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Random stuff about books
Dec. 29th, 2014 09:22 pmSo I just read the most recently published (this year, I think) book in a series that was apparently started forty+ years ago, and then proceeded to reread the chronologically later but written forty+ years ago books that followed it. It's sort of surreal to see how the writing has changed -- not that the older books are bad, but the author is so much better now. There were definitely moments when I was telling the characters "You were so much smarter when you were eight years old!".
It's also fascinating to see how she maintained the continuity. I don't think she ever explicitly contradicted herself -- the political focus and the magic style* didn't quite line up, and some of the characters seemed to be lacking knowledge one might have expected them to have acquired (either during the new book, or during the fifteen years between), but the straight out facts weren't noticeably different. There were even some incidents that had been referred to in flashback in the old books that occurred in the new book.
I wonder a bit what she would do if she were to rewrite/edit the old books now -- whether the politics would change. Presumably some parts of the style would (the old books seem to rely a bit more on snappy banter for dialogue).
. . . I'd been going to also ramble about ebook discovery, but I think I've been staring at this bit of internet long enough, so that can be its own post (or not, depending whether I get to it).
*Doing all magic via the recitation of poetry has been deprecated in the new book
It's also fascinating to see how she maintained the continuity. I don't think she ever explicitly contradicted herself -- the political focus and the magic style* didn't quite line up, and some of the characters seemed to be lacking knowledge one might have expected them to have acquired (either during the new book, or during the fifteen years between), but the straight out facts weren't noticeably different. There were even some incidents that had been referred to in flashback in the old books that occurred in the new book.
I wonder a bit what she would do if she were to rewrite/edit the old books now -- whether the politics would change. Presumably some parts of the style would (the old books seem to rely a bit more on snappy banter for dialogue).
. . . I'd been going to also ramble about ebook discovery, but I think I've been staring at this bit of internet long enough, so that can be its own post (or not, depending whether I get to it).
*Doing all magic via the recitation of poetry has been deprecated in the new book
