>And frankly not as deserving of the harsh criticism it got when it came out.

Hard disagreement.

My issue is not with the work on its own merits (although I think its pretty generic mass-market SF), but rather that it is wearing the skin of something it is not and to which it has no honest claim. It is one thing for an author to take a well-regarded prior work and attempt to complete or expand it. For example, Brandon Sanderson's work completing Robert Jordan's epic Wheel of Time is very respectable; he tried to complete the series as Jordan would have done. It is quite another to take the name and setting of such a work, steal the surface detail and use it to dress up one's own story that shares nothing of the underlying body or soul of the work - such enterprises are an insult to the original author, the reader, and the self-respect of the new author.