander fans have been waiting for is here. “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” the fourth book in the much-loved Millennium series, just hit shelves.

It’s been a whopping five years since “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” was released. And while tons of fans are rejoicing over the return of the anti-heroine and her journalist accomplice Mikael Blomkvist, the book isn’t without its fair share of controversy.

While author Stieg Larsson wrote the first three books in the series, he tragically died before they ever hit shelves. The three novels were published posthumously, with the original plan being to release only “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” (adapted into a film starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara), “The Girl Who Played With Fire” and “Hornet’s Nest.” But the novels became such a literary and commercial success that it left readers begging for more.

Larsson’s estate, which is run by his father and brother, approved the hiring of Swedish writer David Lagercrantz to pen the fourth installment. This time around, we have Lisbeth and Mikael reuniting when an autistic child witnesses a murder. They eventually become involved in everything from artificial-intelligence research to Silicon Valley to the Russian mob to the NSA.

Not everybody is happy about the book’s release—a sizable contingent are lashing out against the publisher and the author because they think that the series never should have continued after Larsson’s death. For starters, there’s his longtime partner Eva Gabrielsson.

“I read original writers, not people who copy other people’s books, so to say,” she said. “So I won’t read it. The final verdict will have to be the readers. They are smart people, and if this were to be actually worth reading, or having something to say, that would be a first. Because none of these continuations of other people’s works have ever met the standard of the original writer, not once.” (FREEMAN)