I'm glad everyone is trying to answer my questions substantively - including Pizza Boy, sorry if I unknowingly implied otherwise. Thank you for agreeing not to be so hard on Winegardner personally and getting to the meat of your issues. I think the problem may also have been that I came into this long after such substantive arguments had been said and replaced with just "he sucks" comments. If I helped to get us there, I'm happy, but I doubt it was me - it's becoming clear that such deep means of discussion were already there, and just needed to be revived.

And yes, I would love a Pentangeli/Cicci story. In fact, like you, I believe that the Godfather mythos is still crawling with stories that have been implied and need telling. What was Antonio Andolini's problem and how did he end up dead? What was Ciccio's backstory? Or Fanucci's? How about Roth's relationship with Moe Greene? Talking about Fredo's betrayal of the family, what did he REALLY do? What was up with the people that tried to hit Michael in Part II, and how did they end up dead? At who's hand? What about Vincent's backstory? Does the whole P2 conspiracy with Lucchesi and Altobello need fleshing out? Michael's late years in Sicily as an old man? Vincent's years as boss? What about Tommasino's backstory? What about Sergio Lupo's writing career? What about the years between 1964 and 1979? Anthony stories? Mary stories? There are any number of stories that could use a telling or two.

What's the solution? Well, I listed too many story ideas to be fit in one book. But what about a collection of short stories, an anthology? Call it "Tales of the Godfather," something like that. There's room for Winegardner or any other author who fits the Puzo estate's qualifications to write stories for such a book. Ther's no reason that there can't be enough potential to have a Godfather expanded universe not to different from the Star Wars publishing license (though probably not THAT many books). As long as there's a continuity editor who knows his Corleones...